A World Without Hope

Cultural Themes in 'Children of Men' (2006)

This is an exploration of the question of how our culture might change as the number of children continues to fall, with references to the 2006 film Children of Men.

The worldwide falling birthrate is quickly becoming a subject of concern. What will be the consequences of trying to keep nations running smoothly, when 30% of the people are older than 60? 40%? The implications for economic growth and policymaking are grave (and this is one of the preferred neoliberal arguments for mass migration - if we can’t have acculturated, growing native citizens perhaps we can just import millions from Africa and South Asia and Latin America?) but in most places they haven’t been acutely felt yet. They probably will begin to be in South Korea and China and Russia and Japan (etc.) within ten years.

It is possible that the culture is registering the falling birthrate, though. In the slightly mysterious way that culture (a diffuse and complex organism) can register changing social realities and begin to help individuals and groups begin to process them, it is possible that our culture is beginning to reflect the growing scarcity of children. What might that cultural reflection look like? The 2006 film Children of Men offers some speculations in that regard.

(Note: The film is based on the novel - The Children of Men - by PD James, which is quite good, but different in meaningful ways. I am referring to the film here because it gives a fuller and more interesting portrayal of how a world without children might feel, in all its perverse detail, assisted by the tools of cinema and by a very layered and well-crafted script).

Confounding Variables

Of course, culture is never simple or univariate, and our culture has seen dramatic changes regarding childhood, growth, eudaemonia (a concept which our culture has no word for, but which every culture has some notion of), and death. Most of these changes probably have nothing to do with the birthrate or the distribution of children.

Regarding childhood, our culture has veered into unprecedented territory in three striking respects:

1. Our increasing (and, I would argue, pathological) avoidance of discomfort and suffering and struggle - coupled with a cultural template that profoundly prioritizes the feelings and impulses and priorities and identities of the individual - has cascaded down onto children. Children are now much more infantilized than any human children in history have ever been. For example (it’s a single data point, but such things can be revealing), I read that the Bambi remake, currently in production, won’t include the death of Bambi’s mother. Attending only to fiction, we can definitely see a change between children’s books and films made 50 or 70 years ago, and those made today. Violence, real evil, death, fatal struggle… all have been gingerly edited out of the world that we present to children. I suspect that this is a side effect of the feminization of culture and organizations and juvenile education: children are to be protected from unpleasant realities and unpleasant feelings, rather than taught about them and how to deal with them. Some people identify media hysteria about kidnappers in the 1980’s, or changing family structures or forms of play, for the phenomenon of ‘helicopter parenting’ and the cessation of free (unsupervised, wide-ranging) play in children. While those factors might be significant, I suspect that the changes that children are experiencing are simply magnifications of changes that all people in our society are experiencing. Children are presumed to need more supervision and constant, external support… and so (now) are adults. Conflict and frank competition and controlled aggression are stigmatized among children… and among adults. The idea that failure/success are largely personal projects, and that people should be held responsible for the effects of their behavior (in order to nudge them toward improving it) is less and less promoted around children… and around adults. I don’t think we should see the smothering, watchful, feminized regime which children now exist within as a child-centered phenomenon. It’s a cultural shift that is being particularly applied to children because we tend to be especially protective of them.

   The Longhouse

2. The categories of ‘adult’ and ‘child’ are beginning to blur - not because of some intentional social program or some explicit ideology, but because many adults are shying away from the difficulty and responsibility and limitations of adulthood. By sheltering in children’s spaces and activities, and by demanding the kind of consideration and sympathy that we used to reserve for children, they are eroding (in certain respects) what used to be a clear boundary.

