DAVID GOLDMAN ON DECLINING BIRTH RATES: SOME THOUGHTS
There's an article at The Daily Bell recently that I found very interesting, or rather, a few paragraphs in it that I found very interesting, and it provoked a lot of thoughts that I want to share. First, the article itself is here:
David Goldman on Wall Street, the Middle East and the 'Judeo-Christian Perspective'
The paragraphs that provoked my reflections are these:
"Daily Bell: You wrote How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam Is Dying Too). Can you give us a synopsis?
"David P. Goldman: The explanation of the death of civilizations in many cases is that they no longer want to live. Most of the industrial world faces depopulation. As a matter of arithmetic, we know that the social life of most developed countries will break down within two generations. Two out of three Italians and three of four Japanese will be elderly dependents by 2050. If present fertility rates hold, the number of Germans will fall by 98% over the next two centuries. Fertility is falling at even faster rates − indeed, at rates never before registered anywhere − in the Muslim world. These are observations that raise two questions: Why is this happening and how will this reshape the world? To the extent that demographers can find an explanation, the decline of religious faith appears to be the decisive factor. I drew on academic work and some of my own investigation to support this view. And then I sought to explain why some forms of religion survive in the modern world and others come to grief. Islam among all the world's religions is the least likely to succeed in modernity, I concluded.
"The consequences for political science and strategy are tremendous. Conventional geopolitical theory, which is dominated by material factors such as territory, natural resources, and command of technology, does not address how peoples will behave under existential threat. Geopolitical models fail to resemble the real world in which we live, where the crucial issue is the willingness or unwillingness of a people inhabiting a given territory to bring a new generation into the world.
"I concluded: 'Population decline, the decisive issue of the 21st century, will cause violent upheavals in the world order. Countries facing fertility dearth, such as Iran, are responding with aggression. Nations confronting their own mortality may choose to go down in a blaze of glory. Conflicts may be prolonged beyond the point at which there is any rational hope of achieving strategic aims - until all who wish to fight to the death have taken the opportunity to do so. Analysis of national interests cannot explain why some nations go to war without hope of winning, or why other nations will not fight even to defend their vital interests. It cannot explain the historical fact that peoples fight harder, accepting a higher level of sacrifice in blood and treasure, when all hope of victory is past.'"
To my mind, Goldman has put his finger on something significant, and something I have felt or intuited is deeply related to this "cycle of civilization" we appear to be traversing. I have often stated that I believe this to be one of those 500 year cycles, although with the technological changes of the post-World War Two decades, this particular cycle is unlike any previous in recorded human history: it is deeply, qualitatively, different.
At the center of this transition - and I believe Goldman has put his finger on something profound - is the fact that the traditional monotheisms, or as I prefer to call them, the traditional Yahwisms, are simply inadequate to the task, though an unreformed, unreconstructed mediaeval version of it, such as Islam, is the most inadequate of them all. One can sense a despair in those nations where the fundamentalist versions of it are in ascendancy, for it is hard to divine how, for example, in Egypt the wish to destroy the pyramids and other monuments of an ancient human culture, one so important to human history and civilization, could advance the cause of Islam in the eyes of the rest of humanity. It is merely the act of stupid, insane people. One can intuit the sense of despair of being in a culture or nation where the rulers are insane, and express such open discontent with the value of their own population, and a contempt for human life in general, or contempt for women.When I lived in the United Kingdom, one of the most interesting things to me were the many people I came to know from the Islamic world, and many of them, in moments of candor during conversations, would acknowledge the need for a thorough reform of the culture, sensing the impending moves, I suspect, into Islamicist reaction. They would, I recall, often make their remarks in an almost low-voiced, hesitant way, as if afraid someone was listening.
But Islam's difficulties are a symptom of something much larger and not unique to it: Goldman mentions declining birth rates in solidly western countries such as Germany as well. I suspect that the Angst that Goldman refers to obliquely in the above paragraphs is, in a subtler though no less real sense, at work there as well: the old paradigms are simply not working, though for a slightly different reason having to do with a much deeper questioning of the sanity and agenda of its ruling elites, and of the long history and agenda in which they have been engaged. What really seems to be suggested by Goldman's piece is the growing absence of hope, growing discontent with the direction the future appears to be going, and a growing awakening to the fact that the people currently in charge not only in the West but in the West's "cousin culture," Islam, are increasingly acting only in the interest or preserving institutions and their own power in the face of changes that will, eventually, overwhelm them.
Here, Goldman is correct: this needs to be factored into geopolitical thinking, and it thus far is not
See you on the flip side.
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Dedre:
Well said. Looking to go to other planets while destroying the one were on…just amazing bit of logic there.
I live on the Pacific NW coast and have felt the effects of the radiation, I take iodine tablets to keep my thyroid from feeling sore and tender. I know that my life span is being shortened.
