No Babies, No Problem

I'm with Rod Dreher: I went into this Nation piece on conservative demographic panic hoping for a smart, nuanced left-wing take on the thorny problem of the West's changing demographics - one that took some jabs at the "demographic winter" hype and accused social conservatives of using the spectre of population decline to justify their nostalgia for pre-modernity and the patriarchy (which would be a fair accusation, in some cases), but also acknowledged that demography is going to cause some real problems for developed societies over the next century, and grappled seriously with the possibility that falling birthrates might be one of the larger challenges facing the socialist, tolerant, post-historical paradigm so dear to readers of The Nation.

Instead, the piece basically reads: Patriarchy patriarchy patriarchy, Catholic evangelical fascist, Mussolini Hitler, racist racist racist. I guess The Nation knows its audience, but still ...

Comments

Agreed, lousy article.

It's a familiar style of argumentation-- present data scarcely and tendentiously, throw in an anecdote or two, and present the names and orientations of your ideological rivals with an underlying eye-roll or sneer.

"No refutation needed," the writer implies, "these guys are politically incorrect, with historical roots in fascism/communism/whatever other badism."

It's the same style as the National Review or the Weekly Standard.

The key difference is that the Nation is regarded as fringish and without influence, whereas people from and influenced by the WS and NR have been running the country for the better part of the past decade.

Let me offer a bold "Third Way" proposal-- lock the chick who wrote this article in a room with Victor Davis Hanson and Mark Steyn for the next few months or years.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | February 21, 2008 9:18 AM

Wait a minute? You're sure it was "..fascist, Mussolini Hitler, racist..."? There was nothing about Rove?

Posted by Sanjay | February 21, 2008 9:35 AM

All right, I'll take a stab at a 'smart, nuanced, left-wing take' on the West's changing demographics. (Beware-long post, but I am an ecologist and therefore take these things seriously).

Of course population decline is going to cause some problems in Western societies, some of them quite severe and painful. It will mean, among other things, that we have to adjust to a somewhat lower standard of living. (As an anti-materialist, I think that's a _good_ thing.) But these problems are 1) better than the alternative 2) not limited to the West, 3) can be dealt with, and 4) temporary.

1) Ross, I'm not sure why you never mention the flip side of the coil, overpopulation. Surely no one thinks it isn't a problem? In the long run, overpopulation is a bigger threat to our maintaining a healthy civilization and planet than underpopulation. There is lots of reason to believe that there are already too many people in the world for our natural resources to support at a healthy standard of living and in balance with the natural environment. Fisheries, water, forests, oil, agricultural area, take your pick- most of our natural resources are being drawn down far beyond sustainable levels. Species overshoot their carrying capacity all the time, and when they do, the result is population collapse caused by famine, disease, and the struggle for existence. The falling birthrates over most of the world are one of the great successes of the last 30-40 years (to avoid the threat of overpopulation) and we shouldn't forget that. I know of no biologist who thinks that overpopulation isn't a problem, and in fact I have a hard time even conceiving of how anyone could think that somehow 'human ingenuity will always provide' or whatever.

2) Birthrates are falling not just in 'the West', but all over the world. East Asia, Southeast Asia, South America, Central America, South Asia, are all, at most, a little bit above replacement. A broad swathe of countries, from a variety of cultures and economic levels, have reached replacement fertility or below- Brazil, Costa Rica, Vietnam, Thailand, Guyana, Chile, Iran, Lebanon, South Africa....It's not just a feature of the West, it's a global feature and it's a good thing, for the most part. Of course birth rates in some of the European countries are unhealthily low, and they should try to raise them a little bit, but a total fertility rate of about 2.1 or slightly below (to _slowly_ relieve global population pressure) is what each country should be aiming for. Only two major regions of the world still have high birth rates, Africa and (with some exceptions) the Muslim world.

3)We can deal with the problems of population decline. It will mean later retirement ages, longer working hours, and in general getting used to a somewhat lower standard of living- no more of this consumption-oriented society. But those changes would be inevitable anyway, given the near-future reality of intense resource shortages, and as long as the sacrifices are spread around equally, I don't think that accepting a somewhat lower standard of comfort is a bad thing.

4)No society is going to dwindle away to nothing. In the long run, populations tend to be self-correcting, at least in the case of a species as adaptable and self-aware as humans. When the population of a country drops low enough, then land will be cheap enough and the cost of living will be low enough that it will be to more people's interest to have larger families, just as when populations are to high, their birthrates tend to fall. Density dependent birth and death rates are the bread and butter of population ecology- I don't see why this wouldn't apply to humans as well.

Abnormally low birth rates in a few countries like Germany and Japan are without doubt a big problem, but the fact that, say, Brazil has reached replacement level fertility is a _good_ thing (all the more since it was able to achieve small families without legalizing abortion.) The bigger problem is the two areas of the world, Africa and the Muslim Middle East, which still have high birth rates. How are they going to support their expanding populations, and are they doomed to decades of war, famine, disease and environmental degradation? That's the question that keeps _me_ up at night.

And if you're worried about Muslims taking over Europe, the solution is simple- lock the doors, and keep them out. Europe doesn't _need_ high immigration rates, and if they were willing to accept a more austere economy and a lower standard of living, they could maintain a stable or slightly declining population without having to invite in tons of Muslims.

Posted by Hector | February 21, 2008 9:39 AM

Help me out here, Ross. Because it would be much easier for me to understand this if I actually knew what your concerns about the demographic changes are. I'm sure there are some concerns that don't, following logic down its inevitable rabbit holes, eventually wind up as some version of "the brown people are going to take over." But I haven't seen them. Honestly. And I've looked. And as much as the Nation may have failed in its obligations to explore the conservative argument against demographic change, surely the burden of proof is on the conservatives to actually make the positive argument in the first place.

(By the way, why is it still ok to call the Nation or its readers socialist, but not to call The National Review and its readers fascist?)

Posted by Freddie | February 21, 2008 10:36 AM

Freddie,

To be fair to Ross, there are some legitimate arguments for being concerned about low birth rates that I could share to some extent. Ross might believe that having children is important to one's spiritual development, and that people who refuse to have children are depriving themselves of something important. He might believe that a society with fewer children is inevitably one that will be less welcoming and accomodating of those people who do choose to have larger families. Or he might be concerned about the fact that all over the world, Muslims are having more children than Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or anyone else. This is a big problem in places ranging from England to Lebanon to India, and it's worth paying attention to. Lebanon, which was founded explicitly as a Christian homeland, is now about 60% Muslim, due in equal part to Christian emigration, Muslim immigration, and higher Muslim birth rates (Christians in Lebanon, like Christians in South India, have birth rates similar to those of people in France or England despite being much poorer.) I don't think that calling on everyone to have large families again is the solution, but i do recognize this is a problem.

