Demographic Decline Delusions in the Main Stream

…back in those Halcyon Days, I didn’t own a computer, let alone an Internet connection.  Cell phones were something carried around by blurry girls, devoid of personality.  Newspapers were impenetrably dense, discussing countries and organizations which you squinted at, trying to make sense of the foreign tongues.  And as for books, and magazines?  Treasure troves of new perspectives, challenging argumentation, and eye-opening vistas.

The Internet’s changed everything.  Now it’s just a few clicks away to learn who and what FARC is (let alone Joseph Kony), and the thrill of discovering a New Heuristic is a rare pleasure, indeed (what with social networking raising the sharpest minds to the top of the fold).

So it was with this nostalgia in mind that I followed my friend into an International Magazine store, and wound up picking up a copy of Foreign Affairs.  Was it still as brilliant and controversial (if a bit Neo-Con) as I recalled from my PoliSci days?

To ask the question is to answer it.

The article Baby Gap: How to Boost Birth Rates and Avoid Demographic Decline, by Stephen Philip Kramer, is a perfect example of everything that’s wrong with Establishment Journalism.  He writes from a complete and utter Blue Pill perspective, taking the facts and figures he cites at face value, never examining the fundamental assumptions which underlie them.  When Marshall McLuhan shouted “The medium is the message!” at the world, he was arguing for a deeper level of critique; modern journalists take it as a prescription.

Kramer starts off by explaining the blindingly obvious – but then again, so do I – that population decline is A Problem.  When your societal age demographics form an inverted pyramid, and dependendancy ratio increases each and every year, you wind up with Trouble Brewin’.

He then proceeds to dance around the immigration issue, referring to it as “politically unpalatable,” and describing the future of European countries as “small islands in a Third World sea.” We all know what he means by this, but he lacks the minerals to elaborate and specify.  He doesn’t want to go the way of Derbyshire.  But simper and bend over as much as you want, Kramer, your cowardice won’t stop the Creatures at HuffPo from calling you rassist; all it does is render your article ambiguous, and open to misinterpretation.

He then begins to analyze some historical examples of population delicnes:

France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 transformed the country’s low birthrate into a political issue…  the populations of France and Germany were about equal in 1871; by 1914 the German population was about 50% larger…  In 1939 [France] passed the Code de la Famille, which provided financial support to parents.

…

These postwar policies were aimed at strengthening the “traditional” family.  But by the late 1960s, that model was falling out of favor.

Note the use of irony quotes around Traditional Family.

He then goes on to make a whole bunch of assumptions about the Modern Era, as if delcining birthrates were the only problem we face, as if it isn’t a whole raft of perverted distortions on Humanity and Civilization.

First, the Widely Believed Fact that “economic development require[s women’s] economic participation.”

To say this is to imply that women in 1910 were not being economically productive.

  Are you out of your tree, sir?  Do you somehow believe that in 1910 society was rich enough to take half the population, and put them in gilded cages?  That industrialization and mass-education had so impoverished us that by 1960, all of a sudden – that the 50% of the population who was not contributing to the economy in any way, shape, or form – was suddenly required to Woman Up, else we all starved?

Or does it begin to sound a bit stupid when I spell out your implied assumptions?

Women have been economic participants throughout history; just because they didn’t show up on GDP doesn’t mean they weren’t productive.  Aside from child-rearing (which is now a part of GDP, since the Stranger raising your child at the Minimum Security Orphanarium gets a paycheque) women were active participants in the community; organizing church raffles, running civic organizations, growing and canning food, feeding their family something that wasn’t chock-full of preservatives.

I can already hear the Feminist Howls: “But those lines of work are boring and demeaning!” Really?  Then why are women still working in predominantly the same fields?  The only difference between now and then, is that now they get to pay taxes to the government… and they have diminished control over their child-rearing and diet.

Throughout history, Women who were Capable and Interested have been scientists and computer programmers.  Were there Expectations of Civil Behaviour placed on men and women?  Of course there were!  The fact that there no longer are is something to be ashamed of, not celebrated – but to pretend that women were somehow oppressed is a-historical.  It is an outright lie.

The real reason behind the ‘necessity’ of having women in the workforce wasn’t about economic product, or humanitarian benefit – it was all about Consumerism.  Freud + Population Statistics = Marketing, the art of teaching people to buy things they don’t want or need.  I’m sorry to say it ladies, but your feminine instincts – the ones which make you so incredible when it comes to organizing a party or keeping the peace – also make you extremely vulnerable to mass marketing.  You can sense the tone of the party – the ‘herd’, if you will – much better than any man.  Marketers trigger your subconscious into thinking that everyone else is doing something, and that if you don’t do it too, you’ll stand out like a freak.

That is why they want you ‘working’.  So that you’ll buy those trashy magazines at the Grocey Check Out Counter.

But to get back to our Good Friend Kramer…

“Gender equality is also an important ingredient, as [is]… the acceptance of non-traditional family structures, such as unmarried cohabitation.  After all, the countries most committed to the traditional family, such as Germany, Italy, and Japan, have the lowest birthrates.  countries with high birthrates, in contrast, usually also have large numbers of children born out of wedlock.  these babies are born not primarily to teenagers but largely to women in their late 20s and 30s, many of whom are in committed relationships.”

Some people just can’t see the forest for the trees.

Rather than repeat the arguments, I’ll simply provide you a link: The Secular Case Against Same Sex Marriage  (H/T).  Marriage – as an Institution – has been devastated by No Fault Divorce, misandric culture, the feminization of men, and divorce fantasies such as Eat, Pray, Love.  What we need is not more degradation of the term Marriage, but rather, a reaffirming of what it used to mean.  Marriage worked for centuries; it’s only after the past fifty years of ‘improvement’ that it’s begun to fall apart.

(And in regards to Gay Marriage – homosexuals would be better off making private agreements with one another for hospital care, inheritance, et cetera.  Combine it with a Magic Ritual, and this will be a truer marriage than any Straight Person is allowed these days.  By doing this, you keep the State out of your Bedroom.)

Next, he runs right past the issue of later childbirth, and doesn’t even notice it in his peripheral.  Postponing child birth leads to Autism.  The feminists don’t want you to know this because… they care about women.

And finally, he ignores the fact that children raised by single-parents, or in unstable ‘cohabiting’ relationshps, are more likely to become wards of the state.  Wintery Knight – the guy linked above – provides the reference for that bit of data.  The point of population growth is to pay for those poor, poor Baby Boomers, right?  You’re not going to be able to do that with a generation of Criminal Deviants.

In the final analysis, Kramer’s recommendations – more ‘equality’ (affirmative action & wealth transfers) and more ‘familial support’ (single-mother payouts & corrupt courts) – are based upon an incredibly naive understanding of feminist culture, economics, and human (sexual) nature.  He sees a river, which can be gently diverted with enough dykes in the right places; I see a house of cards, made up of elastics and popsickle sticks, ready to shatter under its own strain.

Kramer, go read something that isn’t Pre-Approved by the Ruling Authorities, and learn to open your mind.  Stop pretending you’re at the End of History.  Wisdom did not begin with the Enlightenment – rather, it Died on the pitchforks of Ignorant French Pesants.  Your policies will prove disastrous.  Heck, you policies have proved disastrous; you’re advocating ‘more of the same’, screwed up polices that we’ve had in place for thirty years.  Is that all you NeoCons are capable of? “The water isn’t putting out the oil fire – better get more water!”

Housing bubble… Keynsian Economics…

Oh, right.