Population Control and the Environment

Birthrates continue to drop in the West. In many countries, the birthrate among citizens in well below the replacement rate. This means that, without immigration, the population of a nation will begin to shrink rather than grow. Some believe a reduction in the overall population of humans on earth would be a good thing.

There are many reasons that people are having fewer children. Some cite economic concerns, career interests, and avoidance of the responsibilities of parenting. Others cite the prevalence of entertainment that distracts and seems to replace the need for human relationships. But some people are not having children because of concerns about the environment.

In a 2019 article in the online magazine, Outside, one author celebrated his recent vasectomy. He claims that his choice of voluntary sterilization was necessary, “because there are simply too many humans on this planet.” He argues that reducing the population is absolutely necessary, “and getting there voluntarily will be an awful lot less painful than doing it with war, famine, and natural disaster.”

Throughout much of its history, the environmental movement has tended toward negative attitudes about human reproduction. The embrace of population control as a goal by many environmental activists has served to make agreement between many Christians and non-Christian environmentalists difficult.

Christians should be concerned about efforts to reduce or control human population because they often lead to violence against the most vulnerable.

The Environment and Population Control

Historically there has been a strong connection between environmental movements and population control. At the tail end of the eighteenth century, Thomas Malthus, an English clergyman, proposed delaying marriage and other means of reducing birthrates as a way to slow population growth. One of his major concerns was that a growing population would expand beyond the capacity of the agriculture of the day. This, he feared, would increase suffering as many people would starve because there was simply too little food.

In 1967, Paul Ehrlich published his famous book, The Population Bomb, where he predicted impending environmental catastrophe if the number of humans on earth continued to rise. Tillich’s thinking was used by a congressionally appointed team, the Rockefeller Commission, to argue for government funding of abortion, sterilization, and other forms of birth control. The measures recommended were voluntary, but they were to be state sponsored.

Are Kids Bad for the Environment?

For the sake of argument, let’s assume for the moment that climate change is strongly influenced by human activity. For many environmental activists, this assumption leads to the logical conclusion that fewer humans would be proportionately better for the world.

The Cross by Michael Craven. Used by CC License. http://ow.ly/RDIe30aJ2tm

However, that conclusion does not necessarily follow without additional assumptions. In making this argument, proponents of voluntary population control are assuming that consumption patterns would continue exactly as they are now.

This is an example of an over-simplified argument leading to a seemingly inarguable conclusion. In fact, it is theoretically possible that, if consumption patterns of humans were sufficiently changed, the earth could support population growth at an even greater rate. Even accepting a strong correlation between human activity and climate change, it is unnecessary to embrace an unbiblical, negative view of humans for the sake of the environment.

The Goodness of Humanity

As Christians, we should actively oppose worldviews that denigrate the value of humans. Genesis 1:26–27 affirms that humans were made in the image of God.

The first command God gave to humanity was to be fruitful and multiple. Humanity was called to “fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:28, ESV)

Part of God’s original design for the created order was for it to be filled with humans, made in his image.

Humans and the Environment

Genesis 1:28 which affirms the dignity and authority of humans, is also interpreted by some environmentalists as the verse that has enabled the abuse of the environment in the West. Such an interpretation is based on the belief that filling the earth and subduing it entails misusing the earth.

Given the track record of humans in Western nations influenced by Christianity, there seems to be some merit to the connection between a biblical worldview and the abuse of creation. However, consistent message of Scripture is that humans are to be responsible stewards of the earth. Even in Gen 1:28, the assumption is that by filling and subduing the earth, the created order will flourish in a way that supports the growing number of people made in the image of God.

The Danger of Population Control

Population control is dangerous because it tends to most significantly impact the most vulnerable. The near total abortion rate of babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome is Iceland is one example of voluntary population control that has led to humans, made in the image of God, largely eradicated because they were considered defective.

China’s radical one-child policy, which has since been somewhat relaxed, created a significant demographic problem for the nation. Culturally boys were valued more than girls, in part because they were perceived to have more potential to earn more and support parents in old age. Therefore, couples practiced sex-selective abortions, often choosing to abort baby girls. The result is a gender imbalance, with approximately 118 boys born for every 100 girls.