Posted by Hector | February 21, 2008 10:50 AM

I'm with Freddie. This seems to be a very broad claim:

demography is going to cause some real problems for developed societies over the next century, and grappled seriously with the possibility that falling birthrates might be one of the larger challenges facing the socialist, tolerant, post-historical paradigm so dear to readers of The Nation.

What "real problems", Ross? Why do you characterize them as problems? What is the evidence of their existence?

Posted by DivGuy | February 21, 2008 10:53 AM

I second the commenters above. What are Ross's worries about demography? I can think of some that seem legitimate, others not.

Posted by Brendan | February 21, 2008 11:38 AM

Instead, the piece basically reads: Patriarchy patriarchy patriarchy, Catholic evangelical fascist, Mussolini Hitler, racist racist racist.

LOL, so it reads like a MoeLarryAndJesus post then.

Posted by Deuce | February 21, 2008 11:42 AM

I guess Ross's point is that if a weak article claims racism is involved in the we-need-more-white-babies movements in Europe then that proves there is no racism involved in those movements.

Of course Ross saw no hint of racism in Saint Reagan's "welfare queens driving Cadillacs" anecdotes, either, or in his own "welfare duchess comments, so I'd have to conclude that he has a blind spot in this area.

From the article: "The racial preferences behind Berlusconi's "baby bonus" came into embarrassing relief when immigrant parents were accidentally sent checks for their offspring and then asked to return the money: the Italian government hadn't meant to promote those births."

Of course they hadn't. It's certainly "the right babies" that are wanted by most of these "activists." That's been true in this country, too, as seen in writings by Ben Wattenberg (for over 20 years) and Zulu-loving Pat Buchanan.

Apocalyptic scenarios should be laughed at generally, and this "not enough babies" frightfest is no different. And if the Catholic Church is so concerned about it, why not set their priests lose to fornicate away and help populate? Just tell them to stick with the white women to keep the (yes) fascists happy.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 11:47 AM

Il Duce quotes and writes: "Instead, the piece basically reads: Patriarchy patriarchy patriarchy, Catholic evangelical fascist, Mussolini Hitler, racist racist racist.

LOL, so it reads like a MoeLarryAndJesus post then."

I have never said anything about the "patriarchy."

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 11:56 AM

I think Hector basically gets it right (and I can't believe that I just said that).

I would pile on to what others have said about the issue of racism. I really do believe that racism does have more than a little to do with this issue. The natalist movement seems to have a lot of people who are far less concerned about whether birthrates are going down than they are about whether white birthrates are going down. Even Hector has a bit of this in his concern about whether Muslim birthrates are still high while others are lower.

Obviously, to a liberal who believes in racial and ethnic equality, this is a very troublesome argument and line of thought, because we really don't want to get into the frame of mind where we think, for instance, that white births are good but dark-skinned births aren't, or that Anglo births are good but births to Latino familes are bad, or that Christian births are good but Muslim births are bad.

I might also say that I don't totally buy the premise either. Who one's parents are is only one determinant of what you grow up to be. And this is only more true in our modern world of globalized culture. I suspect that just like the Christian world has seen, the Muslim world is going to see more and more secularization, and, in fact, some of what is going on with respect to Islamic fundamentalism is probably a reaction to the budding signs of that. Over time, there's no guarantee that all those Muslim babies are going to grow up to be even devout Muslims, let alone potential terrorists or enemies of the US.

And I certainly don't buy that, for instance, a Hispanic American birth is any different from a white birth. The children of immigrant families tend to assimilate quite a bit.

So I do think there's a certain type of person who sees in natalism a chance to fight back against minorities and non-Christians. And there is quite a bit of prejudice in that worldview.

Posted by Dilan Esper | February 21, 2008 12:24 PM

Dilan,

Re: I suspect that just like the Christian world has seen, the Muslim world is going to see more and more secularization, and, in fact, some of what is going on with respect to Islamic fundamentalism is probably a reaction to the budding signs of that.

I don't know that secularization is an irreversible thing. It seems to me that secularization is dependent on prosperity, and if the world enters a prolonged economic crisis (as I think it will, based on my concerns about natural resources), people in the Christian world will probably become more religious again. It's also worth pointing out that Latin America hasn't really _secularized_, even while the Catholic church has lost some influence there. Unlike in Europe, when people in Latin America turn away from Catholicism they usually become evangelical Protestants rather than agnostics.

Whether globalization will last the coming energy crisis is also a question admitting of some doubt.

I have no preference for one race over another, but I do have a preference for Christianity over Islam, if that counts as 'prejudice'.

Posted by Hector | February 21, 2008 12:44 PM

Ha. Having lived in Japan for over 10 years I can say that a lot of the drop in Japanese birth rates can be directly traced to the lousy situation women and families are placed in when women do give birth: pressure from Japanese companies for mothers to quit, the mind-boggling boringness of being a housewife with little interaction with society, difficulties in getting back on the career track when mothers do try to come back years down the road, lack of day-care facilities, the financial burden of having kids, etc. etc. and so forth.

Is it any surprise that Japanese women have been voting with their feet?

Is it any surprise that in ANY country where women are faced with the choice: "you can either have kids and raise them, or have a career" that women decide upon the latter? Until we figure out a way to bring back childraising as something EVERYONE (mothers, fathers, business) is responsible for, rather than something that is shoved off on the mothers (who are also supposed to be making all the career sacrifices--remember all the stories about The Mommy Track?), many women will make the decision to have fewer or no children.

The other economic mechanism to entice childbearing is to turn back into being an agricultural economy, where extra children meant extra hands on the farm. Anyone want that?

Posted by grumpy realist | February 21, 2008 12:59 PM

grumpy realist,

I suspect that Japanese family life looks rather different from American family life, even when both are middle-class families with stay-at-home moms. American families with stay-at-home moms are often highly egalitarian, with a high level of paternal involvement. I don't know how it is now, but older American surveys cited in "The Second Shift" said that husbands in working-mother families did not do much more housework than husbands in stay-at-home mom families. Being an American housewife and being a Japanese housewife are not necessarily very similar occupations.

Posted by Amy P | February 21, 2008 1:12 PM

Grumpy Realist,

I agree with that. I think our society should be set up so that fathers take on a bigger share of childrearing. (If i recall correctly, Castro's Cuba at one point in the '60s actually passed a law decreeing that men had to do 50% of housework and child care.) I also think that the state, and employers, and communities (churches, extended families, etc.) should take on a bigger role. Without doubt. (Of course in my utopian society the 'employers' would be workers' and peasants' cooperatives, and so forth.)

