I so appreciate this willingness to sit with a question: "Whatever you think about depopulation—personally, I think this is a very hard question, and have not settled my mind on it—below-replacement birth rates are a big deal."
The problem is the critiques are almost always a trojan horse for social-conservative policy prescriptions. And while one can have a rational debate about how aging societies will impact entitlement spending over the next 50-100 years, bringing up "depopulation" as if that's a legitimate worry for anyone walking around in the year of our Lord 2025 is a little ridiculous. Earth will have billions and billions of people for many many centuries barring some ecological/world war catastrophe.
Thank you! These projections always assume that current trends will continue for generations, until we’re forced to go extinct. They act as if we haven’t seen radical social and cultural changes with each passing decade.
In fact, sustained below-replacement fertility rates are a totally novel phenomenon and there's no reason to believe the trend won't continue. Sticking your thumbs in your ears and going: "LALALALALA NOT HAPPENING NOT HAPPENING LALALALA" is not a productive response.
An absolute banger article. Dangerous of Donegan to make disingenuous claims against authors with access to a public forum prioritizing simple, well-reasoned arguments.
It strikes me that the conversation is revolving around the actions of women and not of men. I can't say I am up on all the back and forth here, so maybe that is for good reason or I missed it. It seems to me that the most direct way to achieve power and freedom for women (feminism) is for men to bear more responsibility for childbearing and childcare. I think it is very clear what the right thinks about the role of men.
One other thought:
I find Rebecca Todd Peters argument in her book Trust Women compelling that it because bringing a child into the world is such a responsibility that it is ethical to support abortion (and by extension childless households or households with the number of children people want, since most people receiving abortions already have children). It seems unfathomable that all this talk about "breeding" doesn't come back around to abortion and we know the political landscape there.
It’s a problem with your world model* because it seems to have no measurable effect on the variable in question - or at least is massively swamped by other factors.
Surely the point is that we need to manage the change in demographics, and then work on living with a global population size that the planet that can actually sustain.
I think it would have been easier to have this kind of discussion ten years ago, before misogyny took over maga, and maga took over America.
And if the response is that progressive intolerance contributed to the rise of maga, I think the rebuttal is that maga’s success shows that progressives were reacting against cultural developments that were much deeper and ominous than was widely accepted at the time. As a result, the fact that their response left much to be desired may be explained by the fact that they saw the true nature of the threat more clearly than other people, and panicked, and that panic flowed into their discourse.
Sure, that’s a highly sympathetic assessment; but, in any case, I do understand left wing people having a negative reaction to these kinds of essays. It feels like Gretchen Whitmer hugging Trump at the airfield.
It’s about freedom. I don’t object to a woman who chooses a traditional gender role, but I deeply object to a government which systematically deprives women of equal rights and opportunities, with the clear objective of channeling them into traditional roles whether they want them or not. And nowadays, you can’t be a successful woman in the Republican Party unless you debase yourself at the altar of grab the pussy trump, and don’t say anything nasty about childless cat lady vance.
We need more discussion about “progressive intolerance” in general, where it originates and how it reverberates through private thoughts and public discourse.
You really shouldn't throw the word "misogyny" around with such reckless abandon.
Those who believe in traditional gender roles do not hate women anymore than those who frown on women who enjoy a traditional way of life hate women. Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean that he or she is evil.
I find liberals interesting. They want to be mainstream and edgy at the same time. Thus they have the constant need to find bigotry in new places, so as to pretend that they are the rebels, whilst also caliming that they are "normal". Further hey displace their natural conservative instincts onto indignenous people. This is why you see so many liberals glorify traditional cultures whilst trying to strip tradition from their own culture.
On the other hand, I occasionally post stuff from Richard Hanania on Bluesky, so I really shouldn’t be judgy about people with opinions that I think are somewhat off-kilter, but nevertheless are broadly aligned with an anti-maga cultural vision. Wouldn’t want to fall into the trap of extolling women’s equality while judging heterodox women more harshly than heterodox men.
Thanks for such an insightful piece— you’ve used a rebuttal to a specific attack on your writing to make multiple profound (and to me, new) points with broad implications. I am left wondering about the power of righteous anger to sharpen the mind!
Wait…what? From 10 billion to 110 million in no time at all. I can’t wrap my head around that. I don’t know of anything, let alone an idea, that can change behavior that seems to be a worldwide (10 billion!) phenomenon.
Still find projections of sub replacement birth rates to different centuries yet to come to be a tad alarmist and not something you can be sure of. Doesn't mean it cannot happen or that birth rates in clearer short projections don't demonstrate a real concern for the welfare of the population.
Yea I do not believe advocacy in the here and now about birthrates will have an impact on birth rates in 150 years more than what is life and society like 125 years from now.
I think this is likely a more dynamic social phenomenon/condition than "we are in a new human epoch defined by a ratchet of low birth rates that must be broken or woe is humanity".
I don't disagree with that portion completely! I disagree about framing this as existential if you don't qualify it as hypothetically so bc of exponential math involved. Like if we actually had direct air carbon capture or similar, in a certain form and efficacy, it would be really ridiculous to say we are going to completely destroy the earth permanently to make it uninhabitable. We could still destroy/permanently change the earth and life on it in other real ways tho!
I so appreciate this willingness to sit with a question: "Whatever you think about depopulation—personally, I think this is a very hard question, and have not settled my mind on it—below-replacement birth rates are a big deal."
If I hear one more progressive/leftist etc call mothers (it’s never fathers) “breeders” and their children “crotch goblins”… ugh 😑
The problem is the critiques are almost always a trojan horse for social-conservative policy prescriptions. And while one can have a rational debate about how aging societies will impact entitlement spending over the next 50-100 years, bringing up "depopulation" as if that's a legitimate worry for anyone walking around in the year of our Lord 2025 is a little ridiculous. Earth will have billions and billions of people for many many centuries barring some ecological/world war catastrophe.