   Part of the issue lies in the fact that we no longer have a clear role or event or duty that defines adulthood. ‘Roles’ and ‘duties’ are anathema to a culture which dictates that everyone should simply “live her best life.” Traditional adult activities, like marriage and children and community participation and socializing the young are now optional. The only really mandatory element for adults in our society is work, and consumption (a pretty clear reflection of our values and priorities). If one does those things then one has satisfied the globalist ideal of a functional adult. If one does those things while maintaining a limp kind of abstract tolerance and a fondness for progressive ideologies then one is a model citizen, by the standards of bureaucratic policymakers. It’s no matter if one is cruel and greedy and hypocritical and lazy. Those are simply not recognized as ‘sins’ by the society in the way that they used to be (as attributes that made social cohesion and functionality more difficult), even if they might make a person less popular among his fellows. No matter! There’s an entire online galaxy of opportunities for ‘connection’ and ‘community’, where one can be as cruel and hypocritical as one wants, and will only bring distinction upon oneself. If a person is mentally ill and dependent and anxious and chronically ill? Wonderful. Those are actually benefits in the modern scheme. They guarantee maximum engagement with the various faces of the Blob, and so those labels are rewarded with status and sympathy and accommodations and permission.

   Take men: in many cultures, boys had to pass through a formidable rite of manhood. Once they had successfully navigated their ordeal they were offered a new name and could begin taking wives and fighting with the men and accumulating the status which adult, masculine endeavors entailed.

   

   Ironically, even the latest Disney remake has Wendy grow up to be a childless old woman, and removes her as the maternal influence for her siblings and for the lost boys. In films the central importance of motherhood and families and children for women has been ruthlessly rewritten.

   Viewing the friendly (or aggressively antisocial, depending mostly on class), soft, uncertain puer aeternus of today (relentlessly encouraged to defer to women, be agreeable, avoid aggression and decision, and find solace in various technological and pharmaceutical forms of ‘soma’), one can feel only profound pity. (Here’s a game I like to play: watch the ads available on cable television, and count the instances of girlfriends/wives/female bosses/trainers/etc. speaking down to or instructing or demeaning or ordering men. Now count the converse: men ordering or belittling (even in a friendly way) or instructing women. The differential is striking.) Look at the figures and programs and messages (Jordan Peterson, for example, or Joe Rogan) pushing back against these changes, and trying to imbue men with a spirit of struggle and pride. How have they been received in the mainstream? Whether or not these changes are intentional or malicious isn’t terribly important. They exist, and they are profoundly influential.

   It shouldn’t be surprising then that many of these young men recoil from the idea that masculine adulthood entails difficult, uncomfortable things. The problem exists among women too (where it seems to be even more pronounced, although the dynamics are quite different). Much of what we perceive as modern political and cultural discourse is really, deep down, a flight from the difficulties and expectations of the world. Many of those who complain about ‘societal pressure’ or ‘expectations’ or ‘gender roles’ or ‘the 1%’ or ‘inequities’ aren’t offering policy proposals; they’re lamenting a confusing and difficult world, and asking for someone (usually ‘the government’, i.e., well-funded non-profit organizations and lobbyists and coercive agencies) to make it easier for them.

   It’s rarely remarked upon, but the entire approach that adults now take to life and to difficulty is different than it used to be. 100 years ago it was understood that individuals and families and communities would have to make gains and changes themselves, or they wouldn’t get made. Now, the general tendency is to look for a regulation or a fund or an agency. If none exists then people wallow in indecision, starting Change.org petitions and posting on social media. This is probably a natural individual response to a more constrained, controlled, complicated society but it has radically altered the way that adults see the world, and so it should be no surprise that it’s changed our conception of childhood.

   Many adults have reacted to the mild infantilization of individuals by seeking more and more sympathy and help and protection. In other words, they’re asking to be treated as children.

3. Meanwhile the cultural terrain occupied by ‘children’ is a schizophrenic, twisted thing. Sure, Disney films and children’s books may be anodyne to the point of boredom, and references to violence and evil (and even milder things, like athletic loss and personal betrayal and lying) might have been scrubbed and toned down… but children now often have access to the entire galaxy of adult content, erotically-charged music videos, deliberately antisocial songs. Sure, upper class parents still police their kids, monitoring their online activities and restricting their ‘screen time’, but lower class kids are often completely unsupervised now, free to wander social media and fall down rabbit holes of gender confusion or watch livestreams of urban shootings or follow beefs between drill rappers or immerse themselves in profoundly misogynistic/misandrist content. How many thirteen year old girls spend many hours each and every day scrolling through TikTok, being shown videos that heighten their insecurities while simultaneously building reflexes of self-absorption, and modelling narcissism and pathology? Millions, certainly.

