Elizabeth Kolbert writes in The New Yorker that having kids is kinda’ selfish and probably shouldn’t be left up to you.
You’ve really gotta’ read the whoe thing. It’s just sickening.
Just check out this nugget:
Global population is expected to hit eight billion around 2025, which is to say about ninety-five years later than Knowlton predicted. No one in his right mind supposes that it could reach sixty-four billion without horrific consequences, except perhaps a few economists.
The decision to have a child, or one more child, or yet another child may seem to be a personal one—a choice about how many diapers you want to change in the short term versus how many Mother’s Day cards you hope to receive later on. But to see it in these terms alone is to be, as Caplan points out on the cover of his book, selfish. Whatever you may think of Overall’s and Benatar’s conclusions, it’s hard to argue with their insistence that the decision to have a child is an ethical one. When we set the size of our families, we are, each in our own small way, determining how the world of the future will look. And we’re doing this not just for ourselves and our own children; we’re doing it for everyone else’s children, too.
How horrible is this line of thinking? This is the same kind of logic that gets us the government takeover of healthcare. Because every healthcare decision you make affects others, the government should get involved and tell you what to do.
Using this same logic that having babies is just selfish and that it affects others, is it really a big jump to have the government start limiting the number of children one can have?
Go read the whole thing and then come back and share your horror.
April 12, 2012 at 4:06 am
They keep talking about overpopulation and yet there are reports to suggest there aren't enough people to sustain a working system that cares for the elder generations.
April 12, 2012 at 4:32 am
This kind of thing makes me laugh–that is, until I reach the line about "natural" acts like childbearing require defense. Two thoughts then occur: 1. We've gotten awfully picky and choosy about which natural urges ought to be celebrated (gay sex yes! childbearing no!) but maybe that's the point, b/c gay sex is, definitely, non-procreative and 2. I look for this to be the next "gay marriage" issue. Who defends procreation and provides reasons for procreation? Why, the religious due, with their silly belief in sky -gods and such. These kinds of articles are the harbingers of annoying, Puritanical, finger-wagging, freedom-reducing movements to come.
April 12, 2012 at 5:16 am
i love how those who criticize my large family as "selfish" fail to see the sacrifice it really is,,
April 12, 2012 at 7:24 am
Larger families have a much smaller "footprint" per capita than smaller ones. If there needs to be a "policy" on childbearing, it should require all childbearing couples to have at least six, or else none at all.
Obviously I don't really believe that, but we need to start pushing that as a Swiftian "Modest Proposal" response to this rubbish.
April 12, 2012 at 9:45 am
Same kind of logic people have for "illegal immigrants" taking away our resources.. instead just shift it down a generation..
April 12, 2012 at 12:01 pm
She argues at one point that happiness is solely a function of how much stuff you have. It's been my experience they those who live a more modest lifestyle tend to be happier than those who are handed everything they want on demand.
But what bothers me the most is the advocacy of the position that we should not have children st all, especially in an era of unprecedented governmental largesse. Who's going to pay for all of this?
If these population nuts want to breed themselves out of existence, I say Godspeed.
April 12, 2012 at 12:04 pm
"When we set the size of our families, we are, each in our own small way, determining how the world of the future will look." Since the Muhammadans are continuing to have large families then the world of the future will have Sharia law.
April 12, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Scary and true.
April 12, 2012 at 2:02 pm
To those who think it is selfish to have children…feel free not to breed.
April 12, 2012 at 2:31 pm
I've always wondered why those who favor abortion, euthanasia, zero-population growth always point the finger at others' behavior and choices. We never see them gather en masse to do themselves in in an eco-friendly manner.
Obviously, I do not support such an activity. I merely point out the hypocrisy in their hubris. 'The world would be so much better off with less of YOUR kind, but I'm good because I'm PROGRESSIVE.'
April 12, 2012 at 2:34 pm
This post reminds me of a report (liberal propaganda) on 60 Minutes (I think) about China a while back; they had a classroom full of Chinese students (in China) talk about having children. On camera, as I remember, one of the students said it was selfish to have too many children (more than one).
