The pseudo intellectualism of the birthrate cult

Here’s another example of why I do not give much weight to birth rate projections, and especially to assured doomsday scenarios based on low present birth rates: birth rates change. In fact, fluctuations in birthrates are normal, with high fertility leading to low fertility, and low fertility, such as is now the case in Europe, leading to high fertility. Writers who issue certain predictions of distant future events by projecting present fertility far into the future are acting more like techno-geeks than thinkers. They seem to get a frisson from imagining that they have the ability to discern the shape of History, including, perversely, such horrible events as the disappearance of Italy or the extinction of Europe, the inevitability of which they declare with great authority and relish. We need less dime-store Hegelianism about the death of the West, and more thought about ways to save it.

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Derek C. writes:

I agree that there is a danger in extrapolating trends too far into the future. Buchanan, Steyn and others indulge in this to an embarrassing extent at times. However, it should be recognized that the analysis does have some validity. Goldberg cites the overpopulation issue. The numbers predictions have held fairly true. If I remember correctly, the demographers said we’d hit 6 billion around the year 2000, and so we have. What undid the predictions of disaster was economic growth.

Looking at Europe there are two salient and cautionary points that stand out. First, even if the rates of native whites increase, it will take a generation or two for those numbers to show. Remember, too, that those numbers of “native” births often include second generation immigrants. Second, when Goldberg points to Russia’s increasing birthrate, he’s pointing to an exception. Unlike most of Europe, Russia has explicitly recognized its demographic collapse as a problem, and it has taken concrete steps to turn its native birthrate around. Because of this, predictions about Russia are dicey. In places like Britain, though, where the governing elite are still largely in denial, the extrapolations remain valid.

James W. writes:

It is simple to see how a low birth rate cycle would work itself out, absent faux alternatives. In time, those people who did choose to have children would become the dominant culture in the land. But that honest correction is obliterated by the advent of socialism, so we instead see that cycle morph into things varied and grotesque.

Jim N. writes:

“…fluctuations in birthrates are normal, with high fertility leading to low fertility, and low fertility, such as is now the case in Europe, leading to high fertility.”

Fertility? Fertility? Oh well, any euphemism in a storm, I guess. Birth rates aren’t down because women aren’t having babies for some natural reason. Birthrates are down because Western people on a massive scale are choosing to A) deliberately obstruct nature for their own selfish pleasure, and B) murder their offspring when option A fails. That behavior, unless a widespread change of heart should occur, seems unlikely to change. To say so is not “dime-store Hegelianism.” No one holding this position has claimed, so far as I know, that the progression of history somehow makes low birth rates inevitable. What people argue is that, based upon a rational analysis of the actual causes, it appears pretty likely—unless chastity and moral virtue should somehow make a comeback. (However, if some people are going further than this and definitively predicting very specific consequences—the death of Italy, for example—they’re going too far. There are too many other factors at play in something like that.)

And yes, I understand that “fertility” is the sociological term used for the measure of a population’s birthrate. But the reason it is is because in the past, when the term came into usage, artificial birth control was unavailable and abortion was not freely practiced (in other words, there was a close link between a woman’s potential for having children and her actually having children). So in my eyes, it’s little more than a euphemism; a way of dancing around the truth.

P.S. While one can know by faith that overpopulation was never a threat and underpopulation is (otherwise, God would not have said unconditionally, “Be fruitful and multiply”), there’s another reason why the events alluded to in the NRO article occurred, and I just gave it. The overpopulation “threat” was ended by the advent of artificial birth control—and that was only effective because of the freedom to engage in wanton sex that strongly encouraged its use. It’s hard to imagine an equivalent fix in the other direction; maybe some device that delivers intense pleasure when a baby is popped out or something…?

LA replies:

Come on, Jim, calm down. As you well understand, I was simply using fertility as a synonym for birth rate. And all cultures, not just in modern times with modern birth control methods, but in past times, have varied in their birthrates, which indicates that a society’s birth rate is not simply an automatic, natural function of marital relations, but that women exercise some control—“non-natural” control—over how many children they have. And the same holds true today. One state of society—too high a birth rate—tends to lead to its opposite state—a lower birthrate; and vice versa.

That doesn’t mean it must reverse. I am not arguing for inevitabilities. If current trends stay in place, then yes, the white West will come to an end. But the Buchanans, the Steyns, and the “Spenglers” have not argued this in terms of trends and “ifs.” To the contrary, they leaped onto low European birthrates as the final, absolute truth that Europe is doomed. Almost as though they they wanted Europe to be doomed. Almost as though they got a charge out of predicting the certain death of Europe. Almost as though they own imagined ability to see the future was more important to them than preserving our civilization.

You’ve also miscontrued me when you say that no one has argued “that the progression of history somehow makes low birth rates inevitable.” I did not say they argue that, but the reverse. I said they argue that the low birth rates make the end of our civilization inevitable.

Hannon writes:

I thought you might find this piece of interest. Same problem with projection, but certainly it presents ideas that challenge modern dogmas about population growth.

LA writes:

Clarification: my phrase, “dime-store Hegelianism,” was impressionistic rather than exact. I was trying to convey the idea of intellectuals imagining, like Hegel, that they possess the key that enables them to understand the ultimate direction and outcome of history.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 08, 2008 10:05 AM | Send