Settler colonialism. Contagious fertility.
Settler colonialism. Contagious fertility.
Plus: Christian virtue, campus faith, intelligent plants, & a second Lewis movie
Coffee this Friday, August 30, at 6:30 am at Loyal North.
(1) The anti-Israel ideology behind the campus protests is coming for America.
The canard that Israel is a “settler colonialist” state is easy enough to refute if one knows even a little history. But the broader theory of settler colonialism is less easily dislodged. At the Wall Street Journal, Adam Kirsch explains that “in recent years, theorists and writers inspired by the idea of settler colonialism have created what amounts to a new countermyth of American history,” one that aims “to change the way Americans understand the history of their country”:
For a long time, Americans were taught that the creation of the United States was a great and providential event. More was at stake in American history than America itself; … it was a test of the human capacity for self-government….
Of course, … the land of freedom was built in part by enslaved people from Africa, on territory conquered from Native Americans. But these parts of the American story were tacitly agreed, by the official tellers of that story, to be inessential. That was the price of sustaining the belief that the history of America was synonymous with the history of liberty.
For the ideology of settler colonialism, too, the United States is the hinge on which world history turned. The difference is that, for this new school, it was a turn toward damnation, not redemption…. Because settlement is not a past event but a present structure, every inhabitant of a settler colonial society who is not descended from the original indigenous population is, and always will be, a settler, rather than a legitimate inhabitant.
Lurking behind this ideology is Rosseau’s concept of the “noble savage” and an ahistoric fundamentalism. After all, people do not sprout from the land like so many plants. They always come from somewhere—by design, by accident, because they were driven out or drawn in. They mix their labor with the land so that it yields its increase. They build societies that are, by degrees, just or unjust. They protect and defend their land; sometimes they abandon it for another place. They conquer and are conquered.
These are the real and complex facts of human history that explain and justify patterns of migration, settlement, civilization, and flourishing. Settler colonialism flattens all of it into the same sort of binary—oppressed/oppressor, inhabitant/settler—that characterizes so much of faddish academic theory. Kirsch highlights the broader political currents, too:
It is no accident that the ideology of settler colonialism is flourishing today at the same time as right-wing populism. Both see our turbulent political moment as an opportunity to permanently change the way Americans think about their country. And as is often the case, the extremes of right and left are united in disparaging the compromises of liberalism, which they see as weakly evasive. In the case of settler colonialism, this means rejecting the understanding of American history that has been mainstream since the mid-20th century—that it is a story of slow progress toward fulfilling the nation’s founding promise of freedom for all.
(2) Fertility is contagious.
Speaking of population growth and decline, it turns out that infertility is socially contagious. At the Washington Examiner, Timothy P. Carney criticizes the notion, common among economists, that low birthrates will self-correct. “[A]ll recent history around the world points in the opposite direction. The past few decades have shown us that low birth rates cause even lower birth rates.” It’s not hard to understand why: “A culture with fewer children … is a culture less welcoming to children.”
But fertility rates can also spiral upward:
[There are] subcultures that are resisting the trend — where more babies lead to more babies. In these places, pregnancy seems to be contagious.
Israel or Utah are two such places where larger families seem endemic. Obviously, the values of Judaism and the Church of Latter Day Saints nudge women and men to be more open to parenthood and large families, but even non-Jews and non-Mormons in these places are abnormally fecund.
Secular Jews in Israel have lower birthrates than the more religious Israelis, but with a birthrate of 1.96 in 2020, they still have far higher birthrates than the average European woman…. [L]ikewise, … Catholics in Utah have a higher birthrate than the Catholics in any other state.
Kemp Mill is a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., anchored by two modern Orthodox synagogues. Kemp Mill looks very different from other neighborhoods in Montgomery County, not only because the residents eschew driving on Saturday but also because families of six, seven, or more are a common sight.
… If you pass through Kemp Mill on a weekend or a summer afternoon, you will see little gangs of children roaming the neighborhood and this hints at the feedback effects. The more children roaming the streets, the easier it is for any individual parent to let his or her children roam the streets, which makes parenting easier and makes having a little platoon of your own more imaginable.
Also, the more neighbors and friends you have who have a toddler and a newborn, the easier it is to have a semblance of a social life while you have a toddler and a newborn. Coffees planned around naptime replace lengthy boozy brunches, and playground picnics replace dinners at fancy restaurants.
Other Things
Virtues in the Christian Life: Adam Pelser’s Thursday night course runs September 12 - October 24, 6:30-8:00 pm at The NLD Commons (332 N. Tejon St.). Sign up here.
Religious Freedom Institute launches Campus Faith Alliance to enable religious students to live out their faith and “model peaceful pluralism” on campus.
After Most Reluctant Convert, a second Lewis movie aims to portray the middle period of his life, including his rise to fame and “strange” domestic setup.
Hope to see you Friday.