Counter-Currents
Letter from the Left Coast
Why Environmentalists Should Have Large Families
Greg Johnson
515 words
Environmentalists, generally speaking, are well above average in their intellectual, aesthetic, and moral faculties.
It takes intelligence to grasp chains of causation, and the ecosystem is an astoundingly complex causal nexus.
It takes a strong aesthetic sensibility to appreciate the beauty of nature and despise the things that mar it. As Kant points out, aesthetic appreciation has an aspect of disinterestedness. This disinterestedness is banished by the modern technological worldview that sees all of nature in terms of the satisfaction of human interests.
It takes a broad moral sensibility to think in terms of the welfare of the cosmos and to take responsibility for the remote consequences of one’s actions. It takes unusual strength of character to live up to these enlarged responsibilities.
In short, environmentalists tend to be excellent human beings. This does not, of course, mean they are free of vices — credulity being one of them — but their vices are shared more widely by the rest of humanity than their virtues.
Because environmentalists care about the welfare of the world and act accordingly, they tend to limit their fertility to well below replacement. I wish to argue, however, that in the long run, this choice is environmentally irresponsible and destructive.
The people who care about the welfare of the world and who have the foresight to think about the future and the discipline to control their fertility are precisely the people who should be having large families. Ecologically speaking, these are highly desirable traits. And whether these traits are products of nature, nurture, or both, the children of ecologically enlightened and responsible people will also tend to be ecologically enlightened and responsible. The planet needs more people like that, not fewer. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone were like that?
If intelligent and responsible people have few or no children, that does nothing to stop stupid, selfish, and irresponsible people from breeding profusely. Thus when environmentally responsible people limit their fertility, they are guaranteeing that the very people who are trashing the planet are the ones who will inherit it. But what is the point of leaving the earth to the kind of people who will turn it into a lifeless cinder? That is not good stewardship.
Thus the people who care about the planet should have large families.
Graphic by Harold Arthur McNeill
Yes, there are too many people. But wouldn’t it be more ecologically responsible to encourage those people — the stupid, vulgar, and irresponsible people who don’t care about the planet — to have few children or none at all?
Such an outcome cannot, however, be left up to individual choice. Today’s family planning is ecologically irresponsible because it is dysgenic. In today’s system, only intelligent and responsible people choose to limit their fertility, guaranteeing that the dumb and foolish will inherit the earth. Thus ecologically responsible family planning requires the state to get involved, giving incentives for the intelligent and responsible to have large families and the stupid and irresponsible to have few children or none.
We need a green eugenics movement. Before it is too late.
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18 comments
“We need a green eugenics movement. Before it is too late.”
Umm, well, yes…But it takes having more than 1.8 children. And children get in the way of obtaining other stuff.
Check out http://www.eugenics.net
The idea of involuntary, state-sponsored eugenics is, well, chilling. Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to some of you that under such a regime you or your descendants might one day be adjudicated as defectives who should not reproduce or who should be exterminated.
I generally don’t wish ill will on anyone, but in the case of some of you it’s tempting to hope your kids, nieces and nephews are born on the left side of the bell curve or with a genetic disorder. Nature is unpredictable, and there is no guarantee it won’t happen.
Leaving family planning up to individuals means that intelligent and responsible individuals will restrict their fertility and stupid, irresponsible people won’t. The dysgenic consequences are obvious. This is not rocket science.
Critics of eugenics always trot out some totalitarian, dystopian fantasy scenario. But eugenics can be a matter of state policy without coercion. One simply needs to offer incentives for the smart and responsible to breed and for the stupid and irresponsible not to.
Intelligence and moral responsiblity are public goods and need to be treated as such. Left to the “private sector” we have dysgenic trends, which are reinforced and exacerbated by welfare state policies that encourage the stupid and irresponsible to breed.
Is your blood not chilled, Lew, by the existing state-sponsored dysgenic regime?