I would suspect that actually agriculture is going to employ a lot more people in the society of the future, after we start running out of cheap energy to fuel our tractors and supply us with cheap fertilizer and trucking. Some aspects of that peasant society might be coming back whether you want them or not.

Posted by Hector | February 21, 2008 1:16 PM

Just to throw out what I think Ross' concerns with demographics would be:

Social democracies employ large social safety nets that provide through redistribution tax revenue from taxpayers to at risk populations (the poor, unemployed, the elderly, the disabled, etc). As such those safety nets require large and continuous tax revenues. The problem is that such systems were designed and based on demographic patterns from an earlier era. A substantial change in demographics (a reduction in birth rates, the addition of too many poor immigrants, what have you) can make the foundations of the safety net untenable by messing with the revenue flow that funds them.

Thus the concern for the Northern European countries is that as their population becomes older and there is a smaller tax base to fund the promised safety nets, how will that effect those programs. Like I said, that is a brief sketch of what Ross' concerns might be.

Posted by Civilized Crank | February 21, 2008 1:20 PM

Gee, Ross, you sneer at the word 'tolerant' as if it were... well, a bad thing. Do you think tolerance of other races and religions is a bad thing? I assume not, but you don't make that assumption an easy one to make.

Posted by tgb1000 | February 21, 2008 1:29 PM

Mr. Douthat

“accused social conservatives of using the spectre of population decline to justify their nostalgia for pre-modernity and the patriarchy (which would be a fair accusation, in some cases),

I hate to see an author as influential as Mr. Douthat fall into the contrived nomenclature of the left & the nostrums it inherently supports.

It is inherently false & anti-intellectual to characterize contemporary social conservatism & concern over population decline as “nostalgia for pre-modernity”

As recently as late 60’s & early 70’s the entirety of the western world had birth rates well above replacement level. Marriage rates were high, divorce & illegitimacy by comparison very low.

Are we expected to believe that this post industrial revolution & scientifically literate world was pre-modern?? How does championing the values of sexual restraint and fidelity to & within marriage make someone “pre-modern” in their thought?

This is the height of foolishness. There is nothing inherently “modern” about the values of the sexual revolution. By the same token there is nothing pre-modern about vigorously critiquing those values.

Can anyone honestly make the argument that conservative rags like National Review and The Weekly Standard are less radical and of a higher intellectual level than The Nation?

Posted by RICKM | February 21, 2008 1:34 PM

(sorry this is the full post)

“accused social conservatives of using the spectre of population decline to justify their nostalgia for pre-modernity and the patriarchy (which would be a fair accusation, in some cases),

I hate to see an author as influential as Mr. Douthat fall into the contrived nomenclature of the left & the nostrums it inherently supports.

It is inherently false & anti-intellectual to characterize contemporary social conservatism & concern over population decline as “nostalgia for pre-modernity”

As recently as late 60’s & early 70’s the entirety of the western world had birth rates well above replacement level. Marriage rates were high, divorce & illegitimacy by comparison very low.

Are we expected to believe that this post industrial revolution & scientifically literate world was pre-modern?? How does championing the values of sexual restraint and fidelity to & within marriage make someone “pre-modern” in their thought?

This is the height of foolishness. There is nothing inherently “modern” about the values of the sexual revolution. By the same token there is nothing pre-modern about vigorously critiquing those values.

The only people who say there is are those who (vainly) wish to conflate feminism & sexual license with scientific discovery & the critical method. No such link is justifiable.

Like wise “nostalgia for the…patriarchy” need beg the question… “what IS this “patriarchy.”????

Do 70% illegitimacy rates among African Americans make the underclass a “matriarchy”? Does desperation for a return to intact married childbearing/rearing denote “nostalgia for the…patriarchy” or simple humanity?

Are the married couples next door who both are in the paid labor force “post-patriarchal” & therefore represent a greater equality? What of the myriad of married couples who chose a traditional division of labor? Are they throwbacks to “post modernity” & therefore regressive?

Is not (as so many maintain) marriage itself the ultimate expression of the patriarchy, so therefore any married couple is regressive.

What of concern for woman who desperately want to have husbands & children yet find today’s sexual culture extremely un-conducive to stable family formation. Are these women harboring “nostalgia for the…patriarchy” ? Should they “raise the consciousness and resign themselves to being pioneers in the struggle for “gender equality”?

Please Ross…. Do not uncritically except their terms. Doing so risks you becoming them. And to be “them” is to be a very narrow, anti-intellectual, and ill-liberal mind.

Posted by Fitz | February 21, 2008 1:38 PM

Conservative concerns over the future of demography tend to be about maintaining American (or Italian, French, etc.) culture, not race.

I think Civilized Crank's point above about the social safety net is a second-order problem, but related.

Posted by right | February 21, 2008 1:52 PM

Civilized Crank,

All that means is that the social democracies will have to get used to a _lower quality_ welfare state, and will have to work harder to get the benefits of the welfare state (longer hours, later retirement age, more sharply rationed social services, etc.) That doesn't mean that they will give up on the idea of the welfare state itself. Indeed, if they enter a period of long-term hardship it seems to me that there would be even more social pressure to preserve what remains of the welfare state. The welfare state can have two functions- to spread around the wealth in times of prosperity, and to more equally spread around the burdens and sacrifices in a time of privation. The Second World War, after all, saw an expanded government role in the economy.

Posted by Hector | February 21, 2008 2:01 PM

I agree the article could have been much better, but to say it just the reason it comes off as "patriarchy, racism, facism" is because everyone involved in "natural-family" movement is either a racist, mysoginist, or facist. Sorry, but it's true, are we saying that the author of the piece should have reached out to the rational, even-tempered advocates in the "quiverfull" movement? If you think a woman's prime role in life is pushing out a litter of babies with the express purpose of increasing the ranks of a particular race/religion then you're pretty much a lunatic.

I think the strongest part of the article was the extent to which the idea of sex for pleasure is the real schism in the culture wars in this country. Or at least on this board that has a strong current of anti-sex prudery and nice-guy centered whining. Abortion, contraception, and the sexual revolution in general have largely divorced sex from procreation, which is either great or awful depending on who are. I get the sense that a lot of guys here and elsewhere have been largely left in the dust by the increased social capital that woman can exercise in 1st world western democracies, and resent this naturally. I'm not comparing anyone here to the Natural family maniacs in the article, but they do represent the logical conclusions of a contingent of broadly-speaking, begrieved men. Either divorced, single, or just lonely, women in general and the sexual revolution/feminists specifically are largely to blame for the condition that this particular breed find themself in.

