HE GETS THE MALTHUSIAN COMPONENT, BUT NOT THE DARWINIAN:

The end of Europe?: Blaming Europe’s decline on the fertility rates of fecund immigrants misses the point that the continent is politically, not physically, exhausted. (Frank Furedi, 8/17/07, Spiked)

The preoccupation with an ‘immigrant invasion’ of Europe shows the extent to which Malthusianism is influencing early twenty-first century thinking. There has been a shift in the cultural imagination in recent years, from a political mindset towards a new consciousness of natural limits. Natural cycles, the climate and biology are now looked upon as the main drivers of human destiny. Some argue that there must be a significant reduction in the number of humans inhabiting the planet if we are to protect and preserve the natural environment. Others take a different view: they worry about the declining birth rates amongst their people. Many thinkers and commentators are concerned about the reluctance of European natives to have large families, or to have any children at all, and thus they would like to see a reduction in the numbers of the ‘wrong kind of people’ being born or arriving in Europe.

Most of these New Malthusians discuss contemporary problems in a simplistic and politically illiterate manner. One interesting exception is the German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn. Although Heinsohn, too, expresses Malthusian sentiments, he does at least offer an eloquent and at times thoughtful demographic-determinist take on Europe’s current predicament. Like Malthus, Heinsohn is not simply concerned with alarming growth rates of the ‘wrong people’. Malthus’ concern about population growth was informed by his opposition to welfare measures designed to help the poor; today, Heinsohn is equally critical of foreign aid.

Heinsohn believes that Western nations’ misguided policy of providing aid to overseas countries encourages too many young men in the Third World to survive, and to survive in a state of anger. Frustrated by their low status, where they live on handouts and charity, these young men become resentful about their place in the world and occasionally turn to violence in order to gain power and prestige, says Heinsohn. He argues that many of the world’s violent upheavals – whether they are civil wars, revolutions or coups d’etat – are the work of these angry young men. He concludes that the West’s attempts to tackle unrest in the Third World through aid designed to alleviate hunger and provide employment are likely to have the perverse effect of encouraging violent reactions amongst the world’s poorest people.

However, Heinsohn does not simply provide a fatalistic Malthusian view of the world. He is concerned with what he perceives to be a gigantic ‘youth bulge’ in many Muslim countries, and its potentially destructive consequences. Heinsohn associates high fertility rates with what he refers to as a process of ‘demographic rearmament’. Linking fertility rates with the language of warfare has a long history. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many writers worried about the issue of ‘competitive fertility’: a perceived clash of fertility rates between Western societies and others. Like many other forms of competition – economic, political, military – the concept of competitive fertility raised issues of power and who is in the ascendant.

Today, those who express concern about the violence that might potentially spring from ‘demographic rearmament’ are not only worried about the future of the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world. Rather, their main concern is that there will be a demographic capitulation in Europe; that Europeans’ low fertility rates mean that our societies will fail to reproduce themselves and thus come to a standstill. Europe’s current regime of low birth rates is seen as a precursor of European decline and decadence. Unable to reproduce itself, Europe is looked upon by many as an ageing continent that will inevitably collapse under the weight of foreign influence. Prussia’s victory over France in 1871 was widely blamed on the stagnation of the French population, or what one writer has referred to as France’s ‘Devil of Declining Growth’. Today, Europe’s stagnant and ageing population is interpreted by some as an invitation to more fecund peoples to come here and take over our societies. In keeping with today’s consciousness of natural limits, the crisis in Europe is discussed in naturalistic, fertility-related terms rather than as a political problem – and the solutions put forward to deal with it tend to be naturalistic, too: whether it’s a demand for population control amongst the ‘wrong’ people or for raising awareness about the benefits of having large families amongst the ‘right’ people.

Yet why should large-scale population movements pose a threat to Europe’s way of life?

Of course they'll adopt the Western way of life. Indeed, they would if they stayed in their country of origin. The problem from a Malthusian point of view is that they can never be ethnically European. France and Germany and such are nations, not cultures.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 18, 2007 12:00 AM