I agree with removing state-sponsored welfare incentives that encourage low IQ non-Whites to reproduce. At the same time, however, my blood is chilled by the thought of a state-sponsored eugenics program being applied to White people by other White people in a White ethnostate if you are going that far. Are you? You don’t distinguish between Whites and non-Whites in this essay but use the broader term “people” which includes Whites as well as non-Whites.
Yes, I think white nations need eugenics too. The quality of our race would be enormously improved if say, the lowest ten percent of the population in terms of intelligence and moral qualities were given incentives to reproduce below replacement or not at all, and if the top percentiles were given incentives to breed early and often.
Greg,
Have you ever read Sir Arthur Keith’s works, especially “Evolution and Ethics?” They can be found on Yggdrasil’s website. I read them years ago. Perhaps an article on them in CC?
I am ashamed to say that I have not yet read Keith. He is on the list, though. I would love to run something about him here. Any volunteers out there? I would also be willing to reprint any good work about him.
Capital punishment for felonies would remove a lot of people that aren’t needed.
Improvements in our ability to manipulate genes and produce so-called designer babies may reduce the need for government programs that chill people’s blood. In this case, in the USA, I think the free market would be the source of the services for genetic improvement, and people would be happy to spend money to manipulate whatever needs to be manipulated to get a quality baby.
In the USA, poor people would probably get access to these genetic services via private non-profits. In Europe, the services would probably be paid for by the government.
There are two green eugenics legal applications currently before the SA Constitutional Court; they are linked (CCT 23-10 and CCT 06-11). Briefly they argue:
Johnstone and Radical Honesty were approved by Constitutional Court Justices to file an Amicus Curiae in the Constitutional matter of The Citizen v. Robert McBride (CCT 23-10), where they argued in support of a Population Policy Common Sense Interpretation of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation (TRC) Act.
The Radical Honesty SA Amicus was supported by the expert witness statements of (i) Dr. T. Michael Maher, Head of Communication Dept. at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, author of the study: How and Why Journalists Avoid Population – Environment Connection; and (ii) Dr. Brad Blanton, founder of the Radical Honesty movement, former candidate for U.S. Congress from Virginia in 2004 and 2006 and author of the Radical Honesty series of books.
Radical Honesty SA’s Population Policy Common Sense Ecolaw argues that “any legislation or jurisprudence such as the TRC Social Contract, which professes to advocate on behalf of human rights, peace and social justice, while ignoring their ecological basis – a stable human population at slightly less than the eco-systems carrying capacity – is endorsing and practicing legal dishonesty and hypocrisy; i.e. fraud. It is legislation and jurisprudence deliberately indifferent to the laws of sustainability, advocating misery.”
The Radical Honesty SA Amicus argues, among others, that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission committed fraud, because it failed to uphold its mandate to investigate the population policy factors for the Nature & Causes of Apartheid. If it had done so, within International Just War and Population Policy theories and principles, it would have concluded that Apartheid was not a ‘crime against humanity’; to the contrary: Apartheid was a Just War for Demographic Survival of Boer-Afrikaners.
This much is equally obvious to American attorney and author of “Humans: An Endangered Species”, Jason G. Brent: “We must all understand that the most potent weapons of war are the penis and the womb. Therefore, if you cannot convince a group to control its population by discussion, debate, intelligent analysis etc., you must consider their action in using the penis and the womb to increase population an act of war.”
Additionally much of Apartheid’s racial resource war violence was a consequence of the ANC’s ‘breeding war’ policies, which resulted in huge demographic youth bulges of unemployed poverty stricken youth; the ANC’s ‘People’s War’ teenage generals, teenage street committee’s and teenage ‘necklacing’ executioners cannon fodder; who terrorized black Africans who did not want black rule, to support the ANC.
http://why-we-are-white-refugees.blogspot.com/2011/02/conspiracy-of-silence-as-david-v.html
Given the collapse of White birthrates we need state-sponsored incentives to encourage as many White births as possible for many generations, among all IQ levels. Every year there are fewer and fewer of us on the planet, so limiting White births, even among the bottom 10%-15%, doesn’t make a lot of sense when we are being swamped by other races all over the globe. There are also many necessary jobs that a functioning White society will need done that the bottom 10%-15% of Whites are capable of doing and that higher IQ Whites won’t want to do.
