Saturday, July 05, 2008

Euphemisms

My question from the other day about Fight Club was actually prompted by this article in The New Republic, which has been churning out some brilliant China commentary lately.  You should definitely read the whole article, but the general thrust is this.

China has a policy of one child per couple.  They also have a policy of forced abortions for women who already have a child but get pregnant.  (They quite loudly deny this.) China also has a millennia-old custom of men carrying on the family name, and this is seen as a mark of honor in China; to not carry on the family name is shameful.  Thus many couples, upon finding out they are having a girl, will abort it.  Or, in small villages, they will have the child at home and, upon seeing that it is a girl, will kill the child.

All this sick calculus adds up to one inescapable inevitability:  China is running out of women, and that leaves a lot of pissed-off young guys who are, in essence, creating their own Fight Clubs.

All this I knew before I read the article.  The one part I wanted to highlight was this.

In the meantime, the government is adopting a softer tone in its propaganda. The red characters painted on village walls throughout the countryside have evolved from the 1980s slogan YOU BEAT IT OUT! YOU CAN MAKE IT FALL OUT! YOU CAN ABORT IT! BUT YOU CANNOT GIVE BIRTH TO IT! Now they read: IMPLEMENT FAMILY PLANNING FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CITIZENS. And, recently, the government added BOYS AND GIRLS ARE BOTH TREASURES. In 2003, it unveiled the Care For Girls program, which gives stipends to parents of girls in some provinces.

So, the exact same family planning concept which was implored people to “beat it out and kill it” has now become known as “Boys and Girls are both Treasures.” That’s an astonishing change in tone for a program that has remained virtually untouched over the years.

But, think about it, are we any different?  “Illegal immigrant” has become “undocumented worker.” “Welfare” has become “public entitlements.” “Abortion” is “family planning” or “reproductive freedom.” “Torture” has become “enhanced interrogation technique.” “Black” has become “African-American.”

I could sit here and come up with a hundred other examples, but I think you see my point.

Besides, almost all economists and demographers agree on one point.  (The article briefly touches on this, as well.) As societies grow more affluent their birth rates drop.  In order to maintain the current population the birth rate has to be 2.1 children per couple.  The two replace the two parents who will eventually die, and the 0.1 is for those children who die before they can reach the age where they themselves reproduce.  Almost all countries in Europe have a birth rate lower than 2.1, which is why they have to allow so many immigrants in, to prop up the tax base that so that they can continue to provide the fabulous cash and prizes that their respective welfare states have been promising for the last 60 years or so.  (The fact that these immigrants do not integrate well into European society, and end up ghettoized and resentful of their host nations, is a story for another post.) The US is somewhere right around the 2.1 number, though many believe this is due to the influx of Hispanics, who generally have more children than their gringo counterparts.  Thus as China’s wealth grows the affluent will have fewer children, which is only going to exacerbate the problem of the lack of wives.

China is going to have to get rid of the one child policy, or at least substantially revamp it, if they hope to avoid legions of pissed off young men.  Remember, as I always say, happy people don’t revolt.