Population control tends to lead to the elimination of those considered less valuable by society, whether that is due to perceived defects, sex, race, or some other characteristic. A culture that values humans as made in the image of God should resist movements that promote population control as a legitimate goal. That goal has proved costly to those who can least defend themselves.

Conclusion

As citizens of the Kingdom of God, Christians must learn to think rightly about the good of humanity and the image of God. Despite the effects of the fall, Scripture consistently affirms the dignity and value of every human being. Population control movements tend to impact the most vulnerable more significantly. Therefore, Christians should be careful not to celebrate movements that make reducing the population of humans a central goal, even when those controls are implemented voluntarily.

A Connection Between Higher Taxes and Freedom of Thought

Is economic freedom important?

There is a slice of American society, many of whom are on the political right, for whom economic freedom—usually characterized by a desire for a libertarian or near anarcho-capitalist society—is an ultimate good that is good in and of itself.

In response, some on the left, especially young people who have lived in the extreme prosperity of the modern West, see economic freedom as an evil to be curbed through “more effective” redistribution of wealth through violence (think the Bezos guillotine protests) or, at the very least, expansive government programs fueled by high taxes.

For some, high taxes are a comparatively small threat when the “major threat of the far right” is concentration camps and a rather pointless, though exceedingly bloody battle in World War I.

One certified blue-checked media personality recently commented: “Seems poignant that the major threat of the far left is higher taxes, while the major threat of the far right is, well, Dachau or Verdun.”

This is, no doubt, a flippant comment in a larger conversation (albeit one that occurred in public), but it is illustrative of a tendency of some to minimize the powerful effect of growing concentrations of power, whether in government or in corporations.

There is no question that there is more than an undercurrent of hostility toward civilization on the far right. However, it remains an open question whether the “major threat of the far left” is something a bit more significant than higher taxes. The violence of Antifa and some of the riots from the summer of 2020 caused by agitators from the far-left indicate that on both poles there is cause for concern.

The Value of Economic Freedom

But the question remains whether higher taxes are really an insignificant threat.

I think it is entirely possible to believe that higher taxes are not “the major threat of the far left” while still believing them to be a significant threat to a healthy society. Of course, that belief would depend on recognizing the value of economic freedom.

Economic freedom is necessary for human flourishing, but it is not sufficient for human flourishing.

An entirely free market (which the U.S. is very far from) would not make people holy and happy. In fact, as we’ve seen through the rise of modernity, economic freedom can leave people nearly as miserable (and sometimes more so) than certain forms of totalitarianism.

In the end, economic freedom does not produce happiness. However, economic freedom does enable, for those who are virtuous and especially in a (basically) virtuous society, the ability to thrive and fulfill the unique calling of being human.

The qualified value of economic freedom can be seen by the effects of its absence.

Alternatives to Economic Freedom

If, as some versions of socialism propose, the government regulates the amount of money a person can earn, then the government fundamentally has the power to police much of human activity.

All human activity is not economic. However, a great deal of human activity is economically engaged. Even “free” activities like worship depend on the economic ability to (a) afford leisure time (i.e., time not directed toward economic productivity) to gather for worship, (b) the ability for a community of like-minded individuals to cooperate and pool resources to fund a house of worship, a vocational pastor, and to support ministries that serve the common good. The economic support for these non-economic goods is enabled by some degree of economic freedom. One must have disposable income to support ideas and communities that one prefers.

Consider further that if the government holds the keys to all wealth, even through well-intentioned redistribution programs funded by confiscatory taxes, then they hold the keys to all ideologies. If disagreeing with the powers that be (especially if those powers are in favor of increased economic control of citizens) can lead to having funding choked off through job loss or increased taxation (which might be in the form of taxation of despised charitable groups, like churches, or preferential treatment of certain charities through access to grants, etc.), then freedom of thought and speech are greatly restricted.

To be clear, the political right has often made mountains out of molehills here. Bad policies like the Affordable Care Act and the Green New Deal are not usually going to lead directly to the forms of economic control that full-on communism has. They will, thus, be unlikely to immediately exert totalitarian control over human thought.

But such soft-totalitarianism isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Though the Affordable Care Act, for example, does not necessarily entail totalitarianism, the seeds for it have been made evident by the coercive power that has been used in the name of the ACA.