Obviously we can’t keep having people until the planet has standing room only. If we whites controlled our own borders and had homogeneously white societies, we would not be personally threatened by high non-white birthrates. The real threat would be to the planet as a whole. Absent the demographic pressure of the other races, there are plenty of white people in the world.
The bottom tenth percentile of whites in terms of IQ consists largely or retarded and near retarded people. The bottom tenth percentile of of whites in terms of moral and behavioral issues contains a lot of criminals, parasites, and all-round losers. I doubt there are many efficient manual laborers among them. Even if we were concerned purely with economics, reducing the reproductive success of such people would probably be a positive gain. The best way to do the jobs that people don’t want to do is (a) national service, so everybody pitches in for a while when they are young, and (b) automation. Why not create robots?
This article is good as far as it goes, but by itself it is too short in view of the issues it raises and the questions it generates. As ecology and eugenics are both subject to misunderstanding on the part of many–proponents and opponents alike–addressing them simultaneously might only compound these misunderstandings.
However, in making these comments, I should note that I’m not expecting too much from a single short article and I’m not criticising the article or the author. Rather, I’m thinking beyond the article itself to how such complex and controversial issues should be addressed. Metapolitics requires an appreciation of the ecology of ideas and media, which do not act in a linear, instantaneous, and mechanical fashion. Some things about metapolitics that should be understood are:
1. There is a place in metapolitics for expressing ideas in a pithy and provocative manner, as in the article above. But if such provocations are to be productive, they must be followed up effectively, which involves developing ideas in depth. This is particularly important when addressing highly complex and controversial issues.
Seeking controversy for the sake of controversy is like ploughing up the ground then failing to sow the ground with seeds.
Many parts of White nationalist thought are misunderstood and misrepresented. Lew’s misunderstandings regarding eugenics appear to be fairly common. As Greg Johnson notes, opponents of eugenics can “trot out some totalitarian, dystopian fantasy scenario.” (Witless Wallace recently did precisely this when he had the chutzpah to depict Greg as some kind of cross between Dr. Moreau and the Reverend Jim Jones.) They can do this with impunity because they are rarely contradicted.
2. Metapolitics must be conceived in activist terms. It is one thing to endorse ideas, another thing to understand them, and yet another thing to articulate and promote them effectively. Clausewitz once metaphorically remarked that a military campaign is the work of a year. A metapolitical campaign takes longer. It requires the careful coordination, formation, and application of ideas, people, and media.
It is not enough to be an enthusiast or a true believer to promote ideas effectively. Many such people lack the self-discipline, skill, and knowledge needed to present their ideas articulately and effectively. Worse, they do not try to rectify these defects, and they might not recognise their defects. They believe that if they are misunderstood, it can only be because their audience is stupid or perverse, never because they did a poor job of representing their ideas.
Without the proper formation of our ideas, people, and media, any metapolitical campaign on our part will be abortive. With regard to ideas, we must formulate our ideas in their most attractive, cogent, and robust forms. With regard to people, we must develop our knowledge and skills so that we can present our ideas effectively. With regard to media, we need to develop our media so that they meet professional standards.
Developing, assimilating, and promoting radical ideas takes time.
I used the term “coordination” above advisedly. I don’t think what Guillaume Faye calls an “apparatus logic” is appropriate for a metapolitical movement. I don’t think that this kind of coordination can be made to work. But some kind of cooperation is necessary. Perhaps the model of open source warfare might be applicable to cultural warfare. Competitive emulation rather than centralised direction might be more practical and yield better results.
