The Apple Cart

"God blessed them, saying to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth..."

Genesis 1:28, 9:1

Elections are on the horizon.  The economy is down the tubes.  And the one glimmer of hope, the one hint that love is alive is being met with hostility and concern.  This month our planet will witness the birth of its seven-billionth living citizen.  Notice that I said “witness,” which is not the same as “welcome.”  Power-brokers are not celebrating this milestone, but instead they are relaying dire and grim predictions about the future.

            We are told that one more apple will upset the apple-cart.  Thomas Malthus may be dead, but his fretful, pessimistic visions continue to infect the souls of men who continue to spew the culture of death across the airwaves and in spilt ink.  Their agenda is to “educate” the now seven-billion people to be “conscious” of “fertility methods.”  This is a little baffling considering that they are promoting self-centered calculations (hence, not educational) meant to make us oblivious (hence, not conscious) of our human nature, which includes fertility (a method called forming a family).  Infertility is no more a “fertility method,” than being inhumane is an acceptable form of “humanity.” 

            What is most striking about these folks is that they are advocating a position of self-denial.  I have always hated that hyphenated word because it is so prone to abuse.  Self-denial, in my mind, is a very negative term.  Most people render an understanding of that word as denying yourself.  However, selves are real things.  You are something.  And because you are something you must be preserved as that sort of thing and arrive at your potential as that sort of thing.  This requires you pay a certain amount of attention to yourself.  Self-denial is a misguided asceticism that circumvents the natural law.  Selfish-denial, however, would be a much more aptly positive term—meaning that we deny selfish tendencies.  Understanding the difference between being human (a self) and being hedonistic and individualistic (selfish) are important distinctions.  And what our Malthusian friends are advocating is a self-denial so that they don’t have to advocate for a selfish-denial.  Their self-denial is not espoused because they embrace ascetic or penitential lifestyles; rather it is espoused precisely because they do not embrace such lifestyles. 

            The sin of every Malthusian is the same—they ever fret about the apple cart being upset because of too many apples.  I would humbly suggest that instead looking at the sum total of units making up the cargo that they look at the net weight of some of the cargo units and the ricketiness of the apple cart.  Maybe it is falling apart not because there are too many apples but because some of the apples are the size of pumpkins or because the makers of the apple cart were shoddy craftsmen.  But, alas, they seem to assume without inspection that there is no such thing as an obese apple or a faulty cart—it is always just the number of apples.

            I demand they inspect the cargo units.  I demand they inspect the cart.  What they will find is what they fear the most—not that the population is upsetting the apple cart, but that sin is.  What they will find, if they would shut up long enough about the total numbers is that there would be plenty of room for another bushel of apples if many of the apples weren’t so large.  They would find that the platform of the apple cart could support plenty more bushel baskets if the carriage of the cart were properly built and weight were evenly-distributed.  But very few apples, like people, will be willing to admit that they are fat; least of all grossly obese.  Very few apple-cart builders, like power-brokers, will be willing to admit they have made a mistake in construction; least of all one that rises to the level of gross-incompetence.

            So, because one fat apple wants to be uncritical of itself, it will instead divert the attention to the most recently added bushel basket.  It is their fault for being born, and it is now the responsibility of every apple not to loose weight, but to stop making seeds (which apples quite naturally do).  The mantra: Deny your selves to maintain your selfishness!  Why not: Deny your selfishness to maintain your selves?!  The wreckage of the apple cart is the lack of introspection and the proliferation of personal sin.  Straws don’t break camels’ backs and apples don’t upset apple carts.  People do not upset ecology.  What does break camels’ backs is abuse.  What does upset apple carts is imbalance.  What does upset ecology is sin.  Being fertile is no more a sin than being human; and having children is not a sin.  Being a self is quite within your purview as a creature made in the likeness and image of God.  Being selfish, however, that is a sin.  And that’s is to blame for the Malthusians’ fears.  Perhaps, then, that is where they ought start pointing the finger…

            In the meantime: “Happy Birthday!” wishes to our seven-billionth brother or sister.  Hooray!