"Do You Find Soft Drugs, Homosexuality And Euthanasia Acceptable?" Then Say Hello To History For Me!

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"The Return Of Patriarchy" by Philip Longman

http://www.fsa.ulaval.ca/personnel/vernag/eh/f/cause/lectures/The return of patriarchy.htm

To sum up: religious fanatics and social conservatives are having way more kids than the liberal or secular-minded. So, if the latter don't start breeding, their influence on society may grow miniscule.

"For instance, do you distrust the army? Then, according to polling data assembled by demographers Ronny Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, you are less likely to be married and have kids—or ever to get married and have kids—than those who say they have no objection to the military. Or again, do you find soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? For whatever reason, people answering affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone, or in childless, cohabitating unions, than those who answer negatively.

The great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies...."

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

"http://www.fsa.ulaval.ca/personnel/vernag/eh/f/cause/lectures/The return of patriarchy.htm"

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:34 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.glenncourt.com/words/ar_patriarchy.shtml

there ya go

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:35 (nineteen years ago)

"they're having more kids than us" is a stupid argument, whether it's pat buchanan making it or this chucklehead.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

yes all children faithfully reproduce the beliefs of their parents, of course.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:40 (nineteen years ago)

What's stupid about it? It's less of an "argument" and more like simple fibonacci numbers.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:40 (nineteen years ago)

those boomers all turned out just like the Greatest Generation, yessiree.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

re: shakey, if your parents hold a belief strongly you're more likely, not less likely to hold that belief, especially if you grow up in an authoritarian, patriarchal family where dissent is firmly discouraged from an early age.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:42 (nineteen years ago)

its stupid because it has no basis in reality! It assumes one generation will faithfully mimic the belief system of the previous one, which even the most cursory glance at history will tell you is definitely not the case - especially when a younger generation grows to outnumber the previous one.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:42 (nineteen years ago)

and your flippancies really don't address the demographic question. Yes, the boomer generation was TOTALLY in line with their parents on many issues.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:43 (nineteen years ago)

Shakey, you're missing the point that although "rebellious youth" are universal, a younger generation totally overturning a previous one is not a given! It only happens at certain times in history in certain circumstances. The circumstances were ripe here in the 1960s, but to say that it's a universal trend undermines a lot of hard demographic data.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:45 (nineteen years ago)

I know its not a given, but taking future generations' replication of their parents politics as a given is equally as dubious. There are all kinds of factors in play that make such a reductionist "its all just math!" kind of position appear rather silly to me.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 16:56 (nineteen years ago)

it's stupid because they're not them anymore - most conservatives of today are just as affected by our hedonistic culture as anyone and would look like nothing more than heathens to the conservative christian nutbags of previous generations. ie my grandmother grew up in a family that believed movies were satanic.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 18 September 2006 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

homos will be fine to the next generation of conservatives.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 18 September 2006 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

You're right, of course, if you only look at the smaller picture (ie the US). But there ARE a lot of places in the world where our movies are considered satanic (because the women are not covering their hair, wearing tight jeans or whatever). They do a good job of passing on their superstrict ideals to following generations and they are replacing themselves. I just don't get why you responders don't find demographics thought-provoking. why just shrug it away flippantly?

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

homos will be the next generation of conservatives.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

yeah I'm not a big fan of movies where women don't wear tight jeans either.

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:04 (nineteen years ago)

i find the beyonce-freedom-fighter scenario both more plausible and more fun to contemplate.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

The great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies

I suspect that religious and cultural conservatives have been outbreeding "secular individualists" throughout history, yet how does one reconcile this prediction of a "vast, demographically driven change" with the fact that our culture and our laws liberalized dramatically over the course of the 20th century?

Seriously, where did the hippies come from? Some sort of xenomorph ultra-liberal hive queen? Well, perhaps, but that's another story.

This article is about as scientifically viable as the Bell Curve. Demographics? Pah.

― Fluffy Bear is a man. Do not shoot him. (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:11 (nineteen years ago)

Since I'm not breeding, the fuck do I care if the world goes to hell in sixty years?

― milo z (mlp), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

Seriously, where did the hippies come from? Some sort of xenomorph ultra-liberal hive queen?

Fluffy Bear I wuv u

― Young Fresh Danny D (Dan Perry), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

I do think demographic argts like this are interesting but the reproduction of outlook isn't the same thing as just plain old reproduction.

Lots of right wingers like to go on about the demographic death of europe and the left, while either touting the fertility of Western conservatives or decrying the fertility of the third world or especially the Muslim world (esp the parts of the Muslim world that are IN europe). More important I think is the trend of increasing female literacy leading to a drop in fertility, and immigrants' adopting their new home countries' attitudes about family size within about 1 generation.

Plus there's the strong whiff of wishful thinking about all this: Eurabia is something Steyn et al want to happen. I usually don't like psychoanalitic-type arguments, but here I think it's some kind of thwarted desire for a Eurabia-in-reverse that is just not happening, for a Mideast that is more like Europe: pliable, effete, decadent, secular, pacified, and ignorable.

Anyway if you're so worried about it get fuckin already

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:20 (nineteen years ago)

Of course, conservatives never give birth to gay children because as we all know a sexual prefernce for the same sex is the result of the liberal media frantically pushing the homosexual agenda.

ie this argument is fucking moronic.

