February 07, 2006
Racial suicide
from - RSA
It's amazing what passes for semi-mainstream commentary these days. Pat Robertson says, according the Media Matters,
Europe is right now in the midst of racial suicide because of the declining birth rate.
White people have been around for tens of thousands of years (neglecting the myth that God created humans in their present form a few thousand years ago in the Garden of Eden). I somehow doubt that tens of thousands of years in the future, there will be no more white people.
Numbers aside, what's the rationale for being concerned about such an event, even if it were likely? Is such closet racism--actually, it's pretty overt in this case--a misguided application of some feeling of kinship? It's hard for me to understand what's going on in the mind of someone like Pat Robertson. He rails against Europeans at every opportunity, based on what some say in public, but Pat seems at the same time to think, "But it would be a shame if there were fewer Europeans, because, after all, they're white."
Posted by RSA at February 7, 2006 03:03 PM
Actually, it not only likely, it’s a certainty that “white people” as we understand that term currently will become close to extinct in a few hundred years if current trends continue. It is a fact that in industrial\technological economies children are a financial liability. Large families of over 4 children (in the predominantly white middle class of developed countries like the US) were common in the fifties and are a rarity now a days.
Right now, white society is at below replacement levels in terms of reproduction. Anecdotally I have a very close circle of about 20 friends who have grown up together. Add in at least one spouse (many have had more) that makes 40 + people. Between us we have only produced about 15 children.
Now as to why Pat sees this as a bad thing I can’t say, but it might have something to do with the view that biblically offspring are seen as a manifestation of gods blessing and the fact is that white society is getting creamed (from a socio-biological perspective), by Muslims and non-Christian Asians. In fact there are more Christians right now of Latin and non-white decent then there are white Christians. So it makes perfect sense why a moron like Robertson is crapping his pants.
If you want a bit of a wry take on this notion, go here:
http://www.therant.info/archives/001001.html
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Posted by Rick DeMent on February 7, 2006 04:27 PM Link to comment |
Interesting; I'll have to do the math to see if you're right.
I was going to comment on the culture aspect, but your own rant addresses much of what I would have said. Thanks.
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Posted by RSA on February 7, 2006 05:22 PM Link to comment |
I think it's beyond calculation... Populations change, and phylogenies change, according to way too many factors to ever sort out... I guess we should care whether or not we leave descendants - on the biological level, that's what life is all about - whatever their skin color (I didn't personally father any children that I know of, but I imagine that others in my family will have descendants of a variety of skin colors despite being all white, themselves). The biggest thing should be to leave the next generations a decent society in which to live.
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Posted by smijer on February 7, 2006 05:35 PM Link to comment |
I guess Pat has forgotten this Sunday School classic:
Red and Yellow, Black and White
They are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
If only we could all somehow develop a kinship with all of our fellow men maybe we could leave the world a better place.
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Posted by Buck on February 7, 2006 08:08 PM Link to comment |
> I think it's beyond calculation...
Actually, if you make enough simplifying assumptions, it's pretty straightforward to get a back-of-the-envelope estimate. The simplest model I can think of is as follows: Assume that a population of size N is replaced every generation by a new population of a size that's some fraction p of its last value. Let's say that N is 1 billion, p is 0.9, and a generation is 25 years. (90% of replacement fertility is about the value that is remarked on in newspaper articles; 1 billion is a rough estimate of the populations of North America and Europe.) We can then ask how long it takes for this population to go to zero. For the numbers above, it will take about 5,000 years for the population to disappear. Not all that long, perhaps, but it's half of our past recorded history. This model is far from accurate, but it's also far from a best-case or worst-case scenario.
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Posted by RSA on February 8, 2006 11:11 AM Link to comment |
All that's good as far as it goes, but it's a big stretch to assume that 'p' will remain constant. If you look back in history just a couple of hundred years, you will find that 'p' was radically different then than now. As non-Europeans are better assimilated into wealthy, industrialized nations, they will likely start planning smaller families, and the european proportion of the following generation will rise compared to the previous one. Then there are just bazillions of other factors that influence 'p'. That's why I said that it seems too complex to calculate.
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Posted by smijer on February 8, 2006 11:38 AM Link to comment |
I agree that accurate models are too hard for us amateurs to develop. On the other hand, I'm completely skeptical about the demise of white people within the next few hundred years. My model is pretty crappy, I admit, but I'd want to see a better one before taking any end-of-the-white-race stories seriously.
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Posted by RSA on February 8, 2006 11:47 AM Link to comment |
I'm certainly no fan of Robertson, but when I see "Europe", what I don't think is "white people". And, as you say, he constantly rails against Europe, so now you want the cake of claiming racism while eating it & condemning his constant stances against Europe?
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Posted by RW on February 8, 2006 08:41 PM Link to comment |
Your metaphor is too much for me; I really don't understand what you're getting at. No one can seriously argue that Robertson is talking about "racial suicide" of anyone aside from white people when he says that Europe is in the midst of such a thing, and I think that Robertson's complaints about Europe are pretty much aimed at the same group.
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Posted by RSA on February 9, 2006 10:16 AM Link to comment |