3. Metapolitics requires addressing issues in many forms. These forms can vary in media, length, literary style, and intellectual level. There is a place for media ranging from weighty tomes with hundreds of references to handbills with cartoons. There is a place for works of a scientific, philosophical, polemical, and journalistic character. There is a place for media addressing a range of intellectual levels. In this context, intellectual level can refer to the general intelligence of the audience, as well as the cultural level of the audience. Of course, intellectual level and cultural level are not strictly synonymous. (A graduate of a particular university course in the humanities or the sciences should have a higher cultural level in the discipline they studied than when they began to study it, but they will not have a higher IQ.) But those with a high general intelligence will generally have or develop a high cultural level.
It could be said that metapolitics means providing something for everyone in our target audiences, but it does not mean targeting everything at everyone in our target audiences.
That said, I have some comments on the article and comments:
1. The best form of birth control was expressed in the formula attributed to Margaret Sanger: “More from the fit, less from the unfit–that is the chief aim of birth control.” (I’m not sure if these were her exact words, or where she expressed them.)
2. It might be worth noting that some eugenicists were ecologists or conservationists. This was the case of some American eugenicists before the Second World War, as Roger Pearson shows in Heredity and Humanity. This was also the case with Garrett Hardin, who was at one time an official of the American Eugenics Society, and who wrote many excellent works on ecology. Hardin has been an important influence on my thinking on ecology.
The French eugenicist and Nobel Prize winner Charles Richet was also a conservationist. He expressed racialist, eugenic, and ecological views in L’homme idiot, a wide-ranging collection of essays on the folly, cruelty, and destructiveness of humanity.
I believe that Aldous Huxley (The Human Situation), Konrad Lorenz (Civilized Man’s Eight Deadly Sins), and C. D. Darlington (The Little Universe of Man) may have combined eugenicist and ecological views. However, I’m not entirely sure of this, and I cannot consult their works right now.
3. Ecologists must be illiberal and anti-liberal. They need to think in terms that are both radical and political. The structural changes to state and society that need to be made to secure ecological sustainability cannot be made by liberal means. Liberal polity is incompatible with “good stewardship.” (On this subject, William Ophuls’ Requiem for Modern Politics is worth reading, although I have some reservations concerning this work.)
Ecologists should recognise that education will not correct the habits of thought and the lifestyles that are responsible for environmental destruction.
Cognitive dissonance ensures that people will wilfully ignore environmental problems rather than address them.
Rampant materialism, individualism, and short-sightedness mean that people will not tolerate any restraint upon consumerism. Such restraints would be perceived as an intolerable attack on their God-given right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Never mind the fact that they have lost the will to live as a people and are exposed to violence from growing numbers of homegrown and imported savages. Never mind the fact that they don’t have much real liberty. Never mind the fact that their way of life is often precisely what makes them miserable and neurotic. If you do so much as question whether their way of life is sensible or sustainable, if you question whether it would be a good thing for everyone to live in a McMansion, drive an SUV, and have plasma televisions, they will regard you with suspicion and hatred.
A formula has just occurred to me: “Ecologists must be Archeofuturists.” This is something I will need to think through.
4. I would recommend that Greg put Sir Arthur Keith’s books high on his list of books to read.
I believe that Keith’s work has been favourably mentioned by authors such as Revilo P. Oliver, Ivor Benson, Robert Ardrey, Raymond B. Cattell, Wilmot Robertson, William L. Pierce, William Gayley Simpson, Robert Lenski, Garrett Hardin, and Michael O’Meara. That’s quite a list, but I don’t know of any articles on Keith, aside from one by Yggdrasil.
I think that the best qualified person to write about Keith’s ideas would have to be Kevin MacDonald. Keith’s most important works, Essays on Human Evolution (the U.S. edition was titled Evolution and Ethics) and A New Theory of Human Evolution, effectively address what MacDonald calls group evolutionary strategies. Keith’s analysis of the Jews in terms of group evolutionary strategies is in line with that of MacDonald.
5. Greg could have added other ways to get people to do unpopular jobs: (a) paying them more, (b) doing away with snobbery concerning manual labour, and (c) having such jobs performed as part of “workfare.” Such jobs needn’t be careers and needn’t have a stigma attached to them.
