Posted 7:24 PM by magnu231
Decline and Fall

To bastardize my favorite poet: this is the way a civilization ends, not with a bang but a whimper. The article is by Mark Steyn (a writer I enjoy), and it talks about the declining birthrate in Europe, America, and Japan, while the birthrate soars in other countries. He (rather morbidly) sees the current free speech debates as anger as a dying civilization (literally) tries to enforce its norms on a youthful one. It's an interesting point (although I think you have to get a subscription to read the whole thing, or go out and pick up the magazine). Back in the day fears that "we" would be overtaken and overwhelmed by "them" were used by people like Hitler and even such modern "heroes" as Margaret Sanger to inflame the public into endorsing their policies. But these fears were predominently racial in tone. Is it (and this is going outside the article), acceptable to be concerned about the dearth of births when one is in the middle of a culture war? I think small things like the cartoon riots, as well as big things like terrorism, suggest that we are in a culture war. The peaceful wing of Islam has been beaten pretty thoroughly, and now the thugs are coming after Western values. Could it be that this war will not be lost by bombs, ideas, or any of the other ways that wars are conventionally lost, but by procreation? I honestly don't know. All I know is this. It's your responsibility, gentle readers, to keep up. So get out there and impregnate for the good ol' U.S. of A!

0 comments