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For immediate release: May 7, 2008
On Thursday, May 1, Dr. Walter Benjamin, Professor Emeritus of Religion at Hamline University, gave an intriguing lecture on population demographics. The lecture, “Ideologies in Conflict”, was true to its title as Dr. Benjamin laid out three popular views of demographics present in today’s culture.
Dr. Benjamin began his lecture by referring to August Comte who stated that “demography is destiny” and asserting that this thesis lends demography as a personal field. Citing statistics concerning the affects of demography on health, Dr. Benjamin provided the foundation for the personality of demography. He stated that an overwhelming 50% of a person’s health depends on behavior which is largely dependent on demography. In contrast, only 20% is affected by genetics, another 20% by the environment, and a minimal 10% is affected by health care.
Turning to the 1798 essay by Thomas Malthus, Dr. Benjamin discussed the Malthusian affects on current population ideologies. Malthus concluded that the population will always overtake food supplies. To reconcile the flourishing despair, Malthus reasoned that the want and struggle produced by this gap brings forth the imagination of the poet and the research of the philosophers. But should we despair? Is there a gap? Whether or not this is a real or perceived crisis, Dr. Benjamin examined three ideologies – environmentalist, family planner, and developmentalist.
The environmentalist view believes population growth is an illness currently afflicting our earth, such as global warming acting as a fever on our earth. Producing an influx of neo-Malthusians, serious treatment measures are seen as necessary for the health of the suffering organism that is the earth. Treatment involves persuading people to follow reproductive regulations and coercing those who do not want to follow such regulations. Operating from an apocalyptic mode, the driving value for the environmentalist is the quality of life.
Next, the family planner, epitomized by Planned Parenthood, focuses primarily on the woman and what she wants. This view, currently rooted within the private sphere of personal choice, may move to the public sector. The driving value for the family planner is freedom to control and time things the way they want in terms of population.
Lastly, Dr. Benjamin walked us through the developmentalist view which he also stated is the Catholic and Marxist view. The driving value being distributive justice, the developmentalist creates social conditions out of natural law, and, in turn, believes the population will automatically be in balance.
He summed up his lecture with example graphs of population changes in Western countries and developing countries. With a growing dependency population, he reported that by 2050, 52% of Europe’s population will be dependent and 40% in the US. Finally, he noted that the only European nation still growing is Albania which is predominantly Muslim, and this truth has implications for American Christians that will need to be addressed sooner than later.
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