What’s Wrong with the World

It was Timothy Leary and the Weather Underground.
http://thecargoculte.com/archives/1798

See, so that's obviously a pretty bad pedigree, isn't it? Especially as regards Communism. I wonder if they just meant that _they_ should breed, not that having babies was in general a good thing.

5.) They were converted to Christianity, became cultural conservatives, got PhDs in Theology, and teach at Hillsdale. They no longer "let their freak flag fly," so you don't recognize them any more. You know, guys like me.

6) They evolved into the modern environmentalist movement and its fellow travelers.

Not a hippie, but how about a hardcore radical left-wing feminist? Germaine Greer's Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility was a take-no-prisoners diatribe against the first world's (and maybe the second world's, too, I don't remember) campaign for contraception and population control. Her bête noire was Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb. She had the knives sharpened for him.

Greer's book had a very strong influence on the way I think, not because it was especially good or original (it wasn't), but because it was one of the first books I read that valorized the "primitive" life of large families in traditional societies and proclaimed that even for very poor people, children can be a joy rather than a burden. Lots of children. It argued, or maybe screamed, against the imposition of bourgeois Western values on traditional, non-Western societies, saying that we have more to learn about family life from them than they from us.

I don't know what her views are today, but the Germaine Greer who wrote that book would be 1000 percent against the Chinese policy.

Michael Bauman, after I hit "publish," I realized that I had forgotten the conversion option. :-)

Aaron, good point about Greer.

Mike T., I think that's a version of 4.

It seems like they did exist. I'm think of Joan Baez who was adamant against the Vietnam War. Then when North Vietnam started slaughtering more people in two years than we did in fifteen, she spoke out against that as well and has been exiled to the Leftist doghouse since; reminding us that the Left is just fine with brutal dictators as long as they are not for free trade.

Any candidates for old-fashioned lefty-hippie types who, if they were alive today, would be calling for defunding the UNFPA and who would have the hair on the back of their necks rise when they heard "population control program"?

Though barely alive today, he is writing this comment.

Ah, so Bill, you fall into the "conversion" category that I forgot to include! Excellent. That was a big oversight on my part.

Lydia, I think that there are a few of them (unconverted) who are still out there. They had their 4 to 10 children, but they dropped out of society and were so busy cooking organically grown food over a wood stove (that alone takes up nearly the entire day, milling the wheat, soaking the beans, kneading the bread, keeping the stored fruits from rotting, canning veggies, homeschooling...) that they no longer had any time to march and protest anymore. By 1990, they were old and gray and quiet. Their children grew up rejecting the whole idea, because (a) there never was any grounding of sense to it as a way of viewing the world, and (b) children can often see through their parent's irrational foibles. They are actually really decent people, now that they keep their opinions to themselves.

I actually met one like this outside an abortion mill. He wasn't converted away from hippiedom per se (well, not totally), but he had been converted to Christianity: he prays all the time, and he gets all sorts of visions and stuff. Interestingly, some years after the visions started, he grew to realize that some of the visions were from Satan, and he could not rely on a supernatural interior experience merely because it was supernatural.

Good question, Lydia.

Here's John Lennon and Yoko Ono against the overpopulation hype:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yRh5NNiFG0

Tony, your comment is great. Very funny, and probably true. And what's really a thing to think about is this: Some of their children may have grown up to be pro-choice Republicans!

Interesting clip, Jeff, and one I hadn't seen. I think it's kind of a cultural comment to see Lennon put a left spin on it: "Overpopulation is a myth they've thrown out there to keep your mind off of Vietnam and Ireland and all that." That's very much what one would expect from the type of people I was envisaging in the main post.

Hi I am a converted freak (born a tad too late to be a true hippy). In my pranksterish days, although I was "prochoice" I was aghast at any sort of coercion. My circle did not approve of commies any more than we did capitalists - we were just disconnected freaks. We really believed in live and not live.