   Children’s media has moved away from old stories or romance and honor and war and good & evil (which usually registers as a bowdlerization and infantilization of old fables and myths, and a push for silly and lighthearted - and feminist - tales), and toward new conceptions of gender roles and beauty and love. Disney princesses craving love might still appeal to the sentimental sides of young girls but they don’t appeal to film executives, and so they’ve been ruthlessly diminished during the past five years. Stories of growth and quests and war and violence might still appeal to the restless and aggressive parts of young boys but they don’t appeal to film executives, and so they’ve been ruthlessly diminished during the past five years. Whether or not you’ve noticed these changes, it’s hard to deny that they’ve taken place. This is not the film industry reacting to market forces, for their new products have suffered. This is the film industry self-consciously trying to build a new type of person: women less fixated on winning the hearts of a prince, men less fixated on winning the battle with a monster. Men and women less fixated on duty and community and children. For such people (the ones fixated on love and duty and child-rearing) aren’t useful in the modern world. Having too many of them - having too many family-oriented and loyal women, and too many principled and intransigent men - will create problems for marketers and policymakers. That mode of living has been edited out, top-down, from the popular imagination. That project - of trying to mold people into more useful and pleasing shapes, to the powerful - begins with and centers upon children.

Those are some cultural changes that are affecting our perception and treatment of childhood and children. They are, of course, reflected in adult society.

A World With Fewer Children

But what will be the cultural impacts of the growing scarcity of children itself? How will our perception of the world and our values and our focus change, as we move from a society in which every hotel and resort and park is full of children… to one where adults (paired, and increasingly single, and preoccupied by their own lives and pleasure) predominate?

When I was young my younger brother and I grew up on army bases, mostly. The houses (bungalows, row houses, single-family homes) were uniform, solid, not fancy… and full of children. To live in such quarters people had to have children, I believe. I spent a good chunk of my elementary school years at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There was a small canyon and a shooting range and a decommissioned NIKE Hercules missile site and multiple old Civil War/Indian War-era forts (little more than vague mounds and depressions, grown over with trees and grass) within a few miles of our home. Being young, and therefore ignorant, I didn’t realize how lucky we were. The richest and most well-appointed child these days doesn’t have those kinds of riches in his life. Our days were full of exploring in the woods or walking miles through fields and over roads to nearby developments. I never imagined that the children who were coming up as I moved into middle age would be anxiously shepherded by status-obsessed neurotics, and would commonly struggle with chronic addiction to handheld device use. I never imagined that the children of our ‘now’ would have access to the kind of content that was literally unimaginable to us, and would find themselves in digital ghettoes, completely unsupervised by adults and free to bully, gossip, cultivate resentment, and explore the dark virtual terrain of the worldwide web. If you had told me that this would be the case, my question would have been: where are their parents? Why would they allow this? Why indeed. I also never imagined that families with 3 or 4 children would become a rarity, that playgrounds would safetyize themselves (turning into tiny, pathetic, plastic things) and then close altogether.

And this playground has swings! They’re quickly becoming a thing of the past… too much liability, probably.

My town has FAR more activity at its dog parks than it does on its playgrounds. 30 years ago such a national condition would be strange and inexplicable.

I imagine that army bases now have had to change their rules or update their housing.