Posted by dearleader nyc | February 21, 2008 2:04 PM

I went into this Nation piece on conservative demographic panic hoping for a smart, nuanced left-wing take on the thorny problem of the West's changing demographics

Well, why? This was clearly not a piece about overpopulation concerns vs actuarial difficulties in graying societies. If anything, there was more here about the Longman-esque type problems of graying societies then there was about the environmental problems of high population.

This was just noting that there are same damned creepy motivations that are sometimes behind pronatalist policies. Which is a perfectly valid point to make--if you're going to support pro-natalist policies, you're going to have to go through some extra legwork to distinguish yourself from the racists.

Posted by Consumatopia | February 21, 2008 2:09 PM

dearleader nyc writes: "If you think a woman's prime role in life is pushing out a litter of babies with the express purpose of increasing the ranks of a particular race/religion then you're pretty much a lunatic."

And how.

The seeming inability of many right-wingers to see such obvious bigotry in their own ranks is particularly important now - since we're about to go into a presidential campaign where the real wackaloon racist wingnuts will be a-quivering to go after Obama with every last sleazy race-baiting trick they can muster. Some demented cretin at the National Review has already all but claimed that he's a communist plant because his parents had an interracial marriage and only communists did such things back then. (I'm not sure the world is ready for the news that Franco Harris and Roy Campanella were commies, but there you go.) By the time Coulter and Limbaugh and O'Reilly get through most of their sheeple will think Obama is a Mau Mau who sleeps with a bone in his nose and dreams exclusively about raping white women.

Where will the, uh, more sober-minded right-wingers be while this is happening? Will they be writing about welfare queens and the urgent need for more white babies? Or will they finally stand up and show a little disgust towards the monsters who've been doing their dirty work for them all of these years?

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 2:18 PM

It would be easier to dismiss charges of racism in the demographic debate without comments like this:

"Conservative concerns over the future of demography tend to be about maintaining American (or Italian, French, etc.) culture, not race."

Why should one believe that American culture is dependent on race? Are the values this country represents only applicable to anglos?

Let's look at the big demographic question the US right now, the increasing population of Mexican and Central American immigrants. I'm puzzled by the concerns that they represent some kind of threat to our "culture" because a) langauge aside, Mexican immigrants embody all of the values conservatives are constantly touting: very traditional, hard-working, Christian, large families, and they come from a democratic country, and b) "American Culture" has changed so much and so often since this countries founding that any claim to some kind of baseline constant "culture" this is now threatened rings hollow to me.

Posted by dearleader nyc | February 21, 2008 2:21 PM

It would be easier to dismiss charges of racism in the demographic debate without comments like this:

"Conservative concerns over the future of demography tend to be about maintaining American (or Italian, French, etc.) culture, not race."

Why should one believe that American culture is dependent on race? Are the values this country represents only applicable to anglos?

Let's look at the big demographic question the US right now, the increasing population of Mexican and Central American immigrants. I'm puzzled by the concerns that they represent some kind of threat to our "culture" because a) langauge aside, Mexican immigrants embody all of the values conservatives are constantly touting: very traditional, hard-working, Christian, large families, and they come from a democratic country, and b) "American Culture" has changed so much and so often since this countries founding that any claim to some kind of baseline constant "culture" this is now threatened rings hollow to me.

Posted by dearleader nyc | February 21, 2008 2:22 PM

True, an older population plus smaller tax base will put a strain on the welfare state. But isn't this by nature a fairly temporary problem that arises during the transition from a period of high birth rates to period of lower ones? Eventually the population will reach some new equilibrium.

But let's say we grant that birth rates are falling in the Western states, and it's a problem for non-racist/patriarchy reasons. Even if that's the case, doesn't the appropriate reaction depend on what is causing the decline? If, on the one hand, people would like to be having more children, but can't afford it, then this calls for some kind of policy response: make it easier for people to have the children they want through more tax credits, education subsidies, etc. I doubt anyone, including the people at the Nation, would object to this.

On the other hand, there's a sense that conservatives who worry about falling birth rates attribute it to some kind of moral corruption of society, whether they say this outright or not. Bracketing the merits of that claim (which I think is problematic, but not necessarily 100% crazy), it seems like a self-limiting phenomenon over time, since people who've bought into whatever pernicious modern ideology is responsible don't have kids to whom they can pass it on.

Posted by Brendan | February 21, 2008 2:23 PM

Hector,

I don't disagree with you, just simply putting out my guess at Ross' view since it had been questioned earlier. As an answer you are certainly right that demographics doesn't necessarily mean the end of the welfare state, though it could mean the end of the welfare state as we know it (by ushering in smaller safety nets, lower standard of living, etc).

Posted by Civilized Crank | February 21, 2008 2:25 PM

It's also worth pointing out that Latin America hasn't really _secularized_, even while the Catholic church has lost some influence there. Unlike in Europe, when people in Latin America turn away from Catholicism they usually become evangelical Protestants rather than agnostics.

You aren't incorrect about the relationship betwen secularism and prosperity, but in fact, prosperous parts of Latin America are secularizing. Sure, if you go to Ayacucho, Peru, you will still find lots of Christians, but if you go to Buenos Aires, you will see a society that is getting far away from the teachings of the Church.

And there are plenty of prosperous parts of the Muslim world, despite all of its problems. I would suspect that we will see more secularization in places like Dubai and Cairo, for instance, as well as in places outside the Arab world like Indonesia. There's plenty of secularization even in a place like Pakistan; that's really the base of support for the Pakistan People's Party that was headed by the late Benazir Bhutto.

The underlying theme of all these population arguments is a sort of pessimism (similar, ironically, to the pessimism of the anti-overpopulation arguments of the 1970's). People see lots of Muslims having babies and assume that means lots of radical Muslim babies, but that doesn't necessarily follow. Remember, mortality rates are high in poor places, so the places that have lower mortality rates (and therefore where fertility rates have the most impact) are the places most likely to be secularlized.

Finally, I do think that the preference for Christianity over Islam is a form of irrational prejudice. I'd cetainly prefer Muhammed Ali's form of Islam to the Christian Identity movement's form of Christianity, for instance. What is wrong with Islam is the parts of it that are too fundamentalist, too apologetic about terrorism, and too intolerant of other faiths. But there are plenty of Muslims who are not fundamentalist, are horrified of terrorism, and are perfectly tolerant of non-Muslims.

Rather than trying to reverse the demographic trends, I would rely on secularism and make efforts to support moderate, secular elements within all religious factions (including Christianity).