Fast forwarding I now believe the Catholic church is correct about sexual morality. Presently, I don't want to subscribe to any "ism" but suppose that I am a sort of mellowed freak-anarchist-conservative. I think people fall into all of the Lydia's above categories. I am surprised that very educated, politically correct and liberal people just shrug about civil rights when its someone else's problem.

Mike T., I think that's a version of 4.

I'm dubious that the modern environmental movement is in line with the larger left-wing movement because it is virulently anti-worker in practice. Quite a few environment groups would consider the wholesale disappearance of the majority of the world's poor and the industry need by/supported by them to be a positive, not negative.

I'm dubious that the modern environmental movement is in line with the larger left-wing movement because it is virulently anti-worker in practice.

The larger left-wing movement is itself rather anti-worker in practice, at least for white proles. The left's concern for workers consists largely of wresting massive wealth transfers from disfavored classes to the favored... "work" is strictly optional. If the left truly cared about workers, they'd be vociferous in opposing low-skill immigration, illegal and otherwise. They don't.

Lydia,

During the upcoming 40 Days for Life vigils I think you'll find a few of them -- perhaps sans long hair and tie-dyed T-shirts.

Not to open a can of worms, but the hippie culture was no such unified a thing. It was really stratified into the high knowledge and low knowledge groups. The low knowledge group went to Woodstock and favored free love and birth control. The high (as in clued into the real reasons for the hippie movement) were radical leftists who favored overthowing or radicalizing the government. The low knowledge hippies eventually morphed into the pre-Yuppies and, by and large, became the morally clueless middle class of today. The high knowledge hippies either died by the sword, by the needle, or by their own big mouths (although, some got elected to Congress and put the sword, the neddle, and their mouths to the cause of ruining the government by other means). Few low knowledge hippies made it into politics, but some of them converted and became either Kumbya Christians or militant pro-lifers. You want to find pro-life hippies? Go to the next AARP meeting and look for people with headbands.

The Chicken

Lydia, I had a Marxist prof. back in the day who hated Paul Erlich and considered him a racist and imperialist tool. The prof. believed that third world women need to produce future soldiers to fight capitalist imperialism - sort of brood mares for the revolution.

I just saw the GG comment, lol. So we take Ms Marxist-anarchist, married for three weeks on a whim seriously on family size?

Having babies is a neutral sort of thing that multi-celled, carbon based life forms just do. The "goodness" (or lack thereof) is completely context based. Your "hippie" reference took me back a few decades to a conversation I had with a young woman who had spent time on a commune in New Mexico. The decision had been made that birth control was "unnatural". The result was predictable; the guys moved on after a while and the women were left with the kids. One still sees the guys, or those still alive, shuffling up and down 101.

Experience has clearly demonstrated that involving fools in pulpits and knaves in government in a matter that is best dealt with as an object of personal choice in the context of cultural equality for men and women is likely to lead to problematic results. What you are missing is that given their druthers, folks in a developing economy, on average (and that, not any one individual, is all that counts) will reproduce somewhere around replacement level.

The hippies who temporarily tried a "pro-life" life-style either learned the hard way or learned the easy way (by observing those who learned the hard way) that making an 18 year commitment (at a minimum) is best done rationally not ideologically.

While the Chinese government policy is beastly, there is no reason to believe that given access to choice and contraception, Chinese women would choose a family size much different than women in those places where choice and contraception are freely available. Denying women in China access to family planning because of a cruel and stupid policy of their government makes no sense.

(Oh, and just when would you give the women in that African country access to family planning? When they visit their gynecologist for their annual pap smear?

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/map-of-the-day.html

Oh.

As for those poor men: Studies show that these guys, within the context of their traditional, socially conservative cultures, are too often useless drones. Give them a buck and it is likely to go to drink and drugs, prostitutes, or weapons. Give their wives the same buck and it is likely to be spent on their children or starting a business. Unless you have actual evidence of some abuse, I really can't see a problem with giving these men a chance to engage in responsible behavior.