The statistics are clear, and grim, but this is not an essay about birthrates. This is about how a greying (dying?) culture sees itself, and how its members live their lives. Personally, I see the evidence everywhere. McDonalds has gone from a colorful burger chain/play area, with silly characters and bright plastic decor to a kind of wannabe urban cafe, all browns and greys. McDonalds used to include huge playground annexes, and there were ball pits at almost every location. When I was young and we were on road trips we would plan our stops to correspond with a McDonalds location, knowing that we could crawl around and wrestle in a sea of plastic before getting back into the family van. Entertainment for children treats them increasingly like babies… but oddly there are very few stories being made that are just for children. Most ‘children’s’ films involve innuendo and sarcasm and adult cultural references. What does it say about our entertainment and our relentless slide into subjectivity, that parents need direct marketing appeals and inside jokes in their children’s cartoons? Such things would have been strange and distasteful when I was a child. Restaurants and resort spots and outdoor activities now cater mostly or exclusively to adults, and those adults often no longer see their lives as a quest to raise and protect and “train up” their children, but as a kind of extended vacation: a quest to squeeze as much pleasure and status and ‘happiness’ out of an increasingly barren and distracted reality.

And of course the children who remain become much more prized, doted over, mothered than is good for any child. This is a theme in this essay, but the delicacy and forbearance with which we treat our kids would have struck most any other culture as spoliative and, frankly, insane.

Here’s

el gato malo

:

i just had a little piece of faith in humanity restored:

yesterday, i was eating breakfast in a restaurant. the table next to me had an (i’m guessing) 3-year-old boy who started to have a melt down. i was bracing for a long, miserable dining experience as “my kid is expressing his inner air raid siren, you all need to deal with it!” certainly seems to have become the core parenting praxis of late.

“jaden is such an expressive child! i love how he is not afraid to share how he is feeling!”

instead, the father simply stood up, collected his son, then took him outside. this alone was lovely and comment-worthy (a sad statement about the current state of affairs), but the rest just kept getting better.

the dad came back.

alone.

mom (who was with the other boy child) said, "where's billy?" (i'm making up this name)

dad: "in the car."

mom: oh, ok. other son (perhaps 5) nodded sagely as if he too had once learned this lesson.

it was all i could do not to go high five the guy.

Now there are many factors at play in the changing cultural modality of child socialization. The fact that fathers seem pretty rare on the ground in many communities surely isn’t good. But it is undeniable that ‘gentle parenting’ is ascendant, and that the value we place on individual children will surely rise as they become rarer and rarer. Could we find ourselves in a world of children both unimaginably spoilt and neurotic, and also avoided with distaste by huge segments of adult society that don’t want to acknowledge and deal with them?

This is really the crux of the issue: some people (in any population) are inclined to commit themselves to work or service or idealism, but most lead self-centered existences. That self-centering used to involve their children, and the fact that they had children often lent a kind of wisdom and perspective that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Without children, most people just remain selfish. They don’t (they can’t) appreciate what they’re missing, but if you ask those who have children there seems to be a consensus: creating and raising children changes people in fundamental ways. Without spouses, many people veer off into excesses of femininity (emotionalism, magical thinking, misplaced empathy, abhorrence of risk and competition and punishment) or masculinity (self-improvement, fitness obsession, addiction, rigid thinking, intolerance, isolation). Without children, many people stay mired in a kind of immature self-indulgence. If you don’t know what a DINK or a ‘Disney Adult’ or a brony (etc.) is, then I envy you. Give it a few years - these cultural phenomena (which simply didn’t exist a generation ago) are becoming much more common, as children continue to disappear.

A World Without Children

But we are in the early days of this demographic shift, and so the cultural decay (if that is what it is) we see will become much more extensive and stranger as time passes. What would a world without any children look like?

The film Children of Men (2006) follows Theo, a miserable, middle-aged, British alcoholic whose own child died at a young age many years ago. He has some kind of government office job and other than work he spends his time at racetracks and bars, seeking brief bursts of pleasure (or just distraction). His ex-lover (wife?) is a political radical, who joined a movement to liberalize treatment of refugees in Great Britain. In the film the Britain of 2027 is more or less the opposite of the Britain that exists now, meaning that there’s a closed border and an aggressive effort to deport illegal immigrants.

You can tell by his disheveled appearance and messy apartment and whiskey in his coffee before work that Theo is unhappy, somehow. Theo is merely existing… waiting to die. Millions of people in our world are living in exactly the same fashion.

But the world of the film is not our world. It is what our world might be… if people stopped having children. In the film world, fertility started dropping in 2008, and miscarriages began to proliferate. The last human baby was born in 2009. It is now 2027.

