I listened to a lecture from the University of Edinburgh by Prof. Aubrey Manning, it was about the geographic topology and ecological ramifications thereof, with regards to the biological and anthropological development of Scotland.
It was fascinating. I learned about how Scotland used to have elephants, and lions and even hyenas thousands of years ago. About how they found scratch marks on the elephant fossils left by a prehistoric butcher, suggesting the early activity of hominids who used tools. They even discovered the preserved site of where one of these proto-humans had fashioned a flint tool for the purposes of hunting and so on.
But towards the Q&A section, a discussion about overpopulation arose. Aubrey is of the opinion that humanity is overpopulated, and he is a very astute biologist. An audience member retorted his argument with the same old line, to dismiss it on grounds of overconsumption, class disparity, and so on.
Aubrey acknowledges this, but says that nonetheless, our species is not special. Just like any other species, we can provoke the self-correcting measures of our ecosystem.
I disagree with Aubrey in one sense, but in another, I must acknowledge his premise. What Aubrey did in my opinion was to introduce a more sophisticated line of argument beyond the pedestrian “Yes” and “No” approach, so common in parliamentarian societies.
I think that to point one’s finger at Aubrey and shout “Malthusean!” is a dangerous all too common approach here, because it does not discredit biologists with the association of Malthus, rather it affords Malthus the credibility of biologists.
Rather, we must examine this all anew. The general discussion about population control, overpopulation and growth are all tainted by very abstract and science denying assumptions.
For instance, if we look at the science, did you know that the most common arguments against population control are based on a surprisingly eugenicist position?
This is by no means a coincidence, the common western debate on overpopulation is not one of eugenics or no eugenics, but rather one of which model of eugenics to employ. Liberals use Malthusean and Fabian schools of eugenics. In present day, Fabianism exists in almost every liberal democracy. Fabian eugenics use things like disease, homelessness, criminal codification, segregation and credit systems to carry out eugenics.
Often creating social programmes intended to hinder and disparage elements deemed “antisocial”, what the early Fabians called the residuum of society.
When the liberal intelligentsia speaks against population control, saying we should not employ it, then this is a way to mask the Fabian eugenics we’ve had for centuries. It is a dishonest way of telling the general public “No reform of eugenics.”
To say “This is a Fabian nation, we are not Malthusian.” There is no anti-eugenics position among liberals.
In the United States this becomes evident, as population control there is very stark and brutal. Wildfires, hurricanes, drug and disease epidemics cull the poor on an annual basis in waves, assuring that everything from social security to health service costs are lowered, and permits market growth as investors circle above the dispossessed underclasses especially in Florida, Puerto Rico, California and New Orleans. This is Fabian eugenics.
New Orleans was probably the starkest example of this, as FEMA was told to stand down as thousands drowned in that terrible disaster. Fabianism is based on the framework of social democracy, as an “antifascist” model of eugenics, in which you never employ direct violence, but rather simply withdraw the means by which to sustain life for some, but not others.
New Orleans has for a long time been a bastion of particularly black and working class culture, and a place which became a sanctuary for the disenfranchised and alienated as the local populace is very accepting of people who might otherwise be considered strange or unwelcome.
As such, it was on the Fabian hitlist. An opportunity to cleanse the nation of an unwanted underclass. The only government response was in the form of armed enforcers who were looking for “looters.” A euphemism for the predominately black and working class people who were left behind to die, as Fabian death squads would target them with sniper fire from helicopters and rooftops.
These are the shadowy warriors of social democracy, the men who do not enter history books. Even Bernie Sanders has his own past when it comes to employing death squads, and I have personally known several survivors of his genocide.
So with this in mind, we must look at population control anew, and break free of the Fabian-Malthusean line of argument.
The synthetic left will laud Fabianism as a kind of libertarian dream, and will frequently set up campaigns to use unemployment especially as a kind of bludgeon by which they may repress dissenting voices.
Yes, sometimes these voices have objectionable views, but not always by any stretch. Not to mention that this is mob justice without evidence of guilt, campaigns of rumourmongering and slander.
It is disturbing to think that they are willing to employ Fabian eugenics even in direct action, prior to any meaningful government power. I’d hate to see what they’d manage to pull off using police, health service and prisons.
Moreover, even if I find these views objectionable, then eugenics is not a suitable punishment in a civilised society. It is the medicinistic hokum of barbarians and fascists.
Rather, we must learn to compromise with the natural forces. You cannot defy or conquer nature, you can merely understand it. Growth and overpopulation become abstract terms to a very material condition. In fact, the very term, growth, is bizarre to me. Growth used to mean forests, plants and moss. Now it means the opposite apparently.
Growth I think, in the vulgar sense, can be described as a euphemism for the employment of productive forces, but it is precisely such forces which will save us.
When people think of productive forces the vision of steelyards and smoke stacks might appear, but not many realise how productive forces also mean renewal of infrastructure, conservation, reforestation and similar modes of labour.
We can start putting our productive forces to use in restoring nature, in disarming the ruling class and the wealthy of this great power, and put it into the vested interests of wildlife and society.
I don’t think we have too many human beings, but I do think we are taking up too much room. We are not leaving enough space for habitation of other life, instead we crowd not the streets, but rather the atmosphere and biosphere, we must learn to respect other beings’ homes, as they respect ours.
And this is a far more sophisticated discipline than simply reducing the question to “Are there too many people in the world?”
We have been culling the poor since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and it has only been making matters worse.
