MORE ON THE EMPTY CRADLE: Blogolitic sends this comment:
Isn't there a contradiction between this posting and that about Dalrymple (Jan 23)? Have children . . .but not THOSE children, or by THOSE fathers? It would seem that the real challenge is for people to have ADULTS -- that is, rear children to a self-sustaining maturity. The question lying at the heart of your contradiction, I think, is which is the greater evil -- for "good" people (or the right people, or responsible people) to opt out of having children, or for "bad" people (the wretched horrors of Dalrymple's article)to have several. As painful as it might sound, there is at least the statistical chance that an ignored child of an evil mother MIGHT become, say, Einstein while the child who was never born -- no matter how excellent the potential parents -- can never be anything, good or bad.
Interesting thought. One hates to go Darwinian and suggest that only the best be allowed to breed - in part because when we think "the best," each of us look in the mirror. Who breaks that tie?
Maybe the contradiction is only apparent. Statistically at least, this generation of Europeans seems to have attained to the emotional maturity of a 13-year-old: they want to be taken care of, but they want to be independent too, but they don't want any unpleasantness such as hard work to achieve it. The horrendous portrait by Dalrymple of the British "underclass" shows the extreme consequences of this attitude, both in the degradation of humanity and in the generosity of the state. I wouldn't worry about the UK repopulating on this basis. The children are too few; the lives, sad to say, too short.
9:47:54 PM 
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