Reviews for The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia

The average rating for The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-08-05 00:00:00 John Handelaar Some insights among the indirections The central argument of this book is that we are ostriches with our heads in the sand unable to face our problems because facing them would entail confronting taboo, which is socially and politically impossible (at least within earshot of anybody). But Professor Hardin, who is the author of Stalking the Wild Taboo, finds a way around the forbidden by creating a man from Mars who can be objective where we cannot, allowing Hardin to express the taboo point of view. For example on page 106 he has the Martian say (referring to the organization, Zero Population Growth): "it is virtually unheard of outside the learned community... [I]n the long run, it will decrease the relative number of educated people compared with the uneducated." The Martian adds, "Propaganda in favor of reducing fertility must be accompanied by repressive legal measures... Perhaps the first thing to do would be to cancel income deductions for the third child in a family (and beyond)." Hardin himself obliquely gives his point of view on page 61 with these words, "The natural sciences have probably made it possible for millions--probably not billions--of human beings to live sustainably on the earth." While I (and the natural resources of the planet) would welcome a world with say six hundred million people as opposed to six billion, I must disagree with the man from Mars about the educated and the uneducated. I suspect, regardless of actual numbers, their proportions would stay approximately the same. However most of this book is not about overpopulation, but about political and economic issues that Professor Hardin is pleased to expound on. There is the problem of "Equity, Equality, and Affirmative Action" (Chapter 14). As Hardin sees it we really need to understand that "no two human beings are created equal" (p. 109) and that "equity" and "equality" are not the same thing. Exactly how he feels about affirmative action however is never stated directly--indeed little in this book is stated directly. Hardin prefers to hint at his position and let the reader figure it out. Since he gives the (absurd) example of laws mandating "the admission of pygmies to professional basketball teams," I am persuaded that he is opposed to affirmative action. There are some things he does make clear, but not in a manner likely to persuade. For example, he is opposed to one world government, believing that it would be unstable. In support (surprisingly enough) he quotes Bertrand Russell: "A world state, if it were firmly established, would have no enemies to fear, and would therefore be in danger of breaking down through lack of cohesive force." Why a superstate would necessarily lack cohesive force is never explained. One gets the sense that it somehow has to do with another related Hardin idea, namely that multiculturalism within a single society is unstable. (See Chapter 15.) His argument is that the differing cultures would not be able to agree on how to go about their business peaceably and laws could not be formulated that all cultures would find acceptable. He gives the example of somebody from one culture wanting to drive on the right side of the road and somebody from another wanting to drive on the left. In fact, he gives this example a couple of times. I am at a loss to appreciate these arguments (and some others in the book). That different people could not be persuaded to agree to drive on one side of the road seems silly. That a superstate could not find enemies for the populace to rally against seems naive. After all we have today the phenomena of the U.S. government directing its energies against drug lords and terrorists with the public firmly behind those efforts, as President Bush's high approval ratings attest. Furthermore, there will always be a counter-culture (in a democratic society) that the majority culture can and will rail against (and vice-versa). But I even question the underlying psychological assumption that a state needs enemies to be cohesive. Historically, governments have sought enemies (both within and without) as a means to solidify their power, but that hardly proves that a state necessarily needs enemies to survive. At any rate, perhaps we can dream up nasty little green men from some distant solar system to hate, if need be. Hardin's style is somewhat off-putting at first and betrays his long years as a teacher. He makes statements with little or no support that encourage readers to evaluate for themselves, and then later on (after readers have presumably had time to think for themselves), he gives his rationale. (Or he doesn't!) The subject of one chapter is concluded in the next and then reopened in another. He sometimes explains the obvious and then fails to explain the cryptic, as for example he informs us that "philosophy" means "love of knowledge" (p. 31 ), but does not reveal why "adding two more lanes to a highway...ultimately increases traffic jams." (p. 39) Some of Hardin's sentiments, however, I find quite agreeable. For example, "No one expects the physics of 50 B.C. to tell us how to launch a spaceship. But apparently many people are sure that the 2,000-year-old ethics developed in Near Eastern villages is all we need to solve" our moral problems. (pp. 4-5) The greatest problem facing the planet today (and the root cause of many other problems) is overpopulation. It is a truth that needs a wider and more emphatic expression. I hope in his next book Professor Hardin concentrates on this urgent problem and leaves the political and economic niceties for others to straighten out. --Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

