It's the Demography, Stupid

[Revolutionary]

An excellent article on the future (and how the present will determine its direction) in the Wall Street Journal.

It's the Demography, Stupid
The real reason the West is in danger of extinction.

BY MARK STEYN
Wednesday, January 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.

The article is long but worth the read.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007760

[Revolutionary]

An excellent article on the future (and how the present will determine its direction) in the Wall Street Journal.

It's the Demography, Stupid
The real reason the West is in danger of extinction.

BY MARK STEYN
Wednesday, January 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

quote:

The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.

The article is long but worth the read.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007760

[hm0504]

I agree with some of it but strongly disagree with other parts and generally reject the conclusions.

I do not think that trying to win a fertility war is what the world needs. Despite what the religious right says, there is just no way the world can sustain more billions of people consuming at the rate of the average North American.

Nonetheless, I agree that Islamic fundamentalists fertility rates do are a significant issue. So do we respond by forcing every Western women to have 8 or more babies and spend their lives raising children. Don't get me wrong, I like children and if a couple decides to have a dozen children, I'm will not try to stop them. But the reality is that Western fertility rates are about 2 per woman because that is what people like. Islamic fundamentalist birth rates can be sky high because their women are basicallly regarded as baby machines and little else.

Steyn's conclusion is that the West needs to forget about the environment and start mass producing babies (as the Islamic fundamentalist societies do). I disagree -- we need world wide birth control, women's rights, and environmental protection. That is how to save the planet.

[nacktman]

To me the conclusions sounded remarkably sound (and I just bought the Brooklyn Bridge for only a dollar).

What this world needs is simple! It needs humans to live in harmony with it not oppose upon it, and there is where the rub is, isn't it?!

The conclusions of the work are far off and unlikely to do any good and very likely to do great harm if adopted as policy by any. Hitler had a fertility policy and women were baby factories...didn't work that well.
Islamic cultures where the birthrate is high are more agraculture based and so was Western culture when it was more agraculture based.

The only thing that this work proves is that christians are still attempting to force the world into what their viewpoint is and not accepting the reality of the world.

[ncnudlady]

I am not going to be a baby factory for anyone much less for anyone racing to outpace another culture out of fear by having more babies than they do, shessh. Get a grip BOYS.

[Revolutionary]

quote:

Hitler had a fertility policy ...

Nacktman, he was also a vegetarian and many of his rallies promoted (and included) nudism. His pronatalist policies proves nothing except that he wanted more Germans -- not that promoting more births was in and of itself bad.

ncnudlady:

quote:

I am not going to be a baby factory for anyone...

Why is the promoting of a highly positive attitude towards childbirth going to make one a "baby factory" like women were in "1984"? I have never met a woman with 3, 4 or more kids who considered herself a "baby factory" any more than any human should negate the purpose of their existence to saying we are merely oxygen to carbon dioxide conversion units designed to sustain plant life.

Western society has been infected with an anti-natalistic attitude since the early 1970s (based in part to totally discredited works like "The Population Bomb"). We need to recognize the value and importance of family more and that will, in turn, get our birthrates back up to at least replacement.

[nacktman]

The NAZIs banned nudism BTW and none of their rallies promoted nudism.

Hitler was a lunatic and nothing else.

Calling for a increase in birthrate among industrial socieites to compete with the birthrate in agrarian societies is asinine. Calling for it because of a fear of another culture (religion) is insane.

Birthrates in societies based in agraculture have always been higher and not because of any lack of birthcontrol or religious dogma, it was simplly the need for labor to function as a society as well as a means of surviving on a familial level. Even in such societies the birthrate for those considered to be of 'higher class' and therefore less reliant on the farm to survive the birthrate was lower.

As I stated earlier this 'report' is nothing more than the christians attempting to impose their dogma on everyone else. Disguised as promoting 'family' it is still obvious. I agree with ncnudlady as a woman I would not be a 'baby factory' either, luckily I do not have that option. This promoting of 'family' isn't about any family it is about "who's got the biggest phallus and if you haven't got a phallus you are second rate at best".

[hm0504]

quote:

Originally posted by Revolutionary:
...
Western society has been infected with an anti-natalistic attitude since the early 1970s (based in part to totally discredited works like "The Population Bomb"). We need to recognize the value and importance of family more and that will, in turn, get our birthrates back up to at least replacement.

Wow a new word to digest! Anti-natalism which I take it means that if one is not for a high birth rate, one is against birth in general. Kind of like saying anyone who does not endorse the religious right wholeheartedly, or supports the rights of non-Christians, is anti-Christian.

As I said earlier, I am not against a woman having several babies as long as she does so responsibly, and most importantly, wants to. Claiming that women (or men) who do not want to have many, or any, babies as being anti-natalist is ridiculous.