Posted by Dilan Esper | February 21, 2008 2:33 PM

"I don't know how it is now, but older American surveys cited in "The Second Shift" said that husbands in working-mother families did not do much more housework than husbands in stay-at-home mom families"

I saw some more recent studies that showed overall working men have less leisure time then working women. It's more than some women don't consider doing any type of "man jobs" to be housework. I do laugh when stay at home moms complain that their husband who provides from them doesn't do 50% of the house work.

Posted by JordanT | February 21, 2008 2:49 PM

The knee-jerk leftist canard of “racist-fascist-anti-sex, anti-women, insecure masculinity, xenophobic, etcetera… etcetera… etcetera…ad nausea” is just that: foul and noxious.

Such formulations are meant to stifle & shut down debate much more than enlighten.

If Swaziland was experiencing unprecedented population decline so that increased immigration was necessary for continued economic growth & labor shortages it would have every right to be concerned.

Psychologists mark a will to live (as opposed to resignation toward death) as a sign of a healthy mind.

Business leaders routinely recognize that companies that are not actively expanding their growth are poor investments.

I have never met a self described “natalist”. I have meet multiple scholars, authors, activists, and citizens concerned with western culture, the health of particular cultures, and more generally centered on optimal family formation & insuring their children’s dreams of marriage and family don’t go unfulfilled.

It’s a very strange left that can so readily shed a tear the lack of a formal “marriage” license in the hands of a committed gay couple but shares no sympathy or ideological elbow room for the single black Mothers & her child’s need of Husband and Father ;…nor the single career minded woman starring down her fertile years.

It’s a very strange left that can talk of “root causes” & “systemic change” while ignoring a Hispanic immigrant class that is following the black underclass into the cycles of illegitimacy & its in attendant poverty & tangle of pathologies.

Micro trends have macro consequences. Pointing out civilization decline is not chicken littlish (much less racist), rather: such observations are to be redaliy expected of any intellectual class that has a healthy love & respect for its own shared heritage.

Far beyond the more snide observation of Mark Steyn are a myriad of authors & scholars as diverse as David Hart, Bat Y’eor, Bruce Thornton, Kay S. Hymowitz, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Bernard Lewis, Lawrence Wright, Melanie Phillips, George Weigel, Bruce Bawer, Ian Buruma, George Akerlof… (the list goes on)

All of whom realize the causes & consequences of what the U.N’s 2006 World Population prospectus called “an expected global upheaval that is without parallel in human history”

Posted by Fitz | February 21, 2008 3:58 PM

...fascist, Mussolini Hitler, racist racist racist.

Isn't this a page out of the Jonah Goldberg playbook? Isn't this the only page in the Jonah Goldberg playbook?

Posted by rj3 | February 21, 2008 4:09 PM

The Nation, trying to be oh so sophisticated, hasn't a clue about European realities. A harder headed fellow, Mark Steyn, speaks truth:

To avoid collapse, European nations will need to take in immigrants at a rate no stable society has ever attempted. The CIA is predicting the EU will collapse by 2020. Given that the CIA's got pretty much everything wrong for half a century, that would suggest the EU is a shoo-in to be the colossus of the new millennium. But even a flop spook is right twice a generation. If anything, the date of EU collapse is rather a cautious estimate. It seems more likely that within the next couple of European election cycles, the internal contradictions of the EU will manifest themselves in the usual way, and that by 2010 we'll be watching burning buildings, street riots and assassinations on American network news every night. Even if they avoid that, the idea of a childless Europe ever rivaling America militarily or economically is laughable. Sometime this century there will be 500 million Americans, and what's left in Europe will either be very old or very Muslim. Japan faces the same problem: Its population is already in absolute decline, the first gentle slope of a death spiral it will be unlikely ever to climb out of. Will Japan be an economic powerhouse if it's populated by Koreans and Filipinos? Very possibly. Will Germany if it's populated by Algerians? That's a trickier proposition.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | February 21, 2008 4:12 PM

If the shoe Fitz: "It’s a very strange left that can so readily shed a tear the lack of a formal “marriage” license in the hands of a committed gay couple but shares no sympathy or ideological elbow room for the single black Mothers & her child’s need of Husband and Father ;…nor the single career minded woman starring down her fertile years."

Hoo boy. Imagine having this thing in your family and having to listen to it pontificate on holidays.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 4:15 PM

"All that means is that the social democracies will have to get used to a _lower quality_ welfare state, and will have to work harder to get the benefits of the welfare state" Hector.

Oh that's all? I think if you told most nations this the "all that" would sound like quite a lot. Most people aren't ascetic or austere. The idea of a future of lower quality is going to sound pretty dour. I'm not sure Europeans have really faced something like that since the depression.

The rest isn't directed to you.

The demographic decline is the worst is Eastern Europe and Japan not France or Germany. In my case I think it'd be good if African immigrants could somehow come in and shore up the aging populations in Latvia or Bulgaria. Or if Southeast Asians shored up Japan. However I don't think that's very likely or realistic. Eastern Europe is not going to be as desirable an entry for immigrants and Japan is too insular to accept such a thing.

And the cry of "racism, racism" from advocates of population reduction strikes me as a bit hypocritical. Population "control" has a long history of racism. When Catholic bishops were ordering schools in Louisiana to integrate, birth control advocates tended to still be concerned that swarthy people were overproducing. Even now the birthrates of black Africans tends to be their main concern. True this is mostly for good reasons, but many African countries have not passed their "carrying capacity" and have reduced their birthrate. The "Fear of a Black Planet" stuff has come as much, or more, from their side of the aisle.

Posted by Thomas R | February 21, 2008 4:41 PM

Also "African immigrants" doesn't have to mean Muslims and Muslims doesn't have to mean radicals. Many West African Muslims are fairly moderate. A good deal of sub-Saharan Africa is Christian or pagan. Granted immigrating from Ghana to Europe might be harder, but it should be possible as the USA gets some sub-Saharan African immigrants.

Posted by Thomas R | February 21, 2008 4:47 PM

Thomas R wrote: "The idea of a future of lower quality is going to sound pretty dour. I'm not sure Europeans have really faced something like that since the depression."

The post-WW2 years weren't exactly a walk in the park for most Europeans. And, of course, a huge segment of the Europeans were living under Soviet domination until recently. I think they're very familiar with "lower quality."

I also think increasing numbers of US citizens are going to be finding out about this as the true fruits of the Bushpig Era ripen.

What kind of condiments go best with Soylent Green?