Some further comments and questions:
1. As ecology is such a large and complex issue, I think it would be useful to (a) identify the place and priority of ecology in nationalist thought; (b) identify the perspectives and methods of an anti-liberal or Archeofuturist ecology; (c) create “cultural space” for a nationalist ecology; and (d) identify and prioritise ecological issues and themes.
Some comments on these particular tasks:
(a) With regard to the place and priority of ecology, I think that most nationalists have little interest in or knowledge of ecological issues. I think that this should change, given the mounting ecological problems before us, such as overpopulation, resource depletion, and environmental degradation (e.g. erosion, deforestation, pollution). I think that ecology should be an integral part of nationalist thought. This means that it must be given more than a paragraph or two in the programs and manifestos of nationalist groups, or occasional pot-shots at “watermelons” (green on the outside, red on the inside).
(b) With regard to identifying the perspectives and methods of an anti-liberal or Archeofuturist ecology, this is something I cannot adequately address here. It requires a book or several books.
Establishing ecological sustainable societies will require unconventional, radical, and creative thinking. It requires a “third way,” which is neither capitalist nor socialist, which is neither “left” nor “right,” which opposes economism, which replaces the goal of growth with that of development, and which practices restraint and prudence.
Nationalists have an advantage over many ecologists in that they have no need to try “square the circle” by reconciling ecology with the established order or with certain fixed ideas of the left or the right. We are not committed to liberal goals or liberal values. We can address population issues without the fetters of leftist dogmas and taboos concerning “human rights” or “human equality.” We do not believe in abstract and universal “human rights.” We are not egalitarians and we do not believe in or seek to establish human equality. We are not committed to the idiocies of feminism, primitivism, and Third Worldism. We are neither technophobes nor technophiles. We are not leftists who are hostile to authority, hierarchy, and discipline. We can think in terms of “lifeboat ethics.” We can think in rational, political, and revolutionary terms.
As “good Europeans,” we believe that true order lies in establishing a tripartite order in which wisdom prevails over force, and force prevails over wealth. We believe that “the demon of economy” must be restrained.
I think that the tone of an anti-liberal ecology should not be overly apocalyptic or misanthropic. While I’m not an optimist, and I think that there are too many people on this planet, I’m not fond of prophets of doom and gloom or schoolboy Nietzscheans. The prophecies of the former do not pan out, while the tough-mindedness of the latter is purely theatrical. We need to be genuinely forward-looking and tough-minded.
(c) With regard to creating “cultural space” for a nationalist ecology, there are many things that need to be done. Ecological issues need to be regularly addressed in such a way as to generate interest among nationalists, to provoke debate, to develop and refine ideas, to attract new writers, and to make ecology an integral part of nationalist thought. These are not changes that can be imposed by at once. It requires the development of writers who can act as agents for change, the development of a nationalist doctrine on ecology, and the regular treatment of ecological issues in nationalist media.
(d) With regard to identifying and prioritising ecological issues and themes, it is necessary to focus on those issues and themes that promise to be the most interesting and most productive. As it is impossible to address everything in a comprehensive, authoritative, and effective way, it is necessary to be selective. Interest and understanding among nationalists must be gradually developed.
2. Francophone readers might like to know that Georges Minois has recently written a book on overpopulation, Le poids du nombre: l’obsession du surpeuplement dans l’histoire (Librairie Académique Perrin, 2011). I haven’t read it, but it may provide a useful overview of historical thought and practice concerning overpopulation from prehistoric times to the modern day. (The subtitle of the book was probably chosen by the publisher rather than the author. As Minois is a serious cultural and intellectual historian, he would avoid characterising a concern with carrying capacity in blanket terms as an “obsession.”)
3. I previously referred to Charles Richet’s “L’homme stupide” as “L’homme idiot”; I was writing from memory and confused the titles of the French and English editions. I suppose that makes me “un homme négligent.”
4. Is that really Witless Wallace playing around in the YouTube clip? Perhaps Yoda would say that the Farce is strong in him.
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