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Too Many People: A Problem in Values
Book by Derrick, Christopher
116 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 3, 2013
For such a short book, it felt like forever before he got to his main point. He sort of came at it from a very distant perspective, I suppose. I guess it's because he doesn't discuss the idea that overpopulation is a problem so much as look at those who hold the "overpopulation is a huge problem!" position and consider their underlying reasoning, which somehow I wasn't expecting.
It's not exactly news, for anyone who's looked into the issue at all, that "overpopulation" is an idea held by the rich and addressed to the poor, or that the "solution" always boils down to governments imposing their will on the poor and helpless, but perhaps this was less obvious in 1985, when this book was printed, I dunno.
I was surprised, in his appendix, that he said overpopulation is favored by the political right, since everyone I know who rages about it is very definitely to the left side. But that, again, may be due to the different times we are looking at -- I can imagine that people on the right in the 1960s believed that overpopulation was a real problem. But the right wingers I know now are opposed because they tend libertarian, and all the supposed "solutions" to overpopulation anymore boil down to government control, which they oppose.
If someone is still interested in the topic of overpopulation, despite the repeated failures of the Doomsayers' predictions, I would recommend something by Julian Simon or Jacqueline Kasun rather than this book. And if someone is determined to read everything recommended in James Schall's Another Sort of Learning, I'd move this book down on the list. This is the first of the books he recommends that I would just have soon skipped -- there've been others that were just as much review for me, but those I enjoyed on their own merits.
OTOH, as an introduction to the topic for someone who believes in the population bomb, it is short and a quick read and brings home some hard truths. But for anyone who thinks Paul Ehrlich disproved long past, and the whole concept shown as bankrupt, not much here.
It's not exactly news, for anyone who's looked into the issue at all, that "overpopulation" is an idea held by the rich and addressed to the poor, or that the "solution" always boils down to governments imposing their will on the poor and helpless, but perhaps this was less obvious in 1985, when this book was printed, I dunno.
I was surprised, in his appendix, that he said overpopulation is favored by the political right, since everyone I know who rages about it is very definitely to the left side. But that, again, may be due to the different times we are looking at -- I can imagine that people on the right in the 1960s believed that overpopulation was a real problem. But the right wingers I know now are opposed because they tend libertarian, and all the supposed "solutions" to overpopulation anymore boil down to government control, which they oppose.
If someone is still interested in the topic of overpopulation, despite the repeated failures of the Doomsayers' predictions, I would recommend something by Julian Simon or Jacqueline Kasun rather than this book. And if someone is determined to read everything recommended in James Schall's Another Sort of Learning, I'd move this book down on the list. This is the first of the books he recommends that I would just have soon skipped -- there've been others that were just as much review for me, but those I enjoyed on their own merits.
OTOH, as an introduction to the topic for someone who believes in the population bomb, it is short and a quick read and brings home some hard truths. But for anyone who thinks Paul Ehrlich disproved long past, and the whole concept shown as bankrupt, not much here.
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December 7, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 15, as one of Fourteen Books on the Value and Defense of Human Life.
June 10, 2016
From the back cover:
The question of world population - and of its possible control - has become a topic of much public discussion in recent decades and has been the subject of two major UN Conferences: at Bucharest in 1974 and at Mexico City in 1984. The subject has aroused a great deal of public concern, even public alarm.
In this book, Christopher Derrick presents a rigorous analysis of the whole concept of "overpopulation". It is easy to speak of "too many people". But that phrase means nothing unless we have some answers to the question: "Too many for what?". And that raises a deeper question, religious in nature: "What are human beings for, anyway?". On what basis (if any) can we make quantitative value judgments about human existence?
Derrick aims to broaden the scope of Christian attention to this question of population control. He states that too many of us are concerned only with the morality of the means and strongly suggests that we should pay more attention to the implied value judgments that cause so many of us to see population as a 'problem' to which we must find a 'solution'. To a degree that can easily be overlooked, these value judgments differ from those of Christian faith and tradition. "Too Many People?" is a timely book on an important question.
The question of world population - and of its possible control - has become a topic of much public discussion in recent decades and has been the subject of two major UN Conferences: at Bucharest in 1974 and at Mexico City in 1984. The subject has aroused a great deal of public concern, even public alarm.
In this book, Christopher Derrick presents a rigorous analysis of the whole concept of "overpopulation". It is easy to speak of "too many people". But that phrase means nothing unless we have some answers to the question: "Too many for what?". And that raises a deeper question, religious in nature: "What are human beings for, anyway?". On what basis (if any) can we make quantitative value judgments about human existence?
Derrick aims to broaden the scope of Christian attention to this question of population control. He states that too many of us are concerned only with the morality of the means and strongly suggests that we should pay more attention to the implied value judgments that cause so many of us to see population as a 'problem' to which we must find a 'solution'. To a degree that can easily be overlooked, these value judgments differ from those of Christian faith and tradition. "Too Many People?" is a timely book on an important question.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews