People like Ben Wattenberg are very concerned about falling fertility rates, which have historically characterized nations in decline. Others think it might be a good idea to let things wind down a bit. The Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply comes from the most primitive level. It's basically what animals do: try to stay alive and make more of yourselves. Humans are unique in sometimes going out of their way not to do this. It's part of the impulse I call Asceticism. Even if we don't quite approve for ourselves, we think somebody should be withholding. Catholicism is a classic example: promoting big families, prohibiting birth control, but insistent on clerical celibacy. This doesn't really have anything to do with Jesus: it's because distance from mainstream behavior makes you into a different person. In culture, Asceticism is both central, and marginalized. In a sense, it's breaking with "Natural" behavior that makes us Human: not what we do, but what we don't do.
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- alex 10-19-2001 10:12 pm