Although the law itself does not actually require funding birth-control or abortifacients, the overriding concern of the regulators responsible for administration of the Affordable Care Act has been coercing, through economic and legal means, groups that object to those medical technologies to fund them. It’s not enough to ensure that workers are medically shielded from significant emergencies; many on the left are insistent that conscientious objectors be forced to fund certain ideologically preferred treatments. For example, there has been a near-pathological focus by the Left on attacking the Little Sisters for the Poor by every means available to demand they fund abortion and abortifacients in strong opposition to their conscience.

For those watching the message is clear: “Fund the ‘medical’ services we prefer or stop existing in the public square. We are willing to use the force of law to force you to comply.”

The same voices that are attempting to claw back economic freedom from people are the ones that seem to be also bent on enforcing ideological homogeneity around their preferred theories. “Cancel culture” is a real thing. Now imagine if the thought leaders that have the power to enact “cancel culture” also have the ability to cut non-preferred individuals out from government benefits.

There may be no edict that declares that one must voice allegiance to ideologies like “white fragility,” but if only meager subsistence is possible apart from government support and if support from the government requires public support for particular ideologies, then the connection between economic freedom and the more basic freedom of conscience (or thought; or speech) becomes apparent.

This seems unthinkable in contemporary America, but dramatic shifts toward public tolerance of contrary ideas has happened rapidly within the history of the past century.

Economic Freedom and Free Thinking

Economic freedom is not sufficient for free thought or the flourishing of society, but it is necessary.

In an essay for a series entitled, “Is Progress Possible?,” C. S. Lewis notes this correlation between flourishing and economic freedom:

“I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has ‘the free-born mind’. But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society [the rising democratic socialism in the U.K.] is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of the Government who can criticize its acts and snap its fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that’s the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone’s schoolmaster and employer? Admittedly, when man was untamed, such liberty belonged only to the few. I know. Hence the horrible suspicion that our only choice is between the societies with few freemen and societies with none.”

Or, consider Vaclav Havel’s lengthy essay “The Power of the Powerless,” in which he recounts the soft-totalitarianism of the Soviet ruled Czechoslovakia, where a rebellious act by the green-grocer could be merely not putting up the most recent socialist propaganda in the midst of his produce. The government that controls the economy controls the ability to think and speak.

Threat of Higher Taxes

So the threat of higher taxes is not, perhaps, the major threat from the far-left. Their recently demonstrated willingness to storm cafes to demand people make hand gestures to support their cause, to throw their food on the ground, and to harass them for daring to have quiet conversation with a friend or family member that doesn’t specifically advocate some twisted idea of “justice” are a much deeper threat. Along with that threat is the increasing violence of Antifa, whose methods look more and more like the sort of jackbooted thuggery that they claim to be resisting.

But the threat of an unending expansion of government along the lines proposed by some on the far left, including the outlines explicitly found in proponents of the Green New Deal, are real. It’s more than just higher taxes, but the ability to control the economy to stifle differing opinions.

It seems like hyperbole or slippery slope argumentation to some, but based on the words and behavior of the far left, the less unlikely such attempts to grasp power appear. The most virulent elements on the right and left are still marginal, though they tend to get disproportionate amounts of attention due to the nature of clicks and social networks.

The deeper question for those concerned about the negative effects of the polarized left and right is how to find common cause, create space for cooperation toward mutual concerns, and carve out appropriate space for conscience among increasingly divided understanding of good. That will require a more careful navigation of the significant dangers of the far left and right than simply labeling every disfavored policy on the left “socialism” or denying any concerns about freedom from the right as “selfish individualism” or “fear mongering.”

Breaking Bread with the Dead

The life of the mind is a topic of growing significance as the pace of change, with its assaults on our mental stability, continue to accelerate. Some sources estimate there are more than 2 million books published worldwide each year. And that volume of content is in addition to the newspapers, magazines, blogs, tweets, and emails that also vie for our time.

Along with the flash and glamour of new publications, our attention is also directed to “old books,” which are often celebrated as “classics” that are critical to becoming properly formed as humans or derided as elements of a “racist patriarchy” that must be resisted by any means and at any cost.

