Our historical situation is unique because of the rapid devastation inflicted on the planet since WWII, compounded by the institutional incapacity to correct the wrongs, and most important of all, the apathy of the people to confront the long-approaching conflict between man's appetite and his reality. Amid the collapse, I take comfort in reading writers and philosophers who lived in the inter-war years. Ortega y Gasset in his book "Historical Reason," said that after the dawn of the Enlightenment, came another stage of darkness for man in which all previous clarity and certainty about history's course went up in smoke. Ortega lived in a state of history that foreshadowed our own, and I am grateful for his findings because he possessed a heightened consciousness of the current reality of man. He wrote:
In history, no real situation, no concrete situation is ever repeated. But in every historical situation there is a certain shell or cluster of factors--its abstract components--that is identical to those in other situations.Ortega emphasized the notion put forward by English writer W. Macneile Dixon, called 'the human situation,' and saw the universal history as the "entire situation of mankind," writing that a "human task is unintelligible until we discover or envision the situation in which it arose." Consequently, judging the current leaders directing the present world behind the scenes without first coming to grips to the situation facing humankind will make us dizzy, and unable to fully understand why they are doing what they're doing.
The situation after WWII, created by a huge baby-boom, moved intellectual and political elites to construct social policy that would halt the population growth, and this included instituting abortion, and other various forms of birth control. Scientists, social engineers, and policy makers see overpopulation as the gravest of all the many environmental threats to civilization because of its cultural and social ramifications. Overpopulation is a historical accident, due to the advances in medicine, energy production, and agriculture, and human intervention is viewed by many behind the scenes as the only viable option to correct this accident. I am suspicious, however, of the claims made by these men.
In the book EcoScience: Population, Resources, and Environment, authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich, along with John Holdren, make the statement that "in terms of present patterns of human behavior and the current level of technology, the planet Earth as a whole is overpopulated." The updated version of the book, a monstrous 1000 pages in length, was written in 1977, during the Carter administration, which was sympathetic to placing a greater emphasis on the health of the environment and less on the health of the economy, unlike Reagan who ascendancy marked the end of responsibility in government.
After surveying the dangers of population growth to human society, Ehrlich and Holdren suggest that national planners, political leaders and economists should work towards 1) reducing the rate of growth of population, 2) stabilize the size of the population, and 3) achieve negative growth in order to reduce the size. Family planning programs and birth control policies are advocated to curb population growth, which they point out is not controversial or new in human history, but what is frightening, and what they forgot to emphasize more greatly, are the direct measures listed for population control. One such method is involuntary fertility control, a coercive proposal that the authors argue is a more effective than socio-economic measures, or educational programs, to halt the global population surge. The authors use the example of sterilization policies in India, saying "there is too little time left to experiment further with educational programs and hope that social change will generate a spontaneous fertility decline, and most of the Indian population is too poor for direct economic measures (especially penalties) to be effective," (p.787).
The urgency of the problem of overpopulation is well expressed, but unfortunately many of the solutions given are tyrannical and anti-humanitarian. I understand the situation our species is in, but to assume as planners the pedestal of human destiny, without sharing our knowledge with people at large is the wrong course to take. Since 1977, India's economy has grown, allowing them to handle their population problem using more positive measures, contrary to the fears expressed by the authors that all is lost. Such pessimism, in the long run, will be recognized as a gross error, and a miscalculation of human ingenuity in times of struggle.
Another draconian proposal the authors provide is "the development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control." It is admitted that compulsory control of population is an unpleasant idea, and that there are serious, and unpredictable consequences if such measures, if possible, are taken, however, they also say that "the alternatives may be much more horrifying." I am not so certain of such a scenario, I am still very doubtful of the dangers of population growth, however, I will not paint the authors of the book as some sort of villainous planners. I believe they have good intentions; what they lack are good solutions.
Near the end of the book they quote Garrett Hardin, author of the Tragedy of the Commons; "Mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon," but is scientific coercion the only answer to uncontrolled population growth? It is better to address the problem of poverty, which is probably the main cause of the post-WWII population growth. Instead, Ehrlich(s) and Holdren take the authoritarian's path, stressing the need for international controls in all areas of life, saying it "has been apparent for some time that the nations of this planet cannot long survive without a system of worldwide controls for dealing with the ecosphere, the world economic system, and world population growth." I am not against the idea of a international law, but putting in place a planetary regime backed by military muscle is too powerful a tool in the hands of an unapproachable elite. A dictatorial world government will never be accepted. Unless the secret money-printing power of the private Western banking establishment is stripped, and the creation of money is restored to sovereign governments, and unless the criminals behind the war on terror are brought to justice, there will never be a world federation of all nations on this planet. Justice, truth, accountability, and transparency of all levels of governmental procedures is paramount. As history is transpiring now, under the hidden hand of a despicable plutocracy, I have no reason to be optimistic about the potential of any planetary regime to create a more equal and livable world.
All people agree that humanity has reached a critical point in history but the authoritative path is not the only path laid out for us. Planners such as the authors of Ecoscience seek to direct human society with insufficient knowledge, and poor vision. They believe that the mass of humanity is too close-minded to see the problems that lie ahead, so in their eyes they are justified in hiding coercive social policies from the public. This view is very dangerous, and anti-productive. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment showed that human reason is humanity's greatest resource against ignorance and superstition. We must reject an all consuming World State, and instead, place our confidence in a free and knowledgeable mankind to overcome any obstacle, whether environmental, economic, or political.
The authors propose a planetary regime out of fear and a shaky grasp of the current historical situation. The creation of a righteous new world order is not possible if the plans are kept secret, and the motives are hidden from public judgment. There is no such thing as a conspiracy of statesmen. Only gangsters hide their true views, and plans from the public. Being a decision-maker was democracy's original gift to the engaged and critical citizen, and to deny this right to the citizens of the world is a turn for the worst in human affairs, and far more tragic than any dawning environmental catastrophe, or any other horrible reality. Live Free or Die will always be my ethic. I understand why scientists and environmentalist intellectuals who support a dictatorial world government have advanced the line of thought that without resorting to coercion the series of mega-problems that humanity is engulfed in will never be solved. On some days I agree with their conclusions, and their solutions. But I am nudged towards freedom, not because I am an idealist, but because without true freedom life is not worth living, it is a Western tradition that we must keep. As Ortega Y Gasset advised, being doubtful is the most honest position an intellectual can take. "Because if the intellectual doesn't have doubts," he said, "if he can't remain in that state of innocence recommended by Plato, cannot keep alive the naive child within, he will loose his alertness, his wariness of stupid error that is the sustaining vitamin of his perspicaciousness."
