Every year we see the same teams compete in major sports franchises. We have Major League Baseball, we have the Superbowl, we have March Madness and basketball...
And if you could just win once and be done, why would we bother playing again. And again. And again?
You all know why... same as I do.
Each game is different. Maybe the players have changed, or maybe the teams have practiced hard to make up for weaknesses the year before. Maybe someone else has the home court advantage. Maybe it's snowing this time, or raining. Someone might be injured, or sick. Or (I don't think they do this as often in professional sports) one team is still exhausted from an earlier game.
It might be different. The team that won last time might not win it this time.
If winning or losing was done once and only once, we'd never bother training up to beat someone who'd defeated us before.
So to bring this to 'survival of the fittest'... fittest at what? And when?
It's clearly not just about fittest fighter, or we'd all be ruled by MMA champions.
Perhaps it's 'fittest at getting a group of people to cooperate', since even the most powerful individual will get worn down and lose if multiple people work together against them. (Hence the power of a 'pack of wolves').
Is there some bar? A threshold beyond which someone is designated as 'fit enough to survive'? And anyone under that bar deserves to die?
That goes against... well, practically all of civilization. It goes against our Declaration of Independence, which declared that
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I always believed that 'man' in this case was generic for all of humanity, and intended to be gender neutral. It definitely is race neutral, though it's worth emphasize that all people - men, women, non-binary, any race, any sexual orientation, people who are disabled, and pretty much anyone that is alive in the world today is endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
And that the very first one of these is the right to LIFE.
Most religions also talk about the sanctity of life, though the Catholic church I was raised in claimed that being pro-life meant they also had to oppose the death penalty, and be consistent. (If I am pro-choice, it's mostly because a) there are far too many circumstances where abortion might be the best option, and I don't want and most especially don't want the government trying to dictate what the right decision should be. Especially when they don't seem to understand ectopic pregnancies, or that mothers may die because of government bungling. But also b) the people who claim to care so much about unborn children don't seem to care at all about helping with the childcare, or education, or food, or other expenses involved in raising them. They often also oppose contraception, and whether it's deliberate or not they essentially create a world where they expect people to just... not have sex. And if they do have sex and get pregnant, well, that's on them. Never mind that it's an inconsistent punishment that often hurts the woman far more than the man. I could go on, but this isn't actually about why I'm pro-choice, even if I personally don't think I'd ever choose an abortion for myself.)
Religions, so far as I can tell, are opposed to the idea that only certain people are allowed or 'should' survive.
Even fictional authors make some great points on this topic, especially JRR Tolkien... who had Gandalf say:
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
And also had the ring destroyed because Frodo stayed his hand and allowed Gollum to live.
But let's leave aside our own Declaration of Independence, all the teachings of the Bible and christianity (and other religions), the wise saying of JRR Tolkien, and more...
Let's just say that who is 'fittest' is an arbitrary judgement that doesn't make sense without context. Furthermore, who is 'fittest' can and does change. Hourly. Daily. Throughout our lives.
People can temporarily get sick, and still recover. Or train up to get stronger, or age and get weaker. Covid might especially hurt the 'weak', except that the 'weak' might be someone who is temporarily immuno-compromised... and if covid hadn't hit, they'd have gotten better and still lived a long and full life.
Or it's someone with diabetes, who could live a very long time so long as they get their regular insulin shots. It's managed, and not life threatening at all.
But that's all besides the point, because why should they deserve to die just because they have diabetes? Or are going through chemotherapy?
Or are overweight?
How on earth does that make it okay to ignore their deaths?
A quadraplegic still deserves life. As does anyone with a mental illness, or any other disability.
What I don't get is how the same people who made a big fuss over Terri Schiavo, who claim to be 'pro-life', who claim to love Jesus and the Bible...
Shrug at the million people who have died of covid. Pretend it's 'an act of god' or something, actively fight against the measures meant to help our friends and neighbors survive, act as though wearing a cloth mask or funding ventilation for major buildings is a huge imposition... and don't seem to care at all about what that does to the most vulnerable among us.
It's sickening, and infuriating.
And not all of that is because of mistaken ideas about 'survival of the fittest', but I definitely come across people who think that way. Who say "I got it, and my family got it, and we're all fine", who cares about the rest. Covid is just taking out those with underlying conditions, or the elderly. People who were going to die anyway.
Yes, and in another ten or twenty or thirty years you're going to be one of those elderly people. Should you just lay down and die, then? Do you have no value at that point?
What determines your value, anyway? Do you think it's the job you have, or the money you make?
Do you think the grandchild who looks up to and learns from their grandmother or grandfather thinks that they have no value simply because they're old?
Whatever. Foolish ideas lead to foolish behavior, and if we've learned nothing else since covid hit it's that we're apparently full of foolish ideas.
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