Outside of being informed, not voting for insane choices, trying to eat clean food which is getting harder and harder to do……speaking out when I can, what can I do? I feel numb in the face of all of this.
Milton, I think many people feel this way–cornered–surrounded. But you are doing what you can. Right choices in a world of diminishing choices is a personal action that matters in ways we may not realize. It’s this deeper sense of personhood that we all need right now, which happens when we make the choices you have, because without that we are defeated already.
How can we feel anything but numb when we witness mass insanity on a global scale? It’s surreal, weird, and disorienting. We do well to take it one day at a time and not let the negative get the upper hand. There is always a joy to find, love to express, strength to share, and right action to take. We can be the leader we seek, be the truth we know, be the love we want, be the hero we long for. There are heroes in all of us and these times call them forward.
We are all in this together. If anything good can be said about this time it is that we are finding what we are made of. In the words of William James, “Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up, depends on what he is made of.”
Take heart. Your presence matters.
what is ones own power when not afraid of death / poverty or pain.virtually nothing to lose and only to gain the gratification of vengeance?
one insane reason for war.when all reason is lost…not even an anthropocentric reason. pretty dark stuff..
After reading Saucers, Swastikas and Psyops/A History Of a Beakaway Civilzation and The Social Conquest of Eart by Edward O. Wilson; I cannot help see “events” today within that contextual “frame”.
We humans are designed to eat a little of a lot, not a lot of a litle. For as long as we’ve been humans – which is far longer than we have been herders or tillers of the soil – a diverse diet has been our best ally against the slings and arrows of disease, famine, and hardship It is/was our ability to fully enjoy nature’s buffet that made us strong as a species.
Enter the new breakaway civilization and we have Chem Trails, GMOs, Fukishima, BP Gulf Oil with Chemical Poison Dispersants, Depleted Uranium, Toxic pollutants worldwide, and the list goes on like an energizer bunny.
Iam now reading a new sci-fi book called Colony. In it a scientist makes a pheromone to trick colonies into suicide. Of course I read the other civilizations(ant colonies) are being tricked (“suicided”). And instead of last man standing, it is last civilization standing. And the vast majority of people on Earth, are outside that elitist “super colony”.
vegetarian beasts seem to be the largest and very muscular…just an observation. (elephants for example)
and did you know that round up, the weed killer, coincidentally causes sterility…..
A Roundup of:
body, mind and spirit.
and then the beast was burdened with a soul
Robert does the phrase “room trap” mean anything to you?
The last thing a caught was a red light.
DANGER DANGER young will Robert Barricklow.
Dr. Zachary Smith
[reprogramming the future robot]
Let’s try this again shall we?
You are the puppet, I’am the puppeteer.
Do get it right this time…
Deja Vu?
I’d like to think that “they” were stopped,
…and are now on a “second take”.
Only this time,
the puppeteer exits the stage.
…and no retakes.
In all populations dependent on an environment, there are limits to how many individuals the environment can support. Indigenous peoples know this, and there is much more care and thought put into planning for children.
The Yahwist religions (and any other whose tenets are designed to promote the religion) always have the “go forth and multiply” clause to increase the numbers of the faithful,especially the ones who teach followers to tithe.
Industrial societies abandoned all knowledge of working in harmony with Nature, and pushed the idea that technology will make up for any burden placed on the environment. This is one of science’s biggest failings (and it has a bunch).
Add to that mix, the idiotic eugenecists who blame all the world’s problems on the poor, and the psychotic elites who try and manipulate everything until the whole world is a gigantic mess, and you have a situation where living in harmony with the natural world becomes all but impossible.
Only a true alchemy, which can produce the exact conditions from the natural world, can sustain populations beyond the natural capacity of any environment. Until such an alchemy is forthcoming, we will be at the mercy of natural limits of the planet to support life, and the mad scheming of the twisted elites, as well as all the people who blindly follow various belief systems.
We have very little way of knowing what massive changes to the Earth we might see shortly will be natural, and which will be engineered, much as it has been with so-called “natural disasters” lately.
I think this argues very strongly for the breakaway civilization idea.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
People who make claims about an “agressi”ive “Iran”. Can’t really be taken seriously on any subject.
In others: Publish lies like that about Iran above (there are many many more aggression prone nation states than Iran) and don’t expect to be taken seriously.
Put a third way, this is a sales pitch.
Women in Iraq are afraid to give birth because of the hideous deformations caused by DU strewn about in their respective environments. DU causes birth defects and also deaths in our military who are exposed by using and handling the ordinance…this is another factor.
What maniacs at Rand or in our military who decided to use DU are truly insane.
Engineered for that purpose as well as others.
Insanity is a requirement for a leadership post.
possessed by a demon is the requirement, the price is there soul.