Review # 2 was written on 2015-03-24 00:00:00 Gavin Oviatt Garrett Hardin was a lad who not only thought a lot, but could also think well. I recently discovered a Hardin book I had not heard of, The Ostrich Factor ' Our Population Myopia (1998). Hardin was an interesting blend of an ecological conservative, and a growth-hating political conservative who detested economists. I hoped that this book would provide fresh insights on the huge and difficult problem of overpopulation. After Living Within Limits was published in 1993, critics noted that Hardin complained about overpopulation, but failed to provide a remedy. Hardin admitted that he had been intimidated by the explosive taboo on the subject, which incinerates every dreamer who blunders into it, foolishly preaching common sense. Hence, the ostrich factor ' never touch 800-volt issues that are surrounded by large piles of scorched skeletons. You can't win, so bury your head in the sand, and have a nice day! There is a widespread fantasy, drilled into us by cultural myths, that our society is guided by reason and elevated moral principles. It's silly nonsense, but we have a hard time seeing this. Many people waste their entire lives, sad victims of the tragedy of the consumers ' powerful myths that compel us to spend our lives working, in order to move as much stuff as possible from nature to landfills, in order to gain the respect of our peer group, which suffers from the same mass hysteria. Well-trained consumers never question 800-volt myths. Modern society is focused on the individual, not the community or ecosystem. I am all that matters. If I can gain status and respect by wiping out forests or fisheries, or throwing the planet's climate out of balance, I will. I don't care that I'm leaving behind a wasteland for future generations. Of course, if future generations were able to vote today, or if we were raised in a sane culture, our world would be radically different and far healthier. Hardin was fascinated by the poisonous power of taboos, and he invited an imaginary Martian into his book, to observe our society as an objective outsider. (I wish he had used humans from the future.) The two of them explored uncomfortable notions that will make some readers squirm and snarl. They provide us with intense lessons about the powerful headlock that taboos have on our ability to think. Taboos push many commonsense ideas off limits, severely handicapping our freedom to think, forcing many to live like two-year olds, ecological psychopaths, or chronically depressed shoppers. Taboos vary from place to place and time to time. I was surprised to see that Hardin only mentioned abortion once, with regard to a quote from 1886, describing a situation where abortion was legal, but contraception was not. In that scenario, many physicians chose to break the law against providing contraception. It is important to understand that many wild cultures had customs that encouraged population stability. Their ongoing survival depended entirely on food from the surrounding wild ecosystem, and too many mouths led to painful problems. Their utmost concern was the health and stability of the community, not the whims of individuals. They shared and cooperated. It was obvious to them that the carrying capacity of their ecosystem had genuine limits. For us, living in a temporary wonderland of supermarkets, limits are hard to imagine ' until we crash into them. The emergence of agriculture redefined carrying capacity, which varied from year to year, depending on the harvest. Limits on breeding weakened or vanished. Hardin quoted Tertullian, a third century Christian thinker from Tunisia, who was spooked by the misery of overpopulation (when the global population was 150 million). Tertullian wrote, "As our demands grow greater, our complaints against nature's inadequacy are heard by all. The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars, and earthquakes have come to be regarded as a blessing to overcrowded nations, since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race." Like Tertullian, Reverend Malthus (1766-1834) also lived in an era of turbulent growth, and he became a notorious heretic for reminding society about the existence of carrying capacity. Two hundred years later, he remains fiercely detested, mostly by people who have never read him, because he pointed out a serious 800-volt issue, a super-taboo. Never, never, never suggest that there are limits to growth! Perpetual growth on a finite planet is obviously impossible, obviously insane, and insanely destructive. Sustainable growth is an oxymoron. But few goofy myths are more powerful. We are constantly reminded that perpetual growth is the purpose of life. Grow or die! Our official religion is Growth Forever. Fanatical believers are called optimistic, and optimism is "good." Hardin disagreed, "At the present rate of population growth, it's difficult to be optimistic about the future." With regard to population, our culture asserts two rights simultaneously. (1) Right to life. The UN decrees that "every man, woman, and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition." (2) Right to limitless reproductive freedom. "Every woman has the right ' perhaps with the agreement of her mate(s) ' to determine how many children she shall produce." There are no natural rights; rights are legal inventions. Note that these two sacred rights are not accompanied by sacred responsibilities. Hardin concluded that overpopulation would not be resolved by the voluntary choices of individual families. In a finite world, unrestricted freedom is intolerable. Survival is mandatory; freedom is not. Effective solutions should be based on community-sensitive rules, ideally produced by a policy of "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon." Our wild ancestors generally succeeded in doing this, because their cultures saw limits as being perfectly normal, not draconian. Hardin knew that "coercion" is an obscene word in a culture that worships individualism, but he noted that we submit to coercion when we stop for red lights, or when we bike on the right side of the road. Coercion is often reciprocal. Money is coercion. There are many things we will eagerly do for money that we would never do for free. We are often coerced by nothing more than a sweet "pretty please." Hardin thought that one world government was impossible, because there is not a single world culture. Trying to get different cultures to agree on anything is a challenge for advocates of multiculturalism. Because of this, Hardin offered no silver bullet solution for the world. Each culture will have to design its own method for limiting population. Predicaments have no solutions, but problems do. Overpopulation is merely a temporary problem, and there are two solutions. (1) We can make a commonsense effort to live below carrying capacity. (2) We can bury our heads in the sand, make no effort to influence the future, and let Big Mama Nature mercilessly do the dirty work. The commonsense approach saves a lot of wear and tear on the ecosystem, and makes life far less hellish. It is enthusiastically endorsed by the spirits of future generations.