Notice the woman in the first frame, cradling her dog like a baby.

The film is quite good. In brief, Theo discovers that there is a young girl (Kee) who is in the care of the ‘Fishes’, the revolutionary pro-refugee group fighting a kind of insurgency against the British government. She is more than 8 months pregnant. She must be smuggled out of the country, to the Human Project, a shadowy maritime research organization (which many people doubt exists). Theo must get her to a meeting place off the coast. He brings her into a refugee camp (which seems unnecessary if one is just going out to sea… surely one could put to sea anywhere along the coast miles away and navigate towards the rendezvous buoy?), with the intention of hiring a small boat there and venturing out the mile or so, to a spot which the Human Project is supposed to check periodically. The refugee camp (Bex Hill) is on the verge of ignition, though. The Fishes are infiltrating the concentration camp with the intention of confronting the British army. The Bex Hill scenes are some of the most well-done in modern cinema, I think. Both the intake center:

…And the battle between insurgents and regular army, as Theo tries desperately to get the girl (who has given birth and is now trying to protect and conceal her newborn daughter) to sea:

The film is eerie, disconcerting. Everything in this world is recognizable to us: troops in ACUs, trains, cars, smartphones, bars, offices, racetracks, art collectors, police. But this world has come apart. It has, in some fundamental respect, gone crazy. Most people are still obeying the law and walking their dogs and going to work, but on the margins disorder and addiction and fanaticism and delusion have crept up, almost overwhelming the center.

Here’s a list of some of the world-building elements in the film. Try to find some analog in our world, and ask yourself whether those cultural manifestations have grown in the past decade:

Pets

Theo stands apart from many in his world as a man without a pet. This symbolizes his bitter cynicism toward the world as it is. He’s not trying to live a normal life or pretend that there is some worthwhile future. He is wallowing in misery, numbing himself with alcohol and gambling. His friend Jasper has pets. His cousin, the government Art collector, has pets. The wealthy park is full of horses and zebras and ostriches. A poor old woman has caged birds. Even the impoverished Gypsy lady, who finds shelter for he and Kee in Bex Hill, has a little dog that she brings with her everywhere. In a world without children, people turn to dogs and cats, and these creatures not only assume the emotional place of children but they begin to occupy their economic and social place as well. Pet toys, boutique pet foods, pet groomers, pet holidays, pet psych medications, pet playdates (I term I loathe), pet therapists. People treat their animals in a way that would have been frankly unimaginable 60 years ago. Only deeply mentally ill and lonely people would have lavished so much money and concern on a dog. Now it’s the norm. Sure, we’re collectively feminizing, and we’re soft, and we’re almost totally separated from realities like poverty and hunger and violence… but also: the children who used to run our streets and sit in our restaurants and explore our woods have slowly begun to disappear. Beaches and restaurants now tailor their rules and facilities for pets, and not children.

Addiction & Health

Theo is clearly an alcoholic, and a heavy smoker. In fact, his rejection of alcohol comes to symbolize the rebirth of hope in his heart as the newborn emerges. His little whiskey bottle (which until now he’s had in every scene) is emptied, as he uses the liquid to wash and sterilize his hands (the medical value of which may be dubious - I’m not sure) before helping Kee give birth. He unhesitatingly gives his cigarettes to an old woman in return for her providing Theo and Kee a room for the night. After these sacrifices, we no longer see Theo drinking or smoking.

His world is awash in chemical salves and blotters. The government distributes some kind of pharmaceutical suicide kit (Quietus). Does this sound familiar? There are psychoactive and supplements advertised all over the streetscape as Theo moves through his day: Niagra, some kind of euphoric. Nudie bars and XXX parlors are common, marked with their usual neon signs. Racetracks stay full.

