![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jan. 16th, 2008 02:22 pmRoy at Alicublog responds to this piece by Rod Dreher: "Will Boomers die alone and unloved?" with such brilliance that I have to share it:
It's amazing how much of the Jesus people POV is based on the Ant and the Grasshopper. Just you wait, they say, one day you'll be old and alone and godless -- and, if we have our way, broke. Then who'll be laughing?
Speaking as a childless man of no great fortune, I fully expect to die one of these days, and I have respect enough for narrative, and the odds, to also expect that my end may not be heartwarming. But I fail to see how that should drive me to procreate. As Lear and a million other geezers knew, children are an unreliable source of comfort and security. However long a span I am granted, the end is just a little piece of it. If that isn't sweet, I know that my memories, if I am blessed to retain them, will be, and thereafter is oblivion. I have front-loaded my happiness, and have no regrets.
[...]
That he and others would use such a crude weapon to scare people into having babies is frankly disgusting. If my natural inclinations would in any case encourage my resistance, under such circumstances my self-respect demands it. Better, morally speaking, to fall back on my default retirement plan: a pistol and a rooming-house.
It's amazing how much of the Jesus people POV is based on the Ant and the Grasshopper. Just you wait, they say, one day you'll be old and alone and godless -- and, if we have our way, broke. Then who'll be laughing?
Speaking as a childless man of no great fortune, I fully expect to die one of these days, and I have respect enough for narrative, and the odds, to also expect that my end may not be heartwarming. But I fail to see how that should drive me to procreate. As Lear and a million other geezers knew, children are an unreliable source of comfort and security. However long a span I am granted, the end is just a little piece of it. If that isn't sweet, I know that my memories, if I am blessed to retain them, will be, and thereafter is oblivion. I have front-loaded my happiness, and have no regrets.
[...]
That he and others would use such a crude weapon to scare people into having babies is frankly disgusting. If my natural inclinations would in any case encourage my resistance, under such circumstances my self-respect demands it. Better, morally speaking, to fall back on my default retirement plan: a pistol and a rooming-house.