BTW, referring to China as "totalitarian" isn't really accurate or useful. China is more accurately described as a one party, authoritarian state committed to capitalism. (More such states are likely the future - we are approaching that status from the opposite direction. Socially democratic representative government is fated to be a Scandinavian boutique phenomenon.)

Anyway we settled how we were going to approach China in 1972 in the midst of the Cultural Revolution and when it WAS a totalitarian state actively engaged in genocidal actions in Tibet; a stance reconfirmed by our reactions to Tiananmen Square. In the scheme of those things the population policy is going to be small beer when there is Profit involved - either way the policy will continue until china decides to change it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nixon_Mao_1972-02-29.png

While the Chinese government policy is beastly,

[snip]

BTW, referring to China as "totalitarian" isn't really accurate or useful.

So they require people to have only one child, and if they don't, they fine them in huge multiples of yearly income, and if the people don't pay, they come and destroy their houses or throw their relatives in prison or snatch the child, and this is "beastly," but hey, it isn't really accurate or useful to call the government totalitarian. Hmmm.

As for those poor men: Studies show that these guys, within the context of their traditional, socially conservative cultures, are too often useless drones. Give them a buck and it is likely to go to drink and drugs, prostitutes, or weapons. Give their wives the same buck and it is likely to be spent on their children or starting a business. Unless you have actual evidence of some abuse, I really can't see a problem with giving these men a chance to engage in responsible behavior.

I said above what I think of people who believe that mass government-run vasectomy campaigns in African countries are voluntary. I've posted evidence about this elsewhere, but I doubt it would convince everything-is-all-right-nothing-to-see-here Al, so I won't bother hunting down the links again.

Denying women in China access to family planning because of a cruel and stupid policy of their government makes no sense.

Translation: We should fund the UNFPA regardless of the fact that it works hand in glove with said cruel policy and funds and supports it. The hell with the O-rings. Let's go for it. This is about "giving women access to family planning." It's sacred. As I said above: A kind of worship.

His moral obtuseness continues to astound, though you'd think I'd be used to it by now.

Having babies is a neutral sort of thing that multi-celled, carbon based life forms just do. The "goodness" (or lack thereof) is completely context based.

Al, when humans "just do" it, in the same way as animals do it, following urges without rational input, then the humans become beastly. When humans do it with rationality and love (love including the promise of loving for the rest of the conceived child's life), it ceases to be just a carbon-based life form following an urge, it becomes a permanent addition to the eternal order, because that act of love will bear fruit into the next (eternal) life. That cannot be called "neutral", it is a positive good. Only someone who has been hoodwinked by materialism and the culture of death views such an eternal act of love as neutral. It is GOOD, GOOD, GOOD.

What you are missing is that given their druthers, folks in a developing economy, on average (and that, not any one individual, is all that counts) will reproduce somewhere around replacement level.

Never! In a developing economy, where people realistically see tomorrow having a good chance of being better than today (that is the proper meaning of "developing", isn't it?) people definitely have more than replacement numbers of children. It is only in stagnant or degenerating conditions that people voluntarily limit themselves below "burgeoning" growth rates. Because having children, when doing so in an act of truly human love, is a positive GOOD.

Denying women in China access to family planning because of a cruel and stupid policy of their government makes no sense.

But the Chinese government ISN'T denying them "family planning" if you mean family limiting methods. If you mean planning to have a first kid and then have a second kid and then later a third, yeah, (but UNFPA doesn't contribute to that kind of family planning either.) What the Chinese are doing is denying voluntary family limitation programs, and ANY kind of family growth. And yes, that smacks of totalitarianism. Why? Because only a government that thinks (in the back of its mind) that the people belong to it would think it has a right to tell them, by force, not to have even replacement level children. That's totalitarianism.

