August 20, 2006
"So far down the death spiral you can’t pull out..."
This lecture by Mark Steyn is worth a read. I would desperately love to have someone give me some good reasons why he's wrong. But I've been scanning the horizon for the last few years, and I've seen nothing of the sort. The rare response from lefty Europhiles has been so pathetic and weak it makes me want to spit on them. This guy was so disgusting I want to kick him down and then spit on him. (Well, I'm exagerating; I wouldn't do such things. But my contempt for Lefty pusillanimity runs deep.)
....Much of western civilization does not have any future. That’s to say, we’re not just speaking philosophically, but literally. In a very short time, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries we regard as part of the western tradition will cease to exist in any meaningful sense. They don’t have a future because they’ve given up breeding. Spain’s population is halving with every generation: Two grown-ups have a total of one baby. So there are half as many children as parents. And a quarter as many grandchildren as grandparents. And an eighth as many great-grandchildren as great-grandparents. And, after that there’s no point extrapolating, because you’re over the falls and it’s too late to start paddling back. I received a flurry of letters from furious Spaniards when the government decided to replace the words “father” and “mother” on its birth certificates with the less orientationally offensive terms “Progenitor A” and “Progenitor B”. This was part of the bureaucratic spring-cleaning of traditional language that always accompanies the arrival in law of “gay marriage”. But, with historically low numbers of progeny, the designations of the respective progenitors seem of marginal concern. They’d be better off trying to encourage the average young Spaniard to wander into a Barcelona singles bar and see if anyone wants to come back to his pad to play Progenitor A and Progenitor B. (“Well, okay, but only if I can be Progenitor A…”)
Seventeen European nations are now at what demographers call “lowest-low” fertility – 1.3 births per woman, the point at which you’re so far down the death spiral you can’t pull out. In theory, those countries will find their population halving every 35 years or so. In practice, it will be quicker than that, as the savvier youngsters figure there’s no point sticking around a country that’s turned into an undertaker’s waiting room. So large parts of the western world are literally dying – and, in Europe, the successor population to those aging French and Dutch and Belgians is already in place....
John Paul II called it the "Culture of Death." We usually use the term to refer to abortion and euthanasia, but to me the most tragically fascinating part is the death of whole nations. And it's right there in front of us. (A technical note: Most European country's populations are not yet actually declining, because the age cohort that's dying off now, the "WWII Generation," is much smaller than the post WWII generations. But when the Euro equivalent of the "Baby Boomers" starts to die, things are going to get real ugly real fast.)
We can see the Culture of Death clearly in the reaction, or rather lack of a reaction, to these obvious facts. No European country is shifting into panic mode. None are drastically revising policies or attitudes. Nowhere do we see reformers from outside the political culture being elected with a mandate for change.
"So far down the death spiral you can’t pull out." I would agree with that estimation. For one thing, the only possible answers can come from human beings, from the human spirit. But for generations those Europeans who dream hopefully of better futures have been emigrating. Worse than a brain-drain, it is a spirit-drain.
America is in better shape, but not that much better. All the same suicidal trends are seen here, but we always have strong counter-movements. A very rough approximation is the "Red State/Blue State" divide. And, in my personal opinion, the best barometer is the health of Christianity and Judaism. I'd say they are wounded but alive here, wounded probably fatally there. (And my personal suspicion is that that's not just the barometer, it's the underlying cause. If any scientists want to put the Culture of Death under a microscope for study, just grab with yor tweezers anybody who is complaining [preposterously] that America is becoming a "theocracy.")
Posted by John Weidner at August 20, 2006 07:59 PM"western Society" may die-- a most doubtful suggestion. However, everything worth saving of "Western Society": art, literature, the recent commitment to human freedom; these things will live on. The latter especially: the most free society is the one that is best able to use the productive forces of it's citizenry, and will therefore always prevail...
It may be that in 100 years, China and India will be more free than the US and England. If that's true, we ought feel _ashamed_, but not fearful for humanity...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at August 20, 2006 08:24 PM"everything worth saving of 'Western Society': art, literature, the recent commitment to human freedom; these things will live on."
