David Brooks on "Natalism"

[1] Shorter David Brooks:

If you aren't mindlessly striving to overpopulate the planet, you're an ambitious, egotistical, amoral piece of crap.

[2] Longer Shorter David Brooks

For some reason I cannot fathom, I continue to have a soft spot for Brooks. It is becoming more and more clear that this is irrational.

I know it's up against some stiff competition, but this may be his worst op-ed yet. For one thing, it combines a couple of ploys that just drive me nuts. First and least importantly, giving a name to a group or movement that is either too goofy, unimportant, or indistinct to warrant one ("Nascar Dads," "Voluntary Simplicity," etc.)--in this case "natalism."

Second, and more importantly, spinning a tendency that's either neutral or pernicious to try to make it look virtuous. Having too many kids? That's good! We gotta keep driving that population up! After all, there's still some (relatively) unspoiled land left on this earth! Not to mention that we need more consumers. It is a little-known fact that some states have fewer than one strip-mall per square mile. The danger that the population might return to reasonable levels is real, people!

Um, not to mention that there is something distinctly paradoxical about the claim that one's life becomes meaningful as a result of reproduction. If life is meaningless without reproduction, then reproduction is not going to change that--producing another person who will, in turn, have a meaningless life can't make your life meaningful. On the other hand, if life can be meaningful without reproducing, then, well, it's not necessary to reproduce in order to live a meaningful life.

None of this is to say that reproduction can't be an important part of some kinds of meaningful lives, of course, but it probably can't be the centerpiece of them. This is similar to a point that is missed by those who think that it is the fact of our mortality that generates problems about the meaning of life. If your life isn't already meaningful, then more of the same won't make it so. A really long meaningless life isn't meaningful; in fact, it's really, really meaningless...

Article Author: Winston Smith

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