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 4:54 PM

And the cry of "racism, racism" from advocates of population reduction strikes me as a bit hypocritical. Population "control" has a long history of racism. When Catholic bishops were ordering schools in Louisiana to integrate, birth control advocates tended to still be concerned that swarthy people were overproducing. Even now the birthrates of black Africans tends to be their main concern. True this is mostly for good reasons, but many African countries have not passed their "carrying capacity" and have reduced their birthrate. The "Fear of a Black Planet" stuff has come as much, or more, from their side of the aisle.

Thomas, it is very true, as a historical matter, that 100 years ago, plenty of advocates of contraception and voluntary motherhood were also advocates of eugenics. That doesn't indict concerns about overpopulation, any more than freeways are a bad idea because Hitler built some of them.

Of course, it is also true that conservatives have advocated a lot of very ugly things of much more recent vintage (such as opposition to civil rights in the 1950's and 1960's and opposition to women's rights in the 1970's) and continue to advocate ugly things today (homophobia).

But all that said, the issue isn't what Margaret Sanger believed but rather where the ideas are coming from today. Personally, I take no real position on the population other than that I don't want anyone either coerced into having children or coerced into not having them. But, suffice to say, whatever the reality was in the past, plenty of pro-natalists DO have racist and prejudiced motivations, wanting to increase the populations of whites and Christians, trying to outbreed the Muslims, etc. The fact that those racists might have been on the other side of the debate 100 years ago seems to me to be neither here nor there.

Posted by Dilan Esper | February 21, 2008 4:58 PM

If i recall correctly, Castro's Cuba at one point in the '60s actually passed a law decreeing that men had to do 50% of housework and child care.

And I'll bet that solved the problem, eh? Jolly good show!

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 5:24 PM

Dilan Esper

Are you even capable of addressing the substance of one of Ross's posts or must it always be a strained smear.

Why your above.. "So what if the progressive's were the eugenicists(although we cant condeme the culling of down syndrome children today) that was a long time ago"

Instead please cast your attention over here were I claim: "Southern Dixiecrats = conservative = opposition to abortion = misogyny = support of marriage & family"

"plenty of pro-natalists DO have racist and prejudiced motivations, wanting to increase the populations of whites and Christians, trying to outbreed the Muslims, etc"

Were??? Who??? The authors I mention above??? A healthy regard for ones own civilization??? Cocern for the family & family formation??? A fear of Islam-ization & Sharia law????

It’s your own fetid imagination that wants to demonize a central & crucial conversation that any society must always have with itself.

Posted by Fitz | February 21, 2008 5:26 PM

Dilan: I think it's a bit ludicrous to take the liberal "doesn't matter" to your extreme here, and assume that ethnic/religious background of parents has (in the long run) NO correlation with cultural factors. Do you like the culture of Pakistan precisely as much as you do that of Britain? Do you really think modern democracies are magic acid that rapidly, without changing itself, destroys all traits and political habits from other kinds of polity?

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 5:30 PM

The demographic decline is the worst is Eastern Europe and Japan not France or Germany.

Germany is sucky too. France not so bad.

Posted by Joyjay | February 21, 2008 5:47 PM

"But, suffice to say, whatever the reality was in the past, plenty of pro-natalists DO have racist and prejudiced motivations, wanting to increase the populations of whites and Christians, trying to outbreed the Muslims, etc. The fact that those racists might have been on the other side of the debate 100 years ago seems to me to be neither here nor there."

What about pro-choicers who think infanticide is permissible, on the utilitarian theory that they are less aware than some advanced primates? What about people who actually want the West's birthrate to go down because they just don't like Western society? Does that mean we can smear all pro-choicers or unconcerned-with-birthrate liberals with that motivation?

No, and that is Ross's main point in this post. Name-calling and guilt by association aren't arguments.

Posted by Ed | February 21, 2008 5:49 PM

What about people who actually want the West's birthrate to go down because they just don't like Western society?

Are there such people? Maybe there are. Point me to one.

Posted by roac | February 21, 2008 6:21 PM

Do you really think modern democracies are magic acid that rapidly, without changing itself, destroys all traits and political habits from other kinds of polity?

Well, yes, that's pretty much what I for one think, based on the historical evidence. If by "without changing itself" you mean "without changing itself for the worse."

Of course, you may think that the US has been changed for the worse by one or more contingents of immigrants in the past. Feel free to list them.

Posted by roac | February 21, 2008 6:26 PM

Dilan Esper writes: "make efforts to support moderate, secular elements within all religious factions"

Yes, and I think we should make efforts to support religious elements within secular factions.

or to support oil elements in water factions

or vice versa

Posted by sj | February 21, 2008 6:29 PM

"Thomas, it is very true, as a historical matter, that 100 years ago, plenty of advocates of contraception and voluntary motherhood were also advocates of eugenics." Dilan E

I'm not talking a hundred years ago. International Planned Parenthood was at least somewhat approving to modern Singapore's period of semi-eugenic population efforts. There's still a racist element among those with overpopulation concerns. I can't remember her name, but there was a feminist interviewed at NewScientist who emphasized this.

Nations like Indonesia or Brazil are more depleting of resources and forests than many of the African nations with high fertility rates. However Africans are the concern. To the point that the AIDS epidemic causing population decreases in such "overcrowded" nations as Botswana was almost seen as not such a bad thing by some in that crowd.

Posted by Thomas R | February 21, 2008 6:36 PM

If fearing a future in which the majority of the population of my country will consist of culturally alien new arrivals and their descendants who, worse yet, have and will have their natural in-group preference, and anti-white prejudices, honed and rewarded by official policies of multiculturalism and various set-asides, makes me a racist, fine, I'm a racist. I'd prefer to think of it as simple prudence, as such a future America will be one that, in addition to being an even less pleasant place to live by virtue of the hundreds of millions of new people, will be one a great deal more hostile to me, my offspring, and my relatives. Not in a "race war" sort of way, but just in terms of political rhetoric, political fact, access to services and benefits, and all the daily frictions, and occasionally irruptions, that are more frequent the more diverse a society is.

Race still matters to most of the people in the world who aren't white, and they are going to prefer their own kind to us just as they do now, and when they have the power that a majority gives them, they will use it at the expense of the still economically-dominant racial minority for which they've been taught (by status-climbing members of that racial minority!) to blame their problems. You may not be interested in racial identity politics, but racial identity politics are interested in you.

As for the displacement of white Europeans, simply put, a Europe most of whose inhabitants look to the Maghreb, or Sengambia, or China as their ancestral home and an important source of their identity will no longer be Europe at all, anymore than Muslim, Turkish Anatolia is still Hatti or the Byzantine Empire. Or more to the point, since we're discussing genetic as well as cultural replacement, it will no more be Europe than Massachussetts is still the land of the Wampanoag. Sure, there are some place names, some archeological digs, and some kitschy remembrances, but essentially, they're dead and gone.