BTW, referring to China as "totalitarian" isn't really accurate or useful. China is more accurately described as a one party, authoritarian state committed to capitalism.

Hell no. It isn't "committed" to capitalism. It is making experimental trials in the direction of mechanisms that borrow from capitalist methods. But they are doing so with other constraints in place - like using the army to formulate many of its capital-seeming entities. Having government run an industry is NOT capitalism, Al. And they are perfectly willing to crack down and reverse if the experiment goes awry, so far as I have heard (though they may find it more difficult than initially imagined).

Socially democratic representative government is fated to be a Scandinavian boutique phenomenon.

You mean the only "democratic" states around will be semi-socialist, except when they are out-and-out socialist? God help us. It will only happen if the liberals of this country succeed in silencing the freedom and the conscience of the large minority that abhors such a picture. Which, admittedly, they have gone a long way toward.

His moral obtuseness continues to astound, though you'd think I'd be used to it by now.

No, no, Bill. This time he has definitely gone quite a bit further than usual. Being astounded at this moral quietism is the correct response, even given the preparation Al has given us before.

*applause* This is an hilarious post. I do sometimes think, just come out and SAY it! Don't give me this cushy language!

Tony, I used the term "context". Had Ted Bundy's mother had an abortion or Mao's mother drowned him in the river, the world would have been a better place. The "love and rationality" involved in the generation of these monsters (assuming there was any) is irrelevant. Your "eternity" is a hope not a fact.

I was trying to find some information on vasectomies and a consistent theme in interviews with the subjects is that the costs of educating and raising children in developing economies drive these decisions. Folks aren't stupid, most can figure out that it's better to raise two or three kids with an education and good nutrition then to raise five or so in poverty with limited resources and prospects.

"If you mean planning to have a first kid and then have a second kid and then later a third, yeah, (but UNFPA doesn't contribute to that kind of family planning either.)"

Based on what information? As I understand it, at this time we have to consider the one child policy a given regardless of the presence of the UN (assuming the UN's assertion that their presence is modifying things to be totally bogus), So far neither you nor anyone else has explained how the presence of a few UN program sites makes things worse. The one child policy was enacted with a limited shelf life and when it is gone it would be useful to have rational family planning in place.

"Why? Because only a government that thinks (in the back of its mind) that the people belong to it would think it has a right to tell them, by force, not to have even replacement level children. That's totalitarianism."

I don't believe governments have minds. What China does have is a history of responding to problems with poorly thought out and usually highly counterproductive campaigns (the Four Pests was typical). If your point is that the one child policy is totalitarian in the sense that spiriting folks off to secret prisons to be tortured or having ones door kicked in in the middle of the night by some SWAT team is totalitarian, I'll take your point. My point is that the term adds nothing to the discussion and is only so much venting. China was a totalitarian nation back in the day - authoritarian fits better today. And what do we then term North Korea? Ultra-totalitarian?

"Hell no. It isn't "committed" to capitalism."

Tell it to the 120 odd billionaires and one million + millionaires. As with "totalitarian", judging "capitalism" based on some Randian scale isn't going to be useful.

"You mean the only "democratic" states around will be semi-socialist, except when they are out-and-out socialist? God help us. It will only happen if the liberals of this country succeed in silencing the freedom and the conscience of the large minority that abhors such a picture."

Again, it helps to have a meaningful scale. Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark are all socialist hell-holes? Anyway there are no socialist countries, OK, maybe Cuba but even they are cutting back (1949 Chevies can only last so long). My comment was likely more hope than anything else. You all exercising your "freedom and conscience" is propelling the nation into a one party authoritarian state (where we will meet a China traveling from the other direction).

"Which, admittedly, they have gone a long way toward."

Tony, you guys are winning, that's why things are falling apart.

Had Ted Bundy's mother had an abortion or Mao's mother drowned him in the river, the world would have been a better place.