― chap who would dare to start Raaatpackin (chap), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:30 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I don't know what the motivations are of the author of this piece. I'm not worried about Eurabia or whatever. You can call BS on demographics having a major impact on domestic politics in the US or even Europe - and I agree. Like you said, after one generation they buy in to the cultural norms. But what about international politics? If other countries that hold ideas very different from ours are breeding like rabbits, how do we defend ourselve against the eventual, totally inevitable clash of civilizations? I guess I just hope we having a large enough army to beat the Bad Guys when it comes down to it.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

China

India

Brazil

― Tommy Woodry (tommywoodry), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:43 (nineteen years ago)

I guess what I mean is that since this article deals in generalities, it may make more sense in relationship to global trends, not just national issues.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:44 (nineteen years ago)

robots, man. the answer is robots.

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:46 (nineteen years ago)

meanwhile, hivequeen.jpg? plz?

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:47 (nineteen years ago)

"I guess what I mean is that since this article deals in generalities, it may make more sense in relationship to global trends, not just national issues."

but of course the political-issue identifiers of "soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia" are all pretty explicitly US-specific. If the article is dealing in global generalities, its from a goofily limited perspective. What is "conservative" in the US /= "conservative" everywhere else in the world.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

also "clash of civilizations" rhetoric tends to fall on deaf ears to me, I don't really have any interest in any single culture being the biggest bully on the global block... really the only desirable end-goal is a kind of fully global culture wherein current ehtnic/religious/tribal divisions are sublimated to a larger "family of man" sort of concept a la MLK, Gandhi, etc. and every one lives happily ever after holding hands on a mountaintop and bein all nice n groovy maaaaaaaan (I am only sort of kidding)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 18:58 (nineteen years ago)

"soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia" are all pretty explicitly US-specific

hardly.

Of course that's the ideal, Shakey. I'm not advocating "clash of civilizations" I'm just recognizing it as a predictable evil. Civilizations that come into direct contact have usually battled for supremacy. That's how it's been for thousands of years. As a human race, can we change? Sure, but it can't happen overnight. It's only been 60 years since WW2, and "world culture" may have changed but in some ways it's fundamentally the same. , and there's nothing wrong with that. But despite some advances we're still creatures of habit and our habit is to destroy competitors.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 19:05 (nineteen years ago)

ihttp://www.robokopp.de/images/Barbarella/Barbarella10.JPG
Ultraliberal Hive Queen

― BrianB (BrianB), Monday, 18 September 2006 19:12 (nineteen years ago)

http://static.flickr.com/84/246807864_b8a5a35dcf.jpg?v=0

― Fluffy Bear is a man. Do not shoot him. (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Monday, 18 September 2006 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

I am unaware of there being any debate about euthanasia in China or India or Brazil, for example. Both China and India are totally homophobic (altho there are some odd exceptions in India) so gay rights are not even an issue that is broached at all as far as I can tell. And what constitutes "soft drugs" also varies widely from culture to culture, the "War on Drugs" itself is a deeply American conception... I'm just sayin the three issues in the headline are hardly major global political reference points. If you ask a conservative Indian businessman what the challenges facing their culture are, those three "issues" would not be on the list at all, for example.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

you think America has a war on drugs, try spliffing up in Thailand.

― Space Gourmand (Haberdager), Monday, 18 September 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

i tried that

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 18 September 2006 21:09 (nineteen years ago)

got stoned

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 18 September 2006 21:09 (nineteen years ago)

ate lotsa weed pizza

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 18 September 2006 21:09 (nineteen years ago)

extra special happy pizza as they say in thai

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 18 September 2006 21:11 (nineteen years ago)

re: shakey, if a country is overwhelmingly homophobic does that mean homosexuality isn't an issue? or the opposite? re: singapore which has extremely harsh penalties for weed dealers, including the death penalty. is "soft drugs" not an issue or even more so?

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 18 September 2006 21:43 (nineteen years ago)

my point is that it isn't a barometer of conservatism in those countries. politics are relative.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 18 September 2006 21:49 (nineteen years ago)

i've been thinking about this a bit since the notion was first raised on the pope thread. my response is still the same as i said there: tolerant liberals have always been in the minority. like i said on the other thread: we've got a religious nutcase in downing street, and an even bigger one in the white house. the "clash of civilisations" is well under way, in case we hadn't noticed ... and i don't ally myself with anyone! "not in my name", as several thousand marchers have repeatedly pointed out. i mean, really, the world is a shitty place full of shitters and i don't think the answer is to try and breed an army of secular western kids ;)

plus: of my generation, most of the ultra-liberals i know (myself excluded) had quite hard-line parents. the one kid i knew with ace hippy parents who skinned up in the kitchen turned into a reactionary fud.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 11:28 (nineteen years ago)

sixteen years pass...

A Canadian doctor granted approval for euthanasia to a man who wanted to die because he was poor.#HarpersWeeklyReview https://t.co/IRNXr6cn3i
— Harper's Magazine (@Harpers) December 15, 2022

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 15 December 2022 12:08 (three years ago)

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