Troubadour wrote: 12 Sep 2022, 11:50
Del wrote: 11 Sep 2022, 16:34
Try a ratio of making
one clear point per
one post.
I know quite a bit more about the customs and cultures of antiquity than you do, and yet I can't make sense of what you are trying to say.
You say that, but somehow something as obvious as the forms of eugenics, population control, and birth control which have been around since pre-antiquity to the present day are things you claim to have had a blind eye to.
Eugenics never existed before Charles Darwin, d. 1882. There were genocides committed against peoples and cultures whom the conquerorss didn't like, but there wasn't this idea that one race or group could be "genetically inferior." There were just conquerors and conquered peoples. The idea that humanity could be improved by "selective breeding" is an entirely modern idea.
The aristocracies of old avoided marrying "commoners" because of social caste systems, not some faith in genetic superiority.
Can you think of a pre-Darwin example of eugenics? I can't.
Population control, as an act of government policy, was invented by Thomas Malthus, d. 1834. The key is government controller deciding who should have children and how many.
Can you think of a government policy that deigned to "control population" prior to the 1800's? I can only think of just one; Pharoah of Egypt in the Exodus story. As far as I know, this is a unique event in history. See below....
Birth Control and
Infanticide are ancient evils, as you say. Ancient religions among Canaanite people and the empire of Carthage worshipped Molech, and a priestly caste had something to do with that. But mostly, infanticide was an authentic
patriarchy such as practiced in ancient Rome. I trust you are familiar with the custom.
Even in old Carthage, the aristocratic class sacrificed the children of their slaves for the sake of good crops, etc., and to keep their slave-staff down to a manageable number of mouths to feed. The household patriarch decided which children to sacrifice -- not the priests or the rulers.
The important thing to realize here is that
infanticide is an ancient evil, but it was commonly practiced by households -- not by governments. When governments get into the business of family planning and population control, that is tyranny. China is the obvious example of violating human rights. But America's hands are dirty too, such as richly funding Title X and Planned Parenthood to the ruin of American urban culture and especially Black families.
Your sci-fi proposal that everyone should be temporarily sterilized until they prove themselves worthy (as judged by a government eugenics experts) is worse than China's one-child policy -- where a woman was still allowed to choose her own spouse and have her own child in her own time before government tyrants asserted control over her life.
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Having said all that, there is one glaring example recorded in ancient history of "population control": when Pharaoh of Egypt proposed to keep his Hebrew slaves while reducing their numbers -- by killing all their newborn male children for a while.
Can we agree that this nuance of "population control" was just layered upon the ancient evils of despotic tyranny, slavery, genocide, and infanticide? Because Pharaoh wasn't concerned about overpopulation.... he just wanted to avoid a slave revolt.
I mean to establish that
eugenics and
population control were not common practice in the ancient world.
Such a thing as "population control" did not appear in the history of government policy until the 20th century. (Unless you can provide some examples that I am not aware of.)