This, folks, is a sentiment Al has expressed before. He said on a previous thread that it was a shame that the mother of his clients' adopted son had "chosen life," because the fellow grew up to be such a thorn in the flesh to the clients, his adopted parents. Sweet.

As I understand it, at this time we have to consider the one child policy a given regardless of the presence of the UN (assuming the UN's assertion that their presence is modifying things to be totally bogus), So far neither you nor anyone else has explained how the presence of a few UN program sites makes things worse.

"As I understand it, at this time we have to consider the policy of eradicating the Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe to be a given. So far no one has given us reason to believe that a few program sites through which our tax dollars are subsidizing the Holocaust makes things worse. They're gonna do it anyway. But maybe by being involved on the ground we can help to put a rational system in place for replacing the Nazis when the war is over."

Oh, Al, by the way: Your "rational family planning" programs are the same thing as the government's programs in those regions. You don't seem to get this, somehow.

I realize you anti-aborts get a lot of inner satisfaction by identifying yourselves with abolitionists and women exercising their right to control their own bodies with the Holocaust but would you care to explain just what program sites we would have possibly wanted to run in Auschwitz?

"thorn in the flesh"

I could probably find twenty or thirty families who would see no problem with Ted Bundy's mother getting an abortion and you actually mourn a world without Mao? Average teenagers are a "thorn in the flesh", psychopaths are forever; count yourself lucky that you clearly don't understand the difference.

Average teenagers are a "thorn in the flesh", psychopaths are forever;

Posted by al | September 14, 2011 11:38 AM

A fascinating defense of abortion: let's kill 50 million children because some tiny percentage of them will grow up to be psychopaths.

I'm trying to understand why the converse is not equally persuasive to Al: let's prevent the killing of 50 million children because some (probably much larger) percentage of them will grow up to be remarkable scientists, encouraging leaders, or just plain decent folks.

I guess it just depends on whether, at your base, you love people and want more of them, or hate them and want less of them.

"A fascinating defense of abortion..."

Not so much, merely a reflection on reality - a reality easily confirmed by a weekend afternoon spent in any big box (or with a history book). Not all of us are cut out to be parents and the world would be a far better place had some of us not been born. As we can't know the future, fiat isn't going to help us here.

Besides that there is a difference between defending abortion and acknowledging hard realities. Not all abortions are equal, hence some can be defended and some can't. Abortion, like speech, is a right because the costs of treating it otherwise far exceed the benefits.

"I guess it just depends on whether, at your base, you love people and want more of them, or hate them and want less of them."

While it is obviously arguable that a future earth would be a better place if the niche we plains apes occupy were cleared for one of our cousins (hopefully more forest, less plains) to move on up, it isn't useful to use the love/hate distinction.

Beyond the obvious - on the one hand, populations can be too low and unable to support civil society as well as a modern economy and, on the other hand, the idea that we are entirely exempt from the constraints that bind other animals is hopelessly naive (our area has gray foxes and they regularly multiply until rabies - endemic in California - devastates the population and then we start again - I just saw my first gray fox in several years).

We humans have an advantage as we can figure this out and, freed from the delusions of ideology and theology, self-limit our numbers based on the economics. As it happens, most of the drop in the Chinese birth rate happened prior to the one child policy and that policy is obviously unsustainable over time. Hope this helps.

We humans have an advantage as we can figure this out and, freed from the delusions of ideology and theology, self-limit our numbers based on the economics.

Since this is so obviously a vital premise undergirding almost everything you argue, Al, it would seem that I am not remiss in pointing out that your want of hard thinking on your most vital premise leaves the rest of us a touch baffled.

What is this "advantage" that we humans have? It must be something. It must, indeed, be something impressive. Otherwise how could it both free us (from our delusions) and bind us (by inducing us to "self-limit")?

This native essence or quality that "we humans" possess is clearly an interesting topic of conversation; yet the vast bulk of your hard rhetorical work here consists of clever dodges from having any conversation.

