This week, Amsterdam is playing host to the ultra-conservative World Congress of Families. An international gathering of family traditionalists, the WCF offers seminars that range from homeschooling to faith to MTV. Sessions like "The Social and Economic Effects of Declining Birth Rates" and "The Philosophical Roots of Demographic Winter" are also part of the program. There's even a seminar called "Threats to the Family from Addiction to Pornography."
Tonight, participants will attend the first international screening of Demographic Bomb: Worldwide Decline of Human Fertility Rates. The incendiary film is the sequel to Demographic Winter, a documentary released in 2008 that was alarmist enough as a stand-alone, in my opinion.
Here's the trailer for Demographic Bomb:
Here's the trailer for Demographic Winter:
Some of the footage overlaps with the trailer above, but there are a few unique opinions that make watching it worthwhile. I especially like the part where a 1970s "preoccupation" with the population bomb is blamed for informing women's rights, gay rights, and environmentalist movements. Yes, what a tragedy that women, homosexuals, and the other species that share our planet finally got a voice.
Demographic Bomb is supposed to scare viewers into believing that an impending economic collapse will be the result of our refusal to continue a century of rapid population growth. One talking head points out that never has a country with a shrinking population experienced economic growth. That can be explained by the fact that until this decade, the only time regional populations shrank was during an epidemic. The Black Plague in Europe had people a bit too preoccupied with burying relatives and trying to stay alive to be able to think about increasing their capital. Population decline due to increased affluence and lifestyle choices is brand new and we cannot predict how it will affect national economies in the near or long-term future.
The end of the trailer is the part that disturbed me the most, when a man mused that really, only "certain kinds of people are on their way to extinction." The ensuing spooky white text on black background laments that it's not politically correct to say so, despite the fact that academics are well-informed about this "problem." I guess the guy at the beginning who described a France with no "original" French people went out on an un-PC limb in making his comments. After all, a future France filled with North Africans is something that makes xenophobes shake in their boots.
Basically, what the World Congress of Families wants you to know is that it supports you and your family. That is, if you are heterosexual, have at least two children, are [preferably] white, Christian, and do not look at pornography.
Well put. This film is highly disingenuous in many ways.
ReplyDelete"One talking head points out that never has a country with a shrinking population experienced economic growth."
And that talking head has apparently not seen Germany or Japan lately. They were the first to exit our global recession, and have seen economic growth at the same time as population decline. Russia had ten straight years of economic growth even as their population shrank (1999-2008). And the crash and recession were NOT caused by demographics, like the film claims, but greed and stupidity, primarily in the USA.
"The Black Plague in Europe had people a bit too preoccupied with burying relatives and trying to stay alive to be able to think about increasing their capital."
But immediately after the plague ended, the survivors got wealthier due to inheritances from their dead relatives, and prosperity returned with a smaller population. Labor shortages led to better technology as well.