Sunday, March 26, 2006

Racing In the Sheets

I heard Demographer Phillip Longman on NPR about a week and a half ago, arguing that the discrepancy in birth rates between religious conservative families (higher) and more liberal families (lower) presages a continued, inexorable slide toward political conservatism in this country and generally, around the world.

This means that, not only will Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) dominate the discourse here, but ultimately, that they will vie with conservative Muslims for what's left above water in 2200.

Here's a USA Today editorial expressing his theory in a nutshell.

If you sit where I do, it's a depressing thought. But I can't allow that kind of deterministic view to take hold; after all, there are all kinds of social and political forces at work independent of what our parents' political views are.

Still, for those of you who find yourself on the left side of the current cultural divide, I offer these songs as a musical plea to indulge your procreational impulses along with your recreational ones. Get thee to a sack! Or a spermbank! Or an adoption agency!

For those on the right, give yourself a break! Kids are a handful!
Mobius Band - Multiply
Buy it!
A Certain Ratio - Shack Up
Buy it!
Bad Religion - How Much is Enough?
Buy it!
Chino - Uno Mas
Buy it!
Luther Vandross - Never Too Much
Buy it!
Nice and Smooth - Sex, Sex, Sex
Buy it!
Queens of the Stone Age - Do It Again
Buy it!

7 Comments:

  • At 8:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    you should be nominated for godhood for posting that nice&smooth track... an ol'skool classic that not too many folks remember... great post (thanx 4 luther 2)

     
  • At 8:55 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Kurtis, sometimes you rhyme slow and sometimes you rhyme quick.

     
  • At 10:59 PM, Blogger JOE GILLIS said…

    The Mormons and conservative Muslims? I'd worry about the Latino Catholics. Conservative (on social issues), large families, and entering the U.S., legally or otherwise, in huge numbers.

     
  • At 11:30 PM, Blogger Nerf Mark Malone said…

    I was being a little facetious.

     
  • At 12:47 AM, Blogger su-tang 3000 said…

    We Mormons aren't so bad! Much love for your blog from Salt Lake City, Utah.

     
  • At 8:02 PM, Blogger joe said…

    The debate my clan usually tends to move towards is more along the lines of... if the stupid (not so technical or PC term) people are having 4 or 5 kids each, and you're not having any, then what's the gene pool gonna look like in 50 years? I had two kids, and they're brilliant, and i'm glad to contribute so the pool's not so stagnant.

    But... i'd suggest adoption, to most people. Plenty of kids out there already. And now we move on to the nature vs. nurture debate.

     
  • At 4:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It seems that the logical flaw in the article is that it assumes that raised-by-conservatives automatically translates into will-be-conservative, and that seems historically inaccurate as well as personally. I've a number friends at my college who were raised by conservatives, are practicing Christians... and are also leftists, as well as the old fashioned I-reject-my-parents'-values-entirely types.

    It seems that they're discounting the sort of movements that happen naturally in history in favor of gloom and doom.

     

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