Posted by Anonymous Coward | February 21, 2008 6:54 PM

Of course, you may think that the US has been changed for the worse by one or more contingents of immigrants in the past. Feel free to list them.

Hold on. This is precisely the kind of "you must be a racist" nonsense that makes this kind of thing hard to discuss intelligently with some people. It is surely a plausible thesis (you know, the Londonistan idea, etc.) that at least in some places in contemporary Europe, Muslim immigration has had dangerous effects on free speech and the democratic debate. Trying to force the debate to the context of the US -- which has been particularly assimilationist compared to most democratic societies -- is stealing several bases.

Moreover, I think that the RATE and NATURE of Mexican immigration into the US has been instrumental in certain negative changes in California.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 6:59 PM

" Mexican immigrants embody all of the values conservatives are constantly touting"

This bullshit again. Their children adopt the feminized american lifestyle of single motherhood. 45 percent of all hispanic births occur outside of marriage.

Posted by Mark | February 21, 2008 7:15 PM

If fearing a future in which the majority of the population of my country will consist of culturally alien new arrivals and their descendants who, worse yet, have and will have their natural in-group preference, and anti-white prejudices, honed and rewarded by official policies of multiculturalism and various set-asides, makes me a racist, fine, I'm a racist.

The majority -- the vast majority -- of the population of your country consists of the descendants of immigrants who were every bit as "culturally alien" as anybody entering the country today. You can't tell them from anybody else.

Of course, they tend to have white skins.

Posted by roac | February 21, 2008 7:30 PM

roac: yes, but the numbers immigrating were quite different than the current Hispanic immigration in the US -- and the demographic trends in Europe (and the differences with the Muslim population) are quite, quite, different.

This is akin to arguing that global warming CANNOT be a problem now, because the seas didn't drown us all during the Industrial Revolution.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 7:47 PM

TMoC quotes and writes: "If i recall correctly, Castro's Cuba at one point in the '60s actually passed a law decreeing that men had to do 50% of housework and child care.

And I'll bet that solved the problem, eh? Jolly good show!"

I had the same cynical reaction... I wouldn't have used "jolly good show," though.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 7:53 PM

BannedMoe:

Yeah, it was a poor stylistic choice.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 7:59 PM

Fitz types: "Were??? Who??? The authors I mention above??? A healthy regard for ones own civilization??? Cocern for the family & family formation??? A fear of Islam-ization & Sharia law????

It’s your own fetid imagination that wants to demonize a central & crucial conversation that any society must always have with itself."

Is it just me or is Fitz clearly not in control of his faculties these days? I realize the impending demise of the conservative movement must be putting a lot of pressure on him, but he's just cranking out gibberish here.

There's a greater chance of the US being ruled by Uranian sponge creatures than of it falling under Sharia law. That goes for Europe as well. Why are conservatives desperately seeking out the Apocalypse these days?

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 8:00 PM

the numbers immigrating were quite different than the current Hispanic immigration in the US,

I seriously doubt that. I suspect that the numbers of immigrants, in proportion to the existing population, during the latter half of the 19th Century were larger if anything that what they are today. I haven't got time to look it up -- if I'm wrong, somebody can show me.

There were whole counties in the Upper Midwest where everybody was German or Scandanavian and nobody spoke English.

Posted by roac | February 21, 2008 8:01 PM

I'm actually curious -- Hector, do you think that law did anything but make a rather silly statement? Do you think it would be a good idea for the state to enforce such a law, in any way? To have the law but not enforce it?

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 8:04 PM

TMoC says: "Moreover, I think that the RATE and NATURE of Mexican immigration into the US has been instrumental in certain negative changes in California."

That's nothing - you should have seen how pissed the Mexicans of California were when the first wave of Anglos came pouring in. They were beside themselves.

And more recently California was sickened by the Okie invasion... bunch of hillbillies with their sloppy families and their holyroller churches and their drunken ways and loud, crazy music.

HARRUMPPPHHHH!

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 8:05 PM

roac -- a few points:

The numbers at any one time, proportionally, may no=t have been higher (I'm not sure, I will look later). However, most earlier immigration took place in waves, from distant countries, with occasional "hard stop" periods. It also took place in a context lacking in the idea of multiculturalism -- sure, an ethnic group could dominate local politics of a city with parochial concerns, but it didn't have folks of other groups, at the state level, whose very profession was agitation, in an extra-political way. It also was an immigration into a country without a modern welfare state.

This is a pretty seriously apples and oranges comparison -- that it is a bad comparison doesn't prove the case of the more extreme restrictionists, but it makes it a dubious argument against their claims. Today is not yesterday. Mexico is not Europe. The USA now is not the USA then.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 8:09 PM

That's nothing - you should have seen how pissed the Mexicans of California were when the first wave of Anglos came pouring in. They were beside themselves.

What? And you don't think they had a point?

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | February 21, 2008 8:15 PM

Re: It will mean, among other things, that we have to adjust to a somewhat lower standard of living.

Huh? History suggests otherwise. When population falls but without physical destruction, standards of living increase as the survivors fall heir to a larger physical capital base. Best example: the 15th century after the Black Death cut Europe's population by about a third (and birth rates remained abysmally low for years).

Re: I think the strongest part of the article was the extent to which the idea of sex for pleasure is the real schism in the culture wars in this country.

Has there ever been a culture that did not espouse sex for pleasure? OK, some disapproved of women taking plesaure in sex, but I don't think you can ever find a culture that disapproved of men having a jolly good time in the sack, accepting, when necessary, a double standard and a madonna-whore distinction for women.

Re: A harder headed fellow, Mark Steyn, speaks truth

Mark Steyn is just as full of taurine byproduct as the hysterics who fretted that we would be destroyed by the "population bomb". There's an old saying which needs to be written in neon red and shoved under the nose of anyone who poredicts ruin based on some current trend continuing indefinitely into the future: "Trees do not grow up to the sky". Absent some major external calamity, Europe's population will drop for a couple generations then stablize, and at numbers still much higher than the population of the continent in 1900 when it ruled much of the planet.

Re: Sometime this century there will be 500 million Americans,

Unless the nation expands to take in Canada, Mexico and maybe the Carribean, that also will not happen. The population of the USA will also stabilize and begin a gentle decline.

Re: Or more to the point, since we're discussing genetic as well as cultural replacement, it will no more be Europe than Massachussetts is still the land of the Wampanoag.