The characters of Children of Men are also fastidious about their health, though. On three different occasions, side characters are shown taking some kind of daily prescription. Does this sound familiar? These are people adrift - some seeking oblivion, some frantically medicating and distracting themselves, their efforts only more urgent because they conceal a great, yawning denial and a fear of death. With kids in your life, death seems inevitable but surmountable, somehow. Yes, I will be gone someday (a person tells himself) but the children will inherit this world, and I would die for them anyway. Without kids around death becomes the looming dread, the reality that reflects the emptiness of all reality.

Fanaticism

The Fishes are a revolutionary organization, but the real fanatics of Children of Men aren’t political actors. In fact, despite all of the crime and the bombings and the xenophobic crackdowns, most people seem pretty content to go about their lives. It might be the case that real political radicalism only really flourishes when in the hands of (and when making appeals to) the young. Despite the constant effort to create some kind of right wing bogeyman to justify their repression and control, there has been a conspicuous lack of right wing political violence in the West, even as the British government invites and subsidizes millions of people who are (from one point of view) alien invaders. There’s also been a striking lack (not a complete absence, but a real and undeniable scarcity, given the circumstances) of anti-immigrant sentiment. There has been plenty of anti-government sentiment, though, and a great deal of intentional conflation of the two. Could it be that the modern West is simply too nice, and too polite? Or, perhaps it is too old. Perhaps too few people feel motivated by the concept of their children’s’ futures, because they have none. What can the reality of a ‘nation’ be, without a younger generation to fill its borders?

Religious and millenarian sects are the background to several scenes in the film. They are the real multiplying fanatics of a world without hope.

Public demonstrations of kneeling, raincoat-covered crowds in at public intersections; ‘renouncers’; flagellants - it is hinted that these kinds of pastimes have become much more common. The presence of children in one’s life gives one a natural focus and grounding in meaning. Children also consume a great deal of time and attention. Radicalism is risky (for parents) because it might create a world that would be less happy or safe for the child. Abstraction and ideology seem dubious when the reality and the meaning of your life is sitting there at the breakfast table. Without these things, though, people begin spinning off into a kind of low-level, organized madness, affixing themselves to ideas and values that even a child would know were flawed. All of that energy and passion must go somewhere. The energy largely exists (collectively) to protect and sustain children, until they can take the mantle. But now there are many fewer children.

In all of the progressive moral panics of the past decade (which now have the character of a kind of natural social cycle) - BLM, climate change, COVID, Trump election (#1 and #2) - how many of the organizers and leaders of these movements had children, I wonder. Even those who were in their 30’s and 40’s, how many were parents?

Disorder

The world of Children of Men is strewn with garbage, shabby, dark. The old pressures to keep things neat and clean, and to maintain properties for the future, seem to have dissipated.

Meanwhile, the woods and train tunnels and railyards are occasionally filled with screeching, filthy, enraged hordes. They seem insanely violent towards normal folks, but they surely must be capable of restraining and directing their aggression, or they would quickly destroy each other.

A world without children, the film implies, leads some people to fall into animalistic aggression and a total repudiation of conformity and responsibility. Politeness, paid work, home rentals, even showers seem unnecessary in a world bled of meaning. I imagine the crowds of derelict junkies in San Francisco and Philadelphia have a very similar approach to life.

But it takes more than individual antisocial behavior to create breakdowns of order. It requires a social reluctance to enforce laws and rules and standards. It’s a reluctance that we now see across the United States, as a strange and Utopian kind of exaggerated ‘sympathy’ towards the marginalized crowds out the concepts of incentives and public order. It becomes unseemly to want thieves to be arrested and stores to be protected and parks to be patrolled. And it strikes me that many of these virtue-signaling ideologues (who never do much to personally help the ‘marginalized’) are young people, without children. The voter most enamored of these concepts is a single, childless, progressive, professional woman living in a large city. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. As people welcome children into the world, their attitudes often begin to shift… and these urbanites frequently leave, going to new locations where there are decent schools and active police forces. Places where order reigns, where (to quote another great film) “the rule of law still exists.”