Is Elizabeth Kolbert China's Tokyo Rose (for civilians)?
Gerry
April 12, 2012 at 3:54 pm
I agree with her:
"When we set the size of our families, we are, each in our own small way, determining how the world of the future will look. And we’re doing this not just for ourselves and our own children; we’re doing it for everyone else’s children, too."
We want the world to be filled with faithful active Catholics…and it is a lot easier to raise a bus load of Catholic kids than it is to change the heart of one person like the author, Kolbert. My kids are a blessing to me and to others–and will continue to bless as they enter society. Take that agnostics.
ps, don't liberal women find it odd that liberal men are always seeking to give them poisonous chemicals when their bodies are healthy? Squirting toxic metals up there so that men can have their way…not very loving if you ask me. But if lust is what you seek…by all means, continue.
April 12, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Let's hope the lib nut jobs limit breeding and then we can breed them out of existence. And conservative big families can take over.
April 12, 2012 at 4:14 pm
"The Church’s stand on birth control is the most absolutely spiritual of all her stands and with all of us being materialists at heart, there is little wonder that it causes unease. I wish various fathers would quit trying to defend it by saying that the world can support 40 billion. I will rejoice in the day when they say: This is right, whether we all rot on top of each other or not, dear children, as we certainly may. Either practice restraint or prepare for crowding…"
–Flannery O’Connor, letter, 1959 (from The Habit of Being)
April 12, 2012 at 5:55 pm
The line of thinking is quite literally psychotic. One of the authors makes this statement:
“One of the implications of my argument is that a life filled with good and containing only the most minute quantity of bad—a life of utter bliss adulterated only by the pain of a single pin-prick—is worse than no life at all,” Benatar writes.
So he's saying it would be better if life itself didn't exist at all. We all know nihilism always has a happy outcome. Just ask Nietzche. At the end of his life he used to sit and smash his head on his piano keyboard while screaming at the top of his lungs at God. I hope this author has a better outcome for his life.
April 12, 2012 at 6:04 pm
The New Yorker article is making subjective statements as if they are facts! How ridiculous.
April 12, 2012 at 8:58 pm
Taken to it's logical conclusion, this is the future through the lens of secular humanism.
If there is no immortal soul, no eternal perspective, and no God who is head-over-heels in love with each person that is created, then each person and each couple has only the responsibility to procreate for the good of the species, and not for the intention of God's purposes. In the secular view, there is no innate dignity in the human race, it is merely a species competing for resources.
This issue can't be resolved through conversation, only conversion.
April 12, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Ugh. What a mess this thinking is. It absolutely terrifies me.
@Jonathan—"If these population nuts want to breed themselves out of existence, I say Godspeed." LOL!!
April 13, 2012 at 1:54 am
The moral vacuousness of the thesis is matched by its intellectual vacuousness generally. Without families and many children our societies have no future. Where abortion and contraception are widespread, a society grows older, unable to grow economically or otherwise, and implodes. To take care of our older people, to sustain and grow a thriving economy, we need big families providing the wealth-makers, innovators, investors and workers of the future. Western societies are failing due to aging populations. See "Demographic Winter". Families with many children will pay for the pensions of those who refused the gift of parenthood, those who refuse to support the future of their communities. The writer needs to do a basic course in ethics, not to mention logic – ethics is grounded in logic, not ideology. Try it?
April 13, 2012 at 4:21 am
Liberals, thank you for making a world without liberals for my children to enjoy.
April 13, 2012 at 6:57 am
I think Kolbert might want to consider just how much she sounds like an anime villain here. Schopenhauerian pessimist-nihilism is a popular motive for villains—because it's so damn seductive, yet so obviously wrong.
Who the hell do you think we are? If the earth can't support much more population (and it can support 35 billion at a US calorie-intake level, 105 billion at a Japanese one), we'll just build O'Neill Islands in the Lagrange points. If that's still not enough room, we'll expand to the asteroid belt, the bigger moons, the Kuiper belt, and even to other stars.
All the lights in the sky are stars.