Dr. Jonathan Swift's proposal identifies one of the problems in his society which was the unwanted children of the poor. He points out the beggars who would have many children behind them looking for food, money, etc. Swift suggests a way to fix the problem of the population growth and the poor which is to sell the children off, feed them to a certain age then eat them. I don't really know if he was being serious or not, but because of his research and how he empathizes with the audience about people on the streets suggest that he was indeed serious.
I would have to agree that his solution does indeed sound logical. His evidence of growing population, the way he calculated the numbers of children 'breeders' make and even how he pointed out a 'season' for when the most children were born. All of this support his solution greatly. Even if you add in todays population and the current resources being put to waste instead of being recycled his solution would be supported even more. However, because of culture and religion people will and probably will continue to not accept this proposal because of the value humans have on other human life (except in war).
I refer you to the novel "The Time Machine", written by H.G. Wells. In this novel/movie the future holds two different species of humans where one herd the other like cattle and eat them. I only mention this because culture can change towards Swifts proposal, but not within our life time.
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I thought it was interesting that you connected it to The Time Machine. As I am only roughly familiar with the book, I was wondering, does it hint at any sort of social commentary or is it a fairly straight forward piece of Sci fi? Also, do you feel it would be practical to eat children in a long term sort of setting?
ReplyDeleteIn The Time Machine there are parts in which refer to culture in a subtle way, you know to keep the story going. So I recently watched one of the earlier movies on it where there was a hint that durring human history there were so many air siren warnings that over time the culture developed that sounds into gathering the humans made for eating. In earlier movies they use the mannequin in a shop window to point out the rising him line of a woman's dress. So it does have some things on culture changes, just some versions are limited because they are earlier in time.
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