A very poor analogy. The Wampanoag were technologically (and probably culturally) inferior to the Europeans. That's not true of Europe (or the US) vis-a-vis its immigrants. If anything, the opposite is true albeit not to the extent that Europeans once overshadowed the Native Americans. A better analogy would be with the African populations imported to the New World: even where they were a large majority (Haiti, Jamaica, etc.) they mostly lost their own culture and adopted, however imperfectly, the culture of the overclass. That's the pattern when a socially/economically/politically inferior people, howesoever numerous, settle in alien lands among others with more wealth and power than themselves. In fact, that can ever happen when they come as conquerors not as inferiors, which is why Russia speaks Russian not Mongol, England does not speak Norman French, and the languages of Spain are Latin-based, not Arabic or Gothic.

Re: Why are conservatives desperately seeking out the Apocalypse these days?

Why does anyone? Liberals have their apocalypses too: global warming, peak oil, even the subprime meltdown.

Re: you should have seen how pissed the Mexicans of California were when the first wave of Anglos came pouring in. They were beside themselves.

Not true. The European population of California (and most of the Southwest) thought of themselves as Spanish, not Mexican, and they despised the regime in Mexico City. Many of them joined the American settlers in the revolt against Santa Ana. Of course they were treated very shabbily afterward, and probably regretted it then.

Posted by JonF | February 21, 2008 8:35 PM

TMoC quotes and replies: "That's nothing - you should have seen how pissed the Mexicans of California were when the first wave of Anglos came pouring in. They were beside themselves.

What? And you don't think they had a point?"

Don't ask me. I'm too busy bitching about those goddamned English and Scot $%&@ers who immigrated into Ireland.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 8:35 PM

Mexican immigrants embody all of the values conservatives are constantly touting"

This bullshit again. Their children adopt the feminized american lifestyle of single motherhood. 45 percent of all hispanic births occur outside of marriage.

Your data is out of date. Romney stated the same obsolete data in his concession speech. The latest figure is up to 49.9%.

Posted by scottynx | February 21, 2008 8:42 PM

However, most earlier immigration took place in waves, from distant countries, with occasional "hard stop" periods.

I doubt this, at least for the period before 1920. But the data are out there.

It also was an immigration into a country without a modern welfare state.

Is there data to show that recent immigrants are more likely to be on welfare, however defined, than native-born Americans in the same socio-economic bracket? Certainly not the illegals. Anecdotally, the immigrants where I live (and there are lots of them) are visibly working their butts off.

It also took place in a context lacking in the idea of multiculturalism

OK, it's late in the thread to start this, but I have wanted to ask this since blogbrowsing rose to the top of my time-wasting list: Just what the HELL does the Right think "multiculturalism" is, and why is it so bad?

sure, an ethnic group could dominate local politics of a city with parochial concerns, but it didn't have folks of other groups, at the state level, whose very profession was agitation, in an extra-political way.

I don't have the slightest idea what this is about. Yesterday I saw it argued somewhere that there is a secret plot, abetted by the President of Mexico, pursuant to which the Hispanics of California will rise up in the night and seize the Southwest by force. I have to say, you seem too smart to believe that. But if "extra-political" doesn't mean armed insurrection, then what? Who are these people? Are they related to the Outside Agitators who stirred up the happy proletariat in the South in the 1950s?

Posted by roac | February 21, 2008 8:47 PM

Dilan:

"plenty of pro-natalists DO have racist and prejudiced motivations, wanting to increase the populations of whites and Christians, trying to outbreed the Muslims, etc."

speaking of prejudices! Any evidence about this "plenty"? Have you met any? I have not. However, I do know personally many people like you who have elitist, self-righteous prejudices about those who do not share their abstract universalist pieties. Perhaps it is because I live in the NY area...

Posted by Carlo | February 21, 2008 8:51 PM

Carlo writes: "I do know personally many people like you who have elitist, self-righteous prejudices about those who do not share their abstract universalist pieties."

Is that an intentional self-parody?

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 9:05 PM

JonF replies: "Why does anyone? Liberals have their apocalypses too: global warming, peak oil, even the subprime meltdown."

Is there really something "liberal" about any of those things? Conservatives seem to be responding to all three, albeit belatedly.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 9:09 PM

"Just what the HELL does the Right think 'multiculturalism' is, and why is it so bad?"

This is one area I'm out of step with the Right on, or at least a bit. The US has been multicultural from the beginning. In 1776 a family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania was quite different in culture to one in Baltimore, Maryland and those two aren't that distant geographically. To some degree complaining about multiculturalism just seems like a smart way to justify bigotry.

However I think some of them mean something a bit more plausible that I could see as negative. I think the idea is that "multiculturalism" means virtually no common values and no need for any culture to adapt to new surroundings. So a Mexican immigrant to the US should not even be encouraged to learn English while immigrants from Pakistan would be within their rights to kill adulterers. (For extreme examples) I'm not sure anyone believes in that kind of "multiculturalism" though.

Posted by Thomas R | February 21, 2008 9:17 PM

Thomas R writes: "However I think some of them mean something a bit more plausible that I could see as negative. I think the idea is that "multiculturalism" means virtually no common values and no need for any culture to adapt to new surroundings. So a Mexican immigrant to the US should not even be encouraged to learn English while immigrants from Pakistan would be within their rights to kill adulterers. (For extreme examples) I'm not sure anyone believes in that kind of "multiculturalism" though."

They don't - at least not in any significant numbers.

I think the genesis of the right-wing complaints about multicurturalism cam about because schools were exposing kids to the cultures of the "newcomers" among us. They figured kds should just be steeped in turkey/cherry tree/cowboys vs injuns/Honest Abe storylines and leave that newfangled stuff out.

Since all of that old stuff is still taught (over and over again) and there's value in learning about other cultures, particularly when they're being assimilated into your own, I think those complaints were and are extraordinarily stupid and mean, but there you go.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 21, 2008 9:32 PM

Dilan: I think it's a bit ludicrous to take the liberal "doesn't matter" to your extreme here, and assume that ethnic/religious background of parents has (in the long run) NO correlation with cultural factors. Do you like the culture of Pakistan precisely as much as you do that of Britain?

Marquis:

1. I tend to think that over time, cultures move (if sometimes in fits and starts) towards the secular models, and the children of immigrants tend to assimilate much faster.

2. Whether, in the end, race matters or not, I have found, for what it is worth, that one of the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives don't seem to see the dangers in attributing causation to race and gender and other such characteristics , whereas liberals know that there are all sorts of reasons why it's best to be cautious in that area.

Posted by