Also note that in Mr. Steyn's article his distaste for paternity leave. I cannot help but assume that Mr. Steyn is keen not only to see high birth rates but also ensure that it is only women who do the bulk of the requisite child rearing. Quite a sexist article in my opinion.

[nacktman]

Sexist?
No way!

A woman is required by god to be barefoot chained to a stove and pregnant all the while holding on to a man's offspring and preparing his meals.

Oops, did I say that out loud?
Damnit now the secret society if of the HE-MAN Woman Haters club will be after me for revealing the sacred mantra.

[hm0504]

Not sure how many Canadians are reading this topic, but as Mark Steyn is Canadian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Steyn), and is a darling of the Conservative Party of Canada, and that Canada is in the midst of a federal election, is it not about time that Canadians started pondering the impact of voting for a party with a strong social conservative streak?

Just a thought.

[ncnudlady]

You can have him hm0504.

What surprises me is why haven't the rest of the neanderthals jumped on his bandwagon yet?

[Revolutionary]

In reply to Nacktman;

quote:

The NAZIs banned nudism BTW and none of their rallies promoted nudism.

Not actually the case. The Nazies banned all private clubs and organizations -- including the popular nudist organizations throughout Germany. On the other hand, The Nazies worshipped the body. They did indeed have rallies featuring beautiful topless German gals in parades which looked like a Wagner music video. Art that depicted the glory of the nude Aryan body was also quite popular as was exercise in the nude.

quote:

Hitler was a lunatic and nothing else.

He was a meglamaniac. So was Stalin (although Stalin might have been a bit more kinky trying to breed an ape race by mixing humans and apes together -- now that really is crazy).

quote:

Calling for a increase in birthrate among industrial socieites to compete with the birthrate in agrarian societies is asinine. Calling for it because of a fear of another culture (religion) is insane.

That's not exactly what the author is calling for. He is critical of dangerously low birthrates and the west ignoring this problem. He is also pointing out that Muslims (even when they move tot he west -- and work in the city) have much higher birthrates than their non-Muslim counterparts. Religion is definently important in fertility -- else why do orthodox Jews, Mormons and conservative Catholics who might be generations removed from the farm still maintain higher birthrates as well?

quote:

Birthrates in societies based in agraculture have always been higher and not because of any lack of birthcontrol or religious dogma, it was simplly the need for labor to function as a society as well as a means of surviving on a familial level. Even in such societies the birthrate for those considered to be of 'higher class' and therefore less reliant on the farm to survive the birthrate was lower.

Few people lived on the farm in 1960 America yet the average woman gave birth to almost 4 children during her lifetime.

[Revolutionary]

quote:

What surprises me is why haven't the rest of the neanderthals jumped on his bandwagon yet?

Now, now Ncnudlady. Did you read his article? Quite insightful I would say. Want some other articles? Please look up former Democratic presidential advisor and demographics expert Ben Wattenberg on the net. Also, professor Julian Simon has produced a great deal of scholarly work on the danger of too-low birthrates.

Alan Greenspan has predicted that our economy is growing faster than the potential labor market. Also, leaders in Spain, Russia, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, Estonia, Singapore, etc. have warned of the dangers of low birthrates in their countries.

[nacktman]

Revolutionary, worship of the body doth not the promotion of nudism make, tis a vast gulf twixt the twain.

As I said Herr Hitler was a lunatic and so was Stalin. On the kinkiness scale, well that is subjective, it is sufficent to say all lunatics are kinky.

Key word be 'orthodox' for the examples given. While they have moved away from 'the farm', some not so far away or for as long, all hold to the ethos of ancestrial traditions and those traditions are agriculture based.

In 1960 in the US still over half of the population lived on farms and in rural areas and not in big cities or small towns and farming was still the familial bedrock.
I remember driving a team of horses as they pulled the wagon loaded with corn and cucumbers into town in the summer of 1965 myself.

None of this changes the fact that the underlying message is a call for a patriarchal society with women as mere factories to produce laborers for corporate consumption. Der Fuhrer tried it, granted his 'corporation' was the state, and it didn't work all that well. Trying failed ideas over and over does not mean that one time it will succeed.

[MJ_KC]

quote:

Originally posted by nacktman:
In 1960 in the US still over half of the population lived on farms and in rural areas and not in big cities or small towns and farming was still the familial bedrock.
I remember driving a team of horses as they pulled the wagon loaded with corn and cucumbers into town in the summer of 1965 myself.

When my family finally sold our farm in 1964, my dad was still using draft horses and mules to pull his plows. A lot has changed in the last 40+ years in this country.