I tell the new young practitioners of classical political economy (I hope) that more information comes from what a person does than from what a person says.
If the new baby is such a drag on your existence, the easiest thing to do is to leave your family and go elsewhere. As you haven't done this, it must be because other choices are not so worthwhile as the one you have.
I hate to preach -- actually I like to preach! Is just the people laugh in my face when I do.
Women seem to like little babies more than men do (I think). As the baby matures and becomes not so much a baby as a young human being, it appears to become more attractive to the male.
At that point, you'll be thankful that you took care of the horrible little creature.
Until at some point in the future, it not only says you are wrong, it shows you are wrong.
Harry
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Brad wrote:
Keith Hudson wrote: [snip] > In addition to As' desire to keep society going for their own sake (never > mind A+B), there's also another strong reason why the As will want to > increase their birth rate. People are living longer these days. Inevitably, > almost everybody will end up in a state of complete dependency in a nursing > home (quite often insensitive, if not cruel, places, too) unless they have > enough children who are able to look after them in their own homes. Just as > it suited peasants from about 10,000 BC onwards to have many children in > order to help with the seeding and harvesting -- and to look after them in > their old age -- then I think the modern A-class parent will decide to have > more than a replacement number of children in the coming years in order to > avoid nursing homes. [snip]THis is a highly "abstract" consideration, at least pending the experience of a generation of "A's" being admonished (having the fear of the Lord impressed on their souls...) by seeing their future in their own parents' confinement in nursing homes (some of which latter are not so bad...). However, I think the issue is whether there are enough servants to raise all these children. I have recently discovered that children unlike most other parts of "pragmatic agenda" (those parts of life which reproduce individual and species life -- the wheel of karma --, rather than adding to society's capital of cultural accomplishment/"Bildung") -- I have recently discovered that infants are far less amenable to "rationalization" than most other aspects of "daily life". I think the tradeoff of highly intelligent and educated and cultured persons spending the best days of the best years of their lives -- what little is left of these after wasting most of their life earning a living -- the tradeoff of changing diapers instead of pursuing the life of the mind (etc.), for some possible relief in one's Alzheimer years (which one may not ever experience anyway since, ex hypothesi, one's mind will be "gone" if one gets there...) -- I think this tradeoff may not be widely embraced as an actuarially exigent one. Especially if I was a woman, I would not find changing diapers a satisfactory exchange for having a life. Maybe once. But certainly not "yet again". On the other hand, I speak from a certain perspective: Having to spend the best hours of the best days of my life doing activity that does not relate to my deeper interests and hopes. Perhaps a woman (or a man) who at age 25 becomes head of The Sloan Foundation [fill in the blank] may find recreation in spending their "free time" changing diapers and "talking" sub-language, since their prime-time activity may completely use up their higher abilities and competencies and fulfill their cultural ("geistige") aspirations? I'll never have a chance to see if that option is appealing. (Certainly I can see one way to "get more out of the time" to be to write a doctoral dissertation on the child. But just like not every alcoholic can find salvation by becoming an alcoholism counsellor, I doubt there are enough dissertations to cover all possible children.) [This email may elicit arouse some antagonistic feelings, but I certainly am open to living in conditions where I would not have occasion to think about such topics.] \brad mccormick
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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