Er, how will they "live on" with no one around to appreciate them? Muslims, for instance, are ruled by the schools of Islamic thought that prohibits the display of the human image. Should they become the dominant culture in Europe, you may find your precious artworks such as the Mona Lisa being as plastered over as the mosaics in the Hagia Sophia. Do you think that the Chinese and Indians will save Western art? I don't see why they'd bother -- they have plenty of artwork of their own.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 20, 2006 08:48 PMI forgot to add: art and culture only "live on" to the extent there are people who are willing and able to appreciate and pass on the knowledge of these things. When the barbarians smashed into Rome they had no interest in what the statues they destroyed and the temples and palaces they looted represented for the knowledge of mankind, and many things were lost for generations. The statues and scrolls and devices of the Romans had no power to protect themselves. The idea that Western culture can somehow "live on" without Western people is called "magical thinking." The fact that too many people think like you is another symptom of the decline of our civilization.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 20, 2006 08:55 PMIt's ironic to me that the same mentality that leads to this extinction by birthrate is the same one that is constantly sounding the alarm about mass extinctions of other species.
For the most part, it is Western civilization and its other adherents who are most interested in "saving Mother Earth." When westerners go extinct, so will even more other species at a faster rate than ever.
Posted by: Roderick Reilly at August 21, 2006 02:57 PMFor some reason I'm reminded of a quote from Chesterton (I think), something about how the favorite game of the English is "cheat the prophet": listening respectfully to and nodding in agreement with the dire prophecies uttered by a wise man, and then, once the wise man is dead, going off and doing something completely at odds with the prophecies.
John, anyone can mindlessly extrapolate a curve indefinitely into the future and use such extrapolations to concoct any number of dire scenarios. Ehrlich (of "The Population Bomb" fame) and the Club of Rome ("Limits to Growth") did the same thing, and they only succeeded in making themselves look foolish.
True wisdom consists in giving human nature its due: Marx was right, in that people make many decisions according to economic incentives, and it MAY be that in decades to come, governments will realize that there is literally no future in taxing people so heavily (as is the case in Europe right now, I suspect) that they can't afford children.
Our advantage, John, is that our political order is far less sclerotic than Old Europe's. Once our older siblings (generationally speaking), so besotted with the big-government ethos of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, finally die off or retire in ten or twenty years, I expect big changes will take place. Not all at once, but they'll come. How could people my age and younger possibly do worse, at any rate?
Posted by: Hale Adams at August 21, 2006 07:56 PMWhat you didn't mention is another factor of the declining population: in the highly socialist economies of Europe, what happens when the bulk of wage earners become the bulk of welfare recipients? I mean, people are drastically worried about Social Security, and what will happen when the Boomers start hitting retirement... and in Europe, it's many times worse on both ends (the workers to recipients ratio, and the wages versus welfare income ratio.)
I think the phrase is You can't get blood from a stone. I'd hate to see where the blood will come from.
Posted by: B. Durbin at August 21, 2006 10:05 PMHale,
Good points, but I think you miss the essence.
Democracies always have great difficulty in making choices that involve sacrifice for the voters. And what's needed in Europe are huge sacrifices by most of the population. Just in the realm of economics, they need welfare cut drastically, regulations and taxes cut drastically, retirement ages raised, promised pensions lowered, unions broken, "creative destruction" involving job losses on a huge scale. Free trade involving job losses on a huge scale...(And that's the easy part. Harder is giving up ideas one has grown comfortable with.)
Imagine a European leader proposing that most of his population give up comfort and security for the good of future generations. You are immediately up against the question of the "spiritual condition" of the people. The state of their souls. That's the only place from which people might find the courage and vision to sacrifice their own economic welfare, and, most crucially, their security.
It's similar to asking people to volunteer in a desperate war to save their country, where many must die to (possibly) preserve future generations. Libertarian economic calculation has nothing to say in such a situation---only the heart. (You might say that one exception is people with children. They quite naturally may sacrifice their own good for the good of future generations...which is one of the big reasons, I strongly suspect, that Europeans and "Blue-State" types are not crazy about having children.)
"Where do you find courage?" That's the question to ask here. It's too late for reason and prudence and calculation. Too late for tinkering. John Paul II's constant refrain was, "be not afraid." That's the most practical piece of economic calculation that's been offered to Europe.
"there is literally no future in taxing people so heavily (as is the case in Europe right now, I suspect) that they can't afford children..." I think the financial aspect is not the most important thing here, but as a parent I can say that it's not negligable.
When I'm dictator I think I'll immediately raise the tax deduction for dependent minors. Or how about this: Fot two kids the rate doubles, for three it triples...four and it quadruples. I'll stop there and see how it all works out...
Posted by: John Weidner at August 22, 2006 05:24 PM