In three books, written through the last decade, Alan Jacobs has drafted a series of books that wrestle with the life of the mind, the nature of reading, and value of ancient literary history. This is an odd series. Each book comes from a different publisher, has a distinct thesis, and wrestles with a different topic. There is no thematic unity and little hope of a boxed set, which seems to be the hallmark of such sequences in our day. The progression of topics, too, does not seem as unified as one might expect.

And yet, Jacobs admits that these books are in a series, and that they are related, as disparate as they may seem. The careful reader will, indeed, find that there is a connection between them all. Not a connection that requires reading the books in sequence, but that these are markers, perhaps, staking out the boundaries of a mind alive to the unity of the world and its possibilities. The series is by no means complete, so it will not surprise me to find another short book set out to help readers navigate the modern world, published in a few more years.

Jacobs is, by profession, a teacher of literature. He has also done significant work as a cultural critic. In this he is much like C. S. Lewis, a thinker with whom Jacobs has demonstrated significant interest and expertise. It is not difficult, as a result, to find echoes of Lewis throughout Jacobs’ work, especially in this latest book, Breaking Bread with the Dead, which shares a common theme with Lewis’ essay, “On the Reading of Old Books.”

Breaking Bread with the Dead obviously comes out in favor of reading old books. But read in context with The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, it is abundantly clear that Jacobs is not advertising the “checklist” approach of slogging through “Greats,” which is a quest to max out your score on Facebook quizzes and a recipe for gobbling a gourmet feast without savoring the marinated centuries between works—in other words, it represents the sin of gluttony. Rather, he is arguing that reading old books is necessary to understand our times and to live in them.

Jacobs clearly states this goal toward the end of his introduction,

To open yourself to the past is to make yourself less vulnerable to the cruelties of descending in tweeted wrath on a young woman whose clothing you disapprove of, or firing an employee because of a tween you didn’t take time to understand, or responding to climate change either by ignoring it or by indulging in impotent rage. You realize that you need to obey the impulses of this moment—which, it is fair to say, never tend to produce a tranquil mind.

This book is an essay that wanders toward a single goal, rather than an argument with chapters neatly divided into segments of support and refutation. It is a literary essay that seeks to deal with the questions of the day. One of the most pertinent questions for our tiny historical moment is whether one dare to read authors whose social and moral views differ—whether greatly or radically—from our own.

Jacobs begins by examining the problem of presentism, which is the tendency to see our particular cultural moment as the moral apex of humanity and to denigrate all who have ever had a differing opinion. Thus, the reading of Robinson Crusoe must be abandoned because it is racist, sexist, colonial, and a bunch of other bad things that are native and irrevocably attached to old, dead, white men. Jacobs argues that in order to properly understand our own moment, we must interact with minds that came before our moment, even when they do, in fact, have racist, sexist, and colonial ideas.

The concept for engaging with those we disagree with is represented as “table fellowship,” which is obviously conveyed by the title of the book. Jacobs understands this has the center of the book: “sitting at the table with our ancestors and learning to know them in their difference from, as well as their likeness to, us.” He argues that reading even those with whom we disagree—by inviting them to our table—we open ourselves up to a greater understanding of their time and ours. But at the same time, since we invite these sometimes-scraggly guests through the practice of reading, we control the interaction, so that when they get to rowdy we can, with little effort, simply disinvite them from the meal by closing the book and moving to another guest.

Breaking bread with the dead offers us challenges to our own worldview—exactly the reason many activist “academics” want them “cancelled”—and force us to examine our unexamined assumptions. They also force us to wrestle with the reality that our morality du jour has some of the same barbarities of a previous age (albeit with a different shade of lipstick) and that it sometimes is a positive logical outcome of a trajectory we might find in older literature, if we but take the time to consider it. Reading old books helps us to understand ourselves and our time better.