Is it possible that the intentional-seeming, systematic chaotization of many of our larger municipalities is due not just to parasitic nonprofits and disingenuous progressive politicians… but also due to a workforce and a voting base among whom children are nearly nonexistent? Is it possible that these Utopian ideas are not just signs of privilege, but also of immaturity? Perhaps it was the case that 50 years ago most people in their late-20’s were beginning to have their own kids, and therefore moving to a deeper and truer understanding of human reality. Kids drag a person toward seriousness and force them to rank their values in a way that most of these people seem not to have done. Many factors have changed since the last century, of course. But one of the big ones is this: children have disappeared from huge chunks of our cities - places that they used to inhabit.

I cannot come up with a good fifth option, but this graphic leaves out a crucial reality: most people have never had to choose from among these four. Most people formed pair bonds because they were encouraged to by their societies (and driven to by desire), and they produced children because having sex was pleasurable and urgent… and then they devoted themselves to those children. This choice only matters for an individual who confronts the world alone.

In our society, most people have chosen a queer kind of postmodern blend of nihilism and hedonism: feelings matter a great deal, and life is all about experiencing excitement and validation and ‘happiness’, and each of those concepts are entirely unrelated to serving others or fulfilling duties or raising children. It’s a cultural narrative that is deceptively neutral and passive, and so its insidious corrosion isn’t immediately apparent. Some young people have chosen fanaticism, of course (but sadly they are too frightened and dependent upon comfort and status to run any risks, so they play act at fanaticism). Many young people (especially young men) are trapped in the nihilism of addiction. Some have escaped, and have joined a growing number of modern denizens who are trying to choose ‘heroism.’ So far their efforts are faltering and premature, though (it’s not easy to build a culture from the ground up, in the midst of such emptiness) and every appeal to the heroic impulse in young men is reliably stigmatized and suppressed by the idea control complex.

Final Thoughts

We are encouraged to value our money and our things above all else. The other aspects of life (children, family, friends, nature, faith) are either monetized or pushed to the margins, the preserve of greeting cards and rom-com subplots. They aren’t the real, important aspects of life. People reveal their values through their priorities. Ask yourself: what priorities sit at the top of our cultural list? Career and income and status and consumption? Or friends and nature and loyalty and faith? Be honest. Don’t succumb to social desirability bias and give the answer that seems most admirable. There are cultural realities that we all can see. You might as well be honest about them.

Simultaneously, we are encouraged to focus on the churn of daily life: bills and dates and appointments and workdays. This keeps us distracted and stressed, of course (which offers wonderful opportunities for entrepreneurs who want to help you manage your time, or pharmaceutical companies that want to augment your focus or reduce your distress) but it also keeps us peering at a very small patch of ground: the one right in front of our feet. We don’t look up, and we rarely look back.

This perspective excludes and obscures the larger sweep of our culture. It makes it very easy to lose track of where we have been, and where we’re going. That’s important in this case, for we are venturing into uncharted territory - unprecedented in the whole history of humanity. We will now live in societies without many children around. They will no longer be a part of our cultural picture and our collective self-awareness… and they will no longer ground our values or inform our plans. We will be large and rich nations, making decisions only for ourselves, unconstrained and unburdened by any obligation to or awareness of the young and the future. In that sense it will be a profoundly liberating experience. That’s the thing about liberation (freedom) though: without purpose, it becomes a kind of inane and inescapable hell.

Of course our older citizens are quickly bleeding our country dry, and the modern economy will falter and begin to break down as the relative numbers of young adults workers continues to fall, and pensions systems will totter and then vanish altogether. Those realities are developing right before our eyes. There’s a darker possibility, though: we might lose track of the thing that has generated meaning and driven purpose for our ancestors since far before we became a species. Will we identify the real source of our malaise? Will we be honest about the sinister feeling of frantic futility creeping into our lives from every direction? And if we do and we are, will we have the will to arrest it? How do you instruct a world full of people so wrapped up in social media and vacations and credentials and meet cutes and sports as to the value of selflessness? It would have certainly seemed like a crazy question to our ancestors: how do you get a world of anxious and distracted and self-absorbed people to devote their lives to others?

How do we return the future of the world to its proper owners? How can we once again, as a society, start having children?

Thanks for reading. Take care of yourself.