Apologies for the off topic, Lydia, but I was confronted by phil and asked (and accused) by Paul.

"What is this "advantage" that we humans have?"

Our advantage is that we have evolved our abilities to manipulate symbols way beyond our non-human fellows. This ability allows us to make up just-so stories and it allows us to mark (or, it seems, mostly choose not to mark) those stories to market.

There's nothing all that impressive here and certainly nothing non-linear or mystical. The local gray jays, through careful observation and some intrepid exploring, figured out that there is cat food for the taking in the garage; the warier scrub jays observed from a distance for quite a while before availing themselves of the new resource. Gray jays are wired to be more trusting; scrub jays are wired to be less so. Both are quite intelligent and capable of learning.

As it is deer hunting season, we have seen more deer hanging out lately. One of our deer, bolder than the others, has learned that if he approaches me and stares with big deer eyes, I will fetch him some tasty apples. His brother and sister deer have picked up the habit. What my non-human friends can't do, of course is pass on their knowledge with a lecture, note, or IM.

"This native essence or quality that "we humans" possess is clearly an interesting topic of conversation..."

Of course, but it's likely quantitative not qualitative. Sure, our light shines a little brighter and that provides us with the ability to spin all sorts of tales. Humans tell other humans stories about how humans are special (usually with twists that make some sub-set of humans even more - or less - special). I suspect that perhaps all that is merely an extension of greedy# primate behavior.

We humans are learning-limited in our own ways. With individual variation, of course, we are as wiring restrained as my jay friends. Most of us can figure out that it is better to raise one to three with prospects then six or eight in squalor. What most of us can't seem to figure out is how not to do the human equivalent of crowding ourselves out of our range.

http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/magazine/94963/economic-doom?passthru=ZTQ0NjYwNGNiYzc5MzhjYjUwN2ZlNTA0ZGNkNmIxNTQ

"...clever dodges from having any conversation"

And I would argue that the dodges are mostly on your part. You cleave to stories that lead you into choosing the merely personal over issues central to human well-being while - based on circumstances that are by now beyond dispute - supporting insurrection and arguably treason.

"Treason is advocating policies that you know will hurt the country, because you hope you can derive political gain from America’s misfortune. I’ll leave it to my readers to decide who should be charged with treason."

http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=10915

Anyway, I would welcome a decision on your part to abandon the second tier litmus tests, as well as coalitions with the ignorant* and despicable* and embrace a discussion focused on what has now become about the nature of American and European existence. Have you no limits?

(# I know, I know)

(* Extreme? Harsh? I don't think so. In the last few weeks I've heard applause for capital punishment, cries for constructive euthanasia, lies about modern preventive medicine, and (last night) an American soldier on active duty being booed.)

Methinks Al is a little bitter that his own coalition has blundered so badly that even congressional seats in New York City are vulnerable. (I'll tell you the moment I knew the liberals were being led to the slaughter by their clueless leaders: It was after I sat down to actually to read the Arizona immigration bill last year. I honestly could not believe the precarious and indefensible ground they were crowding their armies onto. It was like John Pope at Second Bull Run.)

Anyway, now you exert such effort to minimize that human "advantage" that remains such a vital premise to your thought, such as it is. The puzzle remains; conversation is foreclosed. It remains true that nothing in your thought, given this unexamined premise, can supply actual content to such terms as "human well-being" or "the nature of ... existence." Even so ruthless a materialist as Machiavelli could supply such terms with content. That's why it is accurate to say that there is such a thing as Machiavellian political science. There is, on the evidence of your thought here, no such thing as Al's political science. There is only a non-rational tissue of preferences, instincts, totems and prejudices.

"Methinks Al..."

Having, I fear, already over taxed the patience of this thread's proprietress, and having impending rain issues with which to deal, I will reply in due course on Paul's penultimate post south of here.