Thank you! These projections always assume that current trends will continue for generations, until we’re forced to go extinct. They act as if we haven’t seen radical social and cultural changes with each passing decade.
In fact, sustained below-replacement fertility rates are a totally novel phenomenon and there's no reason to believe the trend won't continue. Sticking your thumbs in your ears and going: "LALALALALA NOT HAPPENING NOT HAPPENING LALALALA" is not a productive response.
An absolute banger article. Dangerous of Donegan to make disingenuous claims against authors with access to a public forum prioritizing simple, well-reasoned arguments.
It strikes me that the conversation is revolving around the actions of women and not of men. I can't say I am up on all the back and forth here, so maybe that is for good reason or I missed it. It seems to me that the most direct way to achieve power and freedom for women (feminism) is for men to bear more responsibility for childbearing and childcare. I think it is very clear what the right thinks about the role of men.
One other thought:
I find Rebecca Todd Peters argument in her book Trust Women compelling that it because bringing a child into the world is such a responsibility that it is ethical to support abortion (and by extension childless households or households with the number of children people want, since most people receiving abortions already have children). It seems unfathomable that all this talk about "breeding" doesn't come back around to abortion and we know the political landscape there.
One problem with this view is that while births have been decreasing - time spent by fathers with children has *increased* quite significantly!
Not sure why that is a problem... that is what I think should be happening. Yes up and it can go up further.
It’s a problem with your world model* because it seems to have no measurable effect on the variable in question - or at least is massively swamped by other factors.
I think we are talking about different things. I was responding to the back and forth here not offering a model of fertility decisions.
Surely the point is that we need to manage the change in demographics, and then work on living with a global population size that the planet that can actually sustain.
I think it would have been easier to have this kind of discussion ten years ago, before misogyny took over maga, and maga took over America.
And if the response is that progressive intolerance contributed to the rise of maga, I think the rebuttal is that maga’s success shows that progressives were reacting against cultural developments that were much deeper and ominous than was widely accepted at the time. As a result, the fact that their response left much to be desired may be explained by the fact that they saw the true nature of the threat more clearly than other people, and panicked, and that panic flowed into their discourse.
Sure, that’s a highly sympathetic assessment; but, in any case, I do understand left wing people having a negative reaction to these kinds of essays. It feels like Gretchen Whitmer hugging Trump at the airfield.
It’s about freedom. I don’t object to a woman who chooses a traditional gender role, but I deeply object to a government which systematically deprives women of equal rights and opportunities, with the clear objective of channeling them into traditional roles whether they want them or not. And nowadays, you can’t be a successful woman in the Republican Party unless you debase yourself at the altar of grab the pussy trump, and don’t say anything nasty about childless cat lady vance.
We need more discussion about “progressive intolerance” in general, where it originates and how it reverberates through private thoughts and public discourse.
You really shouldn't throw the word "misogyny" around with such reckless abandon.
Those who believe in traditional gender roles do not hate women anymore than those who frown on women who enjoy a traditional way of life hate women. Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean that he or she is evil.
I find liberals interesting. They want to be mainstream and edgy at the same time. Thus they have the constant need to find bigotry in new places, so as to pretend that they are the rebels, whilst also caliming that they are "normal". Further hey displace their natural conservative instincts onto indignenous people. This is why you see so many liberals glorify traditional cultures whilst trying to strip tradition from their own culture.
On the other hand, I occasionally post stuff from Richard Hanania on Bluesky, so I really shouldn’t be judgy about people with opinions that I think are somewhat off-kilter, but nevertheless are broadly aligned with an anti-maga cultural vision. Wouldn’t want to fall into the trap of extolling women’s equality while judging heterodox women more harshly than heterodox men.
“Does anyone work at the Guardian anymore?” 😁 Great piece, fun to read. If this doesn’t make Donegan feel ashamed she’s not capable of it.
Thanks for such an insightful piece— you’ve used a rebuttal to a specific attack on your writing to make multiple profound (and to me, new) points with broad implications. I am left wondering about the power of righteous anger to sharpen the mind!
Wait…what? From 10 billion to 110 million in no time at all. I can’t wrap my head around that. I don’t know of anything, let alone an idea, that can change behavior that seems to be a worldwide (10 billion!) phenomenon.
When philosophical inquiry meets ideological gatekeeping, sparks — and misreading — tend to fly.
It sounds like the pro-natalism position makes the progs feel bad. And of course that's a wrong.
In any case, Darwin bats last.
Still find projections of sub replacement birth rates to different centuries yet to come to be a tad alarmist and not something you can be sure of. Doesn't mean it cannot happen or that birth rates in clearer short projections don't demonstrate a real concern for the welfare of the population.
Without immigration pensions in Canada would already be collapsing. This is not some far off issue. It’s here in a few decades for most of the world
Yea I do not believe advocacy in the here and now about birthrates will have an impact on birth rates in 150 years more than what is life and society like 125 years from now.
I think this is likely a more dynamic social phenomenon/condition than "we are in a new human epoch defined by a ratchet of low birth rates that must be broken or woe is humanity".
I don't disagree with that portion completely! I disagree about framing this as existential if you don't qualify it as hypothetically so bc of exponential math involved. Like if we actually had direct air carbon capture or similar, in a certain form and efficacy, it would be really ridiculous to say we are going to completely destroy the earth permanently to make it uninhabitable. We could still destroy/permanently change the earth and life on it in other real ways tho!