Enjoyed reading this! Regarding the Western obsession with East Asian birth rates, I remember reading a Slate piece from the early 2010s by Josh Levin that pointed the double standard in how the West liked to view falling European birth rates as the fault of capitalism (e.g. youth unemployment, high housing costs) while falling East Asian birth rates as sexual defectiveness, especially in the men. It was effective copium for many Americans: 'Whew, at least we're going to avoid that fate because we're not commies like the Euros and we're not dickless nerds like the Asians.'
So it's been pretty funny watching that panic now take hold in America, with people blaming stuff like Gen Z Boss and a Mini for American youth sexlessness.
Yeah, it’s such a gross and predictable feature of American anti-Asian bias that you can pretty much draw a direct line from the Page act to the racialized birth rate rubbernecking of the 2010s. Would not be surprised if they try to blame hallyu and K-pop Demon Hunters for infecting Gen Z Americans with Oriental sexual apathy next.
Actually...Plato's Laws include projected laws to force men to marry. Augustus, in Rome, instituted bonus rights to encourage having children (the 'ius trium liberorum' was accorded to women who had three or more children). Of course, Plato himself had no children as far as we know, and Augustus's one biological child was put out of the way fairly early on. Wealthy, educated, and successful societies/classes have always had fewer children than some utopians and lawmakers have wished.
Thank you! Love this. Was just writing a story about pretty much the same subject. And then i open my email and read your piece. Made my idea feel somewhat daunting and somewhat already done simultaneously but also it made me more motivated.
It is important to note that the 1960's obsession with over population came to nothing. It was a ploy for more government meddling in our lives. It is always the same, invent a crisis. Terrorize the population with "in twenty years this horror will happen". Constant hammering in the media. Even in the silly series Lost in Space they were leaving earth because of over population. Then they tax, curtail freedom, and/or try to destroy society. It is always a power play.
What a wonderful review. Selonick’s summary of Vanishing World’s generic precedents along with global sociological trends places the novel firmly on a pedestal of cultural relevance. Her depiction of its binary magnetism—at once repellent and attractive—renders it artistically irresistible. Well done!
An interesting review. I wasn’t sure what it was till I got to the end.
Like you, I’ve read a lot of apocalyptic fiction. I read the oldies when I was a young man in the 60s. A nice summary of all the awful futures conjured by scribblers through the ages, mostly men—in the bad old days, of course. Now they can’t get in the door of big publishing. Your experience will likely be different. I guess you’ll soon put pen to paper and write your own apocalyptic novel. But when you do, you’ll find the field crowded. But won’t everything be? Us sci-fi/fantasy writers will be jammed together like Tokyo subway riders, each one screaming at the top of her—maybe a few his—voices, “Mine, damn it! My writing is earth-shaking, sky-falling. Just read a few pages…”
I thought the lead up to the review was a little long. And I’m not so sure about some of your prefacing. Yes, less babies. Less intimacy. Goes along with less conservative and/or traditional culture. You might want to look into the whys of that. Some fertile soil there for social sci-fi.
Malthus jumped out at me. Surprised you seem to give him credence, but the 4 billion people living on the planet take away his credibility as a prophet. You say that large swatches of the planet will become uninhabitable. If you’re going to write a novel about that, you’ll have to dive deeper into the why.
We writers have to be mindful of our audiences. This, “… alt-lite trolls and blonde, barefoot tradwife influencers…” will likely sound ‘offensive’ to some and could lose you some readers. Personally, I don’t worry about shit like that. It’s impossible not to offend ‘someone’ if you write.
You obviously like Murata. Don’t know much about her, but her work sounds, to me, imitative of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But, then again, I’ve just read a snippet, and isn’t all art imitative?
I’ve been a scribbler for fifty years, writing and trying to find a home for my work. I’ve produced, I believe, several respectful (as my first agent would say) works, but so far none of them have taken off and made me rich and famous.
You are young, well placed (part of The Metropolitan Review), check a lot of the right boxes, and have a nice resume. Good luck to you in your future endeavors!
