The pamphlet titled "10 Reasons to Rethink Overpopulation" is both unique and interesting. The population and development program at Hampshire College points out many of our fears and combats many ideologies about overpopulation. Still, and probably more so than ever, people and states are especially fearful of overpopulation and over-crowding in our modern world. Despite our history, people seem to be very fearful in our own country. I appreciate how the authors of this piece recognize the fault of "conventional wisdom" and call for a different school of thought. It is often hard to push for new ideologies or to divorce ourselves from the past, yet the authors unravel the idea of overpopulation in the context of several arguments. This is the essence of how issues can be conceptualized; we must be critical of our own thinking.
I appreciate how the creators of this pamphlet are quite blunt with both their ideas and language. While viewing the concept of overpopulation in a different light, the authors point out how we have been masking our fears in a completely misguiding context. Instead of understanding overpopulation for what it is and how it changes the social, economic, and political worlds that we live in, we caste our perceptions of it through other crises that make us suffer. For example, one of the points in the packet refutes the idea that overpopulation creates hunger and starvation. Our prevailing ideas about hunger are simply not true; despite population size and density, hunger still exists in many areas of the world. Hunger exists from small townships in South Africa to the inner city communities of Atlanta or any other metropolitan city in the US. Additionally, the creators note that we focus more so on numbers rather than the underlying causes of a certain problem. This abstraction and disillusionment exists in many other places. Furthermore, this piece specifically draws upon the relationships that exist in our society that we do not want to face, including how our economic modes and political systems are tied to social strife and injustice. The pamphlet points out that population pressure is not the cause of much conflict, but rather the ways which nations interact with one another. Using the idea of overpopulation as a scapegoat for more deep-seated problems seems to me like we are traveling down the wrong road.
We have previously seen how easy it is to view a problem completely out of the context of reality. Similarly to the prevailing thoughts about overpopulation, we have seen how ideas such as this existed during the sterilization period in Puerto Rico. Scientists, doctors, and government figures portrayed their actions in a positive light and as something that would only benefit their country in the future. Unfortunately, people either believed or were forced to believe in their misguiding leaders. It maybe a stretch, but this disillusioned idea also relates to how Sanger pushed for the birth control movement.
I enjoyed both this piece and the other selection for Tuesday's class. I always enjoy reading something that changes the way I critically think about today's "issues." Maybe we could read more short pieces such as this one.
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I also enjoy reading things that challenge thoughts of mine that I previously accepted without thinking. I can remember in the tenth grade, reading a scholarly article which painted a more realistic picture of Christopher Columbus. It destroyed him, going into detail about his abuse of Native Americans and his destructive greed and selfishness in exploration. I was appalled. It radically changed how I used to see a childhood hero. While everyone has background stories, and all historical heroes have their faults, I do believe there is a level of disparity that is unacceptable. I love how my classes at Emory have taught me to think in different ways so that I can more carefully take in the information that I am given. It also helps when we're encouraged to look past the big focus, the big problem, to the roots. We shouldn't be wondering how we fix overpopulation, but we should look at the results of it, the basis of it, like economics, politics and social structure. We should find ways to fix things from the bottom up.
I also agree that numbers are a disillusionment and abstraction. We often see statistics as statistics, as straight up numbers that are separate and only work to support things that we believe. Often however, numbers can cause us to believe something. Seeing that the actual number of people in the world has gone up, automatically makes us think that we have an overpopulation problem. We need to be careful with statistics. A million studies could prove a million different things. Instead we should look at issues objectively and holistically, only then using numbers as support.
Your comments point out a common thread in the readings and discussions thus far. Fear coupled with power and at times ignorance/arrogance can lead to some disturbing results. Be it the sterilization of women who did not have enough information and thought they had no other option or other groups of individuals used for human experimentation.
One of the biggest problems that must be addressed when tackling how people view overpopulation is human equality. If one group or population views another as less than them not worthy of the resources, respect and acknowledgement of the problems that may be facing their population, they can easily find ways to argue or justify taking action to limit the growth of an “unwanted” population.
I think that you had a lot of really interesting points about the article on overpopulation. One thing that you comment on that is particularly relevant to many of the works we have studied is the idea that analyses are based “on numbers rather than the underlying causes of a certain problem.” So many of our societal problems are dealt with in terms of numbers—our economy, resources, and especially causalities are represented not as people but as numbers. This is clearly evident in the war in Iraq. Everyday in the news, we are told about the hundreds of soldiers that have died that day. However, it is very difficult to associate these numbers with faces and actual people. In essence, the use of numbers is very dehumanizing. This dehumanization is a theme that runs throughout our course.
This theme is evident in the other article for Tuesday, “The Dark Side of Birth Control.” Here, black people are stereotyped against and labeled as the “inferior” race. Consequently, they fell prey to the monstrous eugenics movement in America which demanded the sterilization and reproductive monitoring of thousands of minorities. The black people were not thought of as people but as numbers—a decrease in the number of children being born to the “inferior” race and thus a success to the “superior” race. This theme of dehumanization runs throughout all the instances of the voiceless.
Numbers are what we tend to attach to. I agree that we should not have to rely on numbers to get our point across, especially when the statistics are easily skewed to present a certain view (for example: the amount of time I have spent has doubled but I only increased my study time from 10 minutes a week to 20 minutes a week). However, America is a fast-paced country. Numbers get the message across the fastest. When I tell you that the death rate of teenage drivers has doubled in the past five years, you are likely to pay more attention than if I went into a discourse about how driving conditions, popular culture, and government regulations have played a large part in influencing teen driving. Numbers also have a supposed authority behind them. One can say that the amount of college students who drink coffee increases during their undergraduates years. That doesn't sound as sophisticated as saying 30% of student who enter college will increase their coffee consumption by the time they graduate. The presence of the "30%" implies the author has research and studies to back up the number (which is absolutely NOT the situation in this example nor any others said throughout this comment). I agree numbers are distracting, but they can be used to make one's message stronger and drive the point home. If more writers used these numbers more carefully, the problems we have to not recognizing the real cause or effect could be eliminated.
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