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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (14638)	3/14/2006 3:36:25 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542803

"But as long as the patriarchal system avoids succumbing to these threats, it will produce a greater quantity of children, and arguably children of higher quality, than do societies organized by other principles, which is all that evolution cares about." I wonder if this is true. There are a number of assumptions in this article passed off as if they were fact- the above is just one of them. Seems to me the above contradicts the very thing the author said about places with falling birthrates (that are obviously not patriarchal enough) namely that the quality is so high in these one child families that their parents are unwilling to lose them to the military. If you measure quality by your ability to go to an Ivy league school, get an excellent job, own a million + dollar home, be extremely secure in your retirement with the addition of your parents' assets which you've inherited, and have excellent health insurance, I don't think most parents with 4 kids or more are going to see their children achieve that kind of quality. Fewer kids seems to mean more opportunities for the children, and higher quality children.

To: Lane3 who wrote (14638)	3/14/2006 3:57:03 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542803

An interesting essay. Naturally I dislike it, and provide a key reason for my demurral. ALthough he discusses various past societies, and their rises and falls, he doesn't mention how factors like the role of literate women and their predominant success in education, simple and effective contraception, and mass communications and transport devices have affected patriarchal societies as they arose in the past. What? Those are new to the last hundred years, and most common in the liberal secular West? Hmm. Might there be reasons to assume differences in this cycle, I wonder...? My serious point is, that the human condition for the vast majority basically changed minimally between ~8000BC and ~1500-1700AD. Since then we've seen some rather dramatic differences. I therefore think it unwise to draw too many conclusions from societal cycles before the modern era, not least because in the past such cycles were never even studied whereas now we are all too aware... Unless of course he's foreseeing a collapse of society (maybe induced by catastrophic climate change?) and a return to neo-feudalism... and once more this will not be the endorsed choice, simply the only one. Without implying any endorsement for the strategy, one must observe that a society that presents women with essentially three options—be a nun, be a prostitute, or marry a man and bear children—has stumbled upon a highly effective way to reduce the risk of demographic decline. Personally I find soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia acceptable and seldom, if ever, attend church so I am disappointed that rather than living alone, or in childless, cohabitating union I am married with four children... still, nobody's perfect.