Replacement is not a theory. It is the government policy of importing demographically significant numbers of people, who are then made citizens with voting rights, and who can be relied upon to vote to the left of legacy populations, to effect political change. This was and remains the policy of, among others, both the British Labour Party and the American Democratic Party, with the acquiescence of the traditional center-right parties. Despite occasional public denials, the policy is unconcealed, unapologetic, it has already happened, and it works. It has nothing to do Jews, except in the imaginations of people who blame everything they don't like on their imaginary version of "the Jews."
As to the book under review, I find it hard to imagine an otherwise healthy man needing a video primer on how copulate if he was in the same room with a willing woman. Some things really are driven by instinct. But instinct can be overcome by indoctrination and psychological conditioning, so maybe. Further, the idea that an entire society could be alienated from in-person contact and be disgusted by the idea of skin-to-skin human sexuality is, regrettably, plausible. Where all this is headed is a worthy topic for speculative fiction. There are too many books to read, but this one sounds intriguing.
Distasteful? It’s a reality, not a matter of taste. A bitter reality, yes. Distasteful is your anti-blond anti-white anti-blue-eyed and ultimately anti-Platonic and anti-Socratic bias. Once those populations are replaced as it seems it’s happening, we won’t have a West anymore. Tragic, in the greek sense.
Blue-eyed is a matter of speaking. Dogs are carefully bred by races, purity and all that. But we (you) are talking about something different: we’re talking about “cultures”, in the modern sense. Persia was a great culture and now is an Islamic nightmare. It was conquered, replaced in the sense that its original culture perished and became something else. In Europe, that culture happens to be white. White is a horrible skin color, I particulary prefer black or mulatto. But I live in a culture created by the white palefaced brutes. And you too.
Persia’s high water mark was during the early medieval period, specifically when the Caliphate took over, and the Umayyad Caliphate took a deep interest in Persian culture, and adopted quite a bit of the culture as its own.
that’s what gives Iran its natural culture. the place’s culture is built from balancing the original Persian culture with medieval Islamic culture and modern culture. That’s Iran’s identity even today, and has been for nearly 500 years.
ironically for you, it’s one of the few places whose culture survived Islamic conquest — so much so, it went on to influence Islam deeply in aesthetics, art, literature, banking, and jurisprudence.
there’s a lot to be said about how Islam’s unifying culture wouldn’t be what it is today without the Persian influence.
that culture never went anywhere. it was such a unique and beautiful culture that it didn’t just survive repeated civil wars, endless foreign wars, conquest by Islamic theocrats, and modernization — it’s thrived for the last half a millennia.
that’s an utterly fucking absurd comparison to make — that just shows how little you actually do know about the region and its culture.
perhaps if you ventured outside pasty-fucking-white, ancient, dead men’s accounts, you might actually learn something that’s been relevant in the last thousand years.
Enjoyed reading this! Regarding the Western obsession with East Asian birth rates, I remember reading a Slate piece from the early 2010s by Josh Levin that pointed the double standard in how the West liked to view falling European birth rates as the fault of capitalism (e.g. youth unemployment, high housing costs) while falling East Asian birth rates as sexual defectiveness, especially in the men. It was effective copium for many Americans: 'Whew, at least we're going to avoid that fate because we're not commies like the Euros and we're not dickless nerds like the Asians.'
So it's been pretty funny watching that panic now take hold in America, with people blaming stuff like Gen Z Boss and a Mini for American youth sexlessness.
Yeah, it’s such a gross and predictable feature of American anti-Asian bias that you can pretty much draw a direct line from the Page act to the racialized birth rate rubbernecking of the 2010s. Would not be surprised if they try to blame hallyu and K-pop Demon Hunters for infecting Gen Z Americans with Oriental sexual apathy next.
Actually...Plato's Laws include projected laws to force men to marry. Augustus, in Rome, instituted bonus rights to encourage having children (the 'ius trium liberorum' was accorded to women who had three or more children). Of course, Plato himself had no children as far as we know, and Augustus's one biological child was put out of the way fairly early on. Wealthy, educated, and successful societies/classes have always had fewer children than some utopians and lawmakers have wