Barrel Strength

Hey, I like hearing that! And I believe it is true that in many places if people could be taught to see sand believe such a choice, they may well choose the sewing machine. I’ve seen people make such a choice Mexico and some other developing Latin Countries.

On the other hand, the isolation of village life, or even slum life in, say, Caracas, is such that they will not be exposed to either the choice or the sewing machine. Not to mention that in most cases refusing to have a child would not save them enough money to buy a sewing machine. And in somne cases there is no money to save in a negative economy (one that theoretically should not exist because they have less than zero local economy in monetary terms. Yet they continue to exist and multiply in a zero money, zero agricultural, non-indigenous (both urban and village) culture which requires, at the very least, money for food. Nevertheless, while there is almost no detectable money there, they survive and multiply. It’s kinda like they survive on the vapor of money located somewhere else.

people are Anyway, from what I’ve seen, you could walk into some of these villages and slums and say: “If you do not have another child in the next two years I will give you one million dollars,” Everyone would nod and agree. And still, every fertile one among them would have a child within a year or two. I’ve seen it with my own eyes (not the sewing machine but other obvious material incentives.) It’s like life just happens to them, and your promise of a sewing machine or money was just something else among other things, such as catching a fish, that happened that particular day. Next day a couple of teenagers sneak off together and … Or a married couple living in a tin shanty by a smoking waste dump with six kids and eating garbage discover the wife is pregnant again and, whoopee! They contact all their relatives to celebrate the good news of another approaching birth. I confess that I don’t understand it at all.

Of course a lotta people smartyer and with expertise are gonna contradict me. The more politically correct folks will say I am a white European devil chauvinist. But it happens millions of times a year in a million places, I am sure. I’ve asked aid and health workers about it and they’ve seen the same.

Overall, it strikes me as something so primal, so human, that it is immune to the speculation and western logic of far away and comfortable white people who feel smug in their educations and certain they understand the difficulty/joy the fundamental act of human birth represents in those living so close to the matrix of nature and earth, even if that earth is covered with flies, knee deep in excrement and stalked by hunger every waking hour. The fact that I have met far more happy third world street beggars than happy middle class Americans will confound me until the day I die.

Yet, I am sure you are right in one of the ways that Malthus was wrong — he thought more affluence would lead to higher birth raters. But when a nation becomes more prosperous and developed the birth rate usually declines. Right? Maybe there is some critical mass of material development a culture has to reach before such an incentive works. I dunno. I’m no population biologists, anthro or sociologist. If there is anyone out there who has has a good understanding of all this (and I don’t mean some character doing computer modeling in the sociology department of a big university who has never slept twelve to a room and eaten cows’ feet or chicken heads with these people) please do enlighten me. In terms I and readers of this blog can understand.

In art and labor,
joe

PS: It’s not that I approve or disapprove of certain things. Time and the universe could care less of my likes and dislikes. It’s just that I am a very loud and blunt person, especially when I write.