Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Some Utopia
Even if you're like me, and not standing in candlelight vigils to save the life of Terry Schiavo, the difficulties raised by the whole affair are inescapable. Here's not the place, and this writer's not the guy, to try to wrestle something coherent out of this tangle.
Nevertheless the whole "culture of life" vs. "culture of death" model does have its power. Again, it is beyond my abilities to offer anything insightful. For that let's turn to Mark Steyn, who hardly lets a week go by without knocking a ball out of the park. He's writing for his British audience, in today's Daily Telegraph. He asks, "What's the point of utopia if it only lasts a generation." Take it away Mark.
Be sure and read the whole thing.
Nevertheless the whole "culture of life" vs. "culture of death" model does have its power. Again, it is beyond my abilities to offer anything insightful. For that let's turn to Mark Steyn, who hardly lets a week go by without knocking a ball out of the park. He's writing for his British audience, in today's Daily Telegraph. He asks, "What's the point of utopia if it only lasts a generation." Take it away Mark.
Almost every issue facing the EU - from immigration rates to crippling state pension liabilities - has at its heart the same glaringly plain root cause: a huge lack of babies. I could understand a disinclination by sunny politicians to peddle doom and gloom were it not for the fact that, in all other areas of public policy, our rulers embrace doomsday scenarios at the drop of a hat. Most 20-year projections - on global warming, fuel resources, etc - are almost laughably speculative. They fail to take into account the most important factor of all - human inventiveness: "We can't feed the world!" they shriek. But we develop more efficient farming methods with nary a thought. "The oil will run out by the year 2000!" But we develop new extraction methods and find we've got enough oil for as long as we'll need it.
But human inventiveness depends on humans - and that's the one thing we really are running out of. When it comes to forecasting the future, the birth rate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2005, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2025 (or 2033, or 2041, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management, Systemic Racism and Gay Studies degrees). If that's not a political issue, what is? To cite only the most obviously affected corner of the realm, what's the long-term future of the Scottish National Party if there are no Scottish nationals?
Since 1945, a multiplicity of government interventions - state pensions, subsidised higher education, higher taxes to pay for everything - has so ruptured traditional patterns of inter-generational solidarity that in Europe a child is now an optional lifestyle accessory. By 2050, Estonia's population will have fallen by 52 per cent, Bulgaria's by 36 per cent, Italy's by 22 per cent. The hyper-rationalism of post-Christian Europe turns out to be wholly irrational: what's the point of creating a secular utopia if it's only for one generation?
Be sure and read the whole thing.
# posted by mds : 8:17 AM
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What's to be done? Liberated women don't want to spend their lives having babies; the only reason the US does as well as it does is that immigrants (and, to a lesser degree, their children) have more kids than natives.
Kids are a tremendous expense to raise. Unlike in "traditional" societies, their economic contribution to the family is minimal to nil - not just during childhood, but ever. Parents do not expect children to take them in and treat them, nor do they expect that children will be able to pay all their bills when they are old and infirm. As a result, people who might have had one or two have none, and those who would have wanted big families settle for 2 or 3.
Still, it's not an easy thing to find a way out of. My wife and I don't want any children, just because we're not into the idea. How on earth will someone convince us to take on the 30-year, over-one-million-dollar commitment of raising 2 kids, when we don't want to do it? But that's what it takes to put a child into our socioeconomic class (both doctors).
Kids are a tremendous expense to raise. Unlike in "traditional" societies, their economic contribution to the family is minimal to nil - not just during childhood, but ever. Parents do not expect children to take them in and treat them, nor do they expect that children will be able to pay all their bills when they are old and infirm. As a result, people who might have had one or two have none, and those who would have wanted big families settle for 2 or 3.
Still, it's not an easy thing to find a way out of. My wife and I don't want any children, just because we're not into the idea. How on earth will someone convince us to take on the 30-year, over-one-million-dollar commitment of raising 2 kids, when we don't want to do it? But that's what it takes to put a child into our socioeconomic class (both doctors).
Bunny Power:
I hesitate to speak for Mark Steyn, he makes his point plainly enough. But the dilemma you raise (i.e., the expense) is real. Yet you take a pretty narrow view, one that I think is fairly common among urban dwellers. “Liberated women don’t want to spend their lives having babies” may be suitable for a protest sign but it’s not an argument. No woman, no matter how non-liberated, spends her life having babies. And how liberating would it be if all women were to adopt such a (political) stance? Not very, I don’t suppose.
That said I’m not in a position to say definitively why our post-modern culture has found it convenient to commit slow suicide (below replacement birth-rates); but I can suggest a couple of possibilities: standards of living that allow us to devote much of our energy towards the non-essential; and a cultural ethic that encourages us to put the self at the center of all.
As to you and your wife, why, if you don’t want to have kids, should you fear being convinced that you ought to? Yes, it is very expensive to raise and educate two more doctors. But the choice is yours. And, I might ask, would there be no dignity for you or your children if they joined the military or became tradesmen or entrepreneurs?
I have no children and I’m not a Christian. But I know a lot of Christian families and they are cheerful and proud of every one of their many children. They have faith that their children will find their way, even if the money’s not in the bank today. To paraphrase one mother who, when I offered to help with the cost of advanced music lessons for one of their brood, a boy who would otherwise not receive the instruction his talent warrants, “we know that, with God’s help, we (as a family) will cross whatever bridge we come to.” Again, I paraphrase.
That’s the attitude I see completely missing in much of our affluent and self-occupied urban society. I think this is what Mark Steyn is getting at, if not specifically in the column I quoted, then in his writings taken as a whole. Our culture is forgetting how to have faith in tomorrow; it has no confidence. You’re right, it’s not an easy thing; nothing really important is.
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I hesitate to speak for Mark Steyn, he makes his point plainly enough. But the dilemma you raise (i.e., the expense) is real. Yet you take a pretty narrow view, one that I think is fairly common among urban dwellers. “Liberated women don’t want to spend their lives having babies” may be suitable for a protest sign but it’s not an argument. No woman, no matter how non-liberated, spends her life having babies. And how liberating would it be if all women were to adopt such a (political) stance? Not very, I don’t suppose.
That said I’m not in a position to say definitively why our post-modern culture has found it convenient to commit slow suicide (below replacement birth-rates); but I can suggest a couple of possibilities: standards of living that allow us to devote much of our energy towards the non-essential; and a cultural ethic that encourages us to put the self at the center of all.
As to you and your wife, why, if you don’t want to have kids, should you fear being convinced that you ought to? Yes, it is very expensive to raise and educate two more doctors. But the choice is yours. And, I might ask, would there be no dignity for you or your children if they joined the military or became tradesmen or entrepreneurs?
I have no children and I’m not a Christian. But I know a lot of Christian families and they are cheerful and proud of every one of their many children. They have faith that their children will find their way, even if the money’s not in the bank today. To paraphrase one mother who, when I offered to help with the cost of advanced music lessons for one of their brood, a boy who would otherwise not receive the instruction his talent warrants, “we know that, with God’s help, we (as a family) will cross whatever bridge we come to.” Again, I paraphrase.
That’s the attitude I see completely missing in much of our affluent and self-occupied urban society. I think this is what Mark Steyn is getting at, if not specifically in the column I quoted, then in his writings taken as a whole. Our culture is forgetting how to have faith in tomorrow; it has no confidence. You’re right, it’s not an easy thing; nothing really important is.
# posted by 
: 3:52 PM
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