Thank you for sharing this. And yes, Yahwism monotheism is…in every way imaginable…inadequate to solve humanity’s issues (i.e. despair, deterioration, and across-the-board psychopatholoy) because it is the foundation of them to start with. No doubt. Whatsoever.
However–and forgive me for going off on a tangent, here–I am amazed, on a daily basis, at the ability of the human species to spend thought and time doing studies that avert our attention from the global train wreck happening now in slow motion. We talk of and plan for contingencies that have no hope of mattering because our so-called future is being slain in this moment. And no one sees.
Is this phenomena a psychological anesthetic response to our pending demise? As well as an effect of our compartmentalization where experts and policy-makers and specialists work within their narrow specialties and won’t look beyond their little cubicles of thought? Where billionaires have big dreams of what to do after we wreck the planet?
SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk plans to build a colony on Mars and he received a gold award by the Royal Society of London for his contribution to the “commercialization of space.” I am aghast at this for a number of reasons, but to come back to the point of Goldman’s discussion of declining fertility and the demise of nations. Not to mention the failure of religion to navigate humanity through the quicksand of multi-national despair: it is clear there is no future for the human animal on this planet if we don’t cease daydreaming about irrelevant matters while the world disintegrates under our non-present feet.
I am not a pessimist, I am a realist. GMO foods and other byproducts of “civilized” life have been found to decrease fertility in humans and cause cancer in lab animals and yet…what are the poor, oppressed masses doing about it? The radiation damage to the Japanese people is already beginning to manifest and yet highly contaminated land has been repopulated by their criminal government; fish in the Pacific have high concentrations of radiation, and the radiation from Fukushima continues to blow across the planet…certainly the Pacific U.S.
http://enenews.com/thyroid-abnormalities-incredibly-rare-pediatrics-indicating-really-high-dose-radiation-higher-chernobyl?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
And Goldman wants to make the case that “Population decline, the decisive issue of the 21st century, will cause violent upheavals in the world order.” Yeah, I guess it will. But maybe not for the futuristic reasons he postulates. Maybe now. For a whole raft of reasons.
“the global train wreck happening now in slow motion”- it’s steam rolling ahead-
“the failure of religion to navigate humanity”- religion was created to navigate humanity to serve the rich-
“religion is the only thing that keeps the poor from killing the rich”- attributed to Napoleon
“there is no future for the human animal on this planet if we don’t cease daydreaming”- as for ‘daydreaming’ see above under concept “religion”-
“I am not a pessimist, I am a realist”- you and me both- which is why I bothered to respond to your posting- birds of a feather need to blog together-
hope you are well- many regards-
Larry in Germany
Thanks, Larry. 🙂
Your response–an act of reaching out and connecting with another soul of like-mind–gave me some comfort this morning, but your taking time to comment also serves as exactly the the solution-at-hand for all of us, right here in front of our eyes. And that solution is the unseen power, linking all of us together, as a combined consciousness of those who are awake and strong in spirit.
This is hope: that there are those who refuse to remain alienated in a world now structured to silence opposition and to restrict communal discourse among people who have the sight and strength to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the darkness.
The more we know that there are others who still have all their wits about them, the stronger we all become. And for big cosmic reasons, I maintain that matters more than we know.
You are so right, Dedre, when you talk about “the world now structured to silence opposition and to restrict communal discourse.” Reading Dr Farrell’s blog and the insightful and interesting comments is often the only way I get through my day, especially when it is spent earning a living doing a pointless job among mindless Sims.
I yet again agree with you totally- please stay well, dedre- am very much looking forward to your postings/insights-
yes, we must adhere together and try to help each other see through the monumental web of lies imposed upon us-
“Thanks, Larry”- don’t mention it- am just trying my best (for whether THAT’s worth!) 🙂
Larry
P.S.- are you male or female?
Thoroughly misleading article, world population is growing.
I liked the reference to the scorched earth policy of the divine genome type.
Well, Jedi, the article is not about that: he commented on another article wherein Goldman shares his theory of declining fertility in industrialized nations. According to numerous studies, there has been a decline in births in many of these nations. However, what Dr. Farrell may have overlooked here is the phrase “declining fertility” as opposed to the idea of declining birth rates because if this is indeed true, then there is another, more important slant to an emerging story. That would be those widening factors in our environment that are adversely effecting fertility in our species, such as GMO foods for instance, or what soy proteins do to hormones, as well as plastics. The real story here may go much deeper and be far more conspiratorial than most of us could imagine.
Hi dedre,
I agree with you totally-
Larry
Of course.
The modern deviation begins with univocity and nominalism as Brad S. Gregory has so eloquently demonstrated, not monotheism as such. Also, it should be noted that a theocracy is characterized by the fact that there is no distinction between religious and civic courts. This is Sharia. The first theocracy in this sense first appears in the West with Calvinism–it was in fact invented by Calvin and was a feature of many early reformed states.