As morality has become increasingly unpinned from any sense of permanence or overt morality, the pace of change from one absolute standard to another has become exhausting. A group of racist trolls on a social media site turn the “OK” symbol into a symbol for “white power” and suddenly everyone who uses the symbol, with its long-standing cultural significance, is now complicit in white supremacy. Unless, of course, someone who is of the right color or political affiliation uses it, in which case it means what it has consistently meant. The tyranny of the present undermines every sense of peace. As Jacobs argues, reading old books is the best way to remind ourselves of our own finitude, the temporary nature of our culture’s moral conclusions, and deepens our souls to better understand those who differ from us. In other words, breaking bread with the dead helps make us more human and reminds us of the humanity of others.

Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

By Jacobs, Alan

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi - A Review

It seemed like a no brainer to understand that communism is evil when I was young. I remember the excitement of the Berlin Wall coming down, though I was still in elementary school when it happened. But a generation has arisen that has no memory of the Soviet bloc and whose greatest concerns seem to be that capitalism has worked too well for some people.

There is no replacement for experience. But the best way to keep the memory of socialistic oppression alive is to study history, retell it, and ensure apologists for economic collectivism do not control the narrative.

Gary Bruce’s book, The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi, is a book that accurately presents the reality of the East German secret police and the work they did to suppress freedom, oppress their people, and punish dissent.

This book is not as flashy as some history books, but it is impressive in the quality of archival work Bruce did. The one thing that the East German government seems to have mastered is paperwork, and they left a huge volume of it for historians to dig through. Bruce’s book combines both archival research and interviews to provide a look at the work of the Stasi from the perspective of the full-time employees, the informant network, and those who were impacted by both the other groups.

The Stasi did not work like the Nazis and the Soviet oppression of East Germany was quite different than that of the National Socialist party of Adolf Hitler. Of course, Hitler came to power by promising economic prosperity and largely delivering on that promise. The Nazis maintained control by force and popular enforcement by patriotic citizens. In contrast, the Stasi maintained control for the Communist Party by gnawing fear and a carefully maintained network of amateur spies within the East German population.

This book begins with a chapter explaining the geographical setting of the book. Since this is a volume derived largely from archival work, it cannot cover everything that happened. Bruce drills down to two industrial districts in East Germany, both of which are reasonably close to the West German border. Chapter Two details the work done by professional Stasi workers, which is really boring. The wrote absurdly detailed reports about routine goings-on, which were probably read by no one. However, those reports could be used, if needed, to justify charges and oppression of anyone who crossed the line at a later point. The banality of the work of the Stasi agent is depressing and almost worth pitying, if the effect they had were not so evil.

Chapter Three talks about the work of the Stasi informants. These people were amateur, secret agents who worked for the Stasi. Some of them believed in communism. Others were essentially blackmailed into participating in the oppression of other citizens because they or a loved one had history or an offense that could be charged against them. It is easier to have sympathy for the blackmailed than the volunteers. It is interesting to read how the Stasi cultivated their informant network and instructive for understanding contemporary surveillance. The fourth chapter discusses those who were targeted by the Stasi, which largely included anyone who raised signs of dissent or, especially, those who attempted to escape. One of the most significant truths of communism is that it requires force to keep people in.

The final two chapters discuss the experience of those not under direct surveillance of the Stasi. They were often the place where people would go to complain about pollution, unsafe work conditions, or other failures of the communist regime. The Stasi provided security services to ensure festivals did not cause dissent. The Stasi were everywhere, but they were often seen as an ineffective bureaucracy, which was more likely to succeed in making life difficult for those who dared to speak out than for the average citizen than in fixing the real problems in the area. Chapter Six outlines the events leading to and immediately following the fall of the Berlin wall, including the attempt of the Stasi to escape the anger of the citizens who had lived under their thumb.

Collectivist economics continues to increase in popularity because people do not remember the malaise of life within the Soviet regime. The Firm helps retain the memory of the work it took to keep the population within East Germany, especially highly skilled individuals who could have done much better by escaping. Bruce does this in an even-handed way. He is positive toward the medical system of East Germany, though recognizing that they often lacked treatments and tools that were common in the West. He recognizes that many people had a moderately fulfilling life. But what readers cannot escape is that life was always controlled. There was a constant knowledge that freedom was limited and that the mere suspicion of a desire to escape could well lead to having one’s life turned upside down. These are the necessary side-effects of collectivist economics, which should give us pause as we consider our nation’s future.

The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi (Oxford Oral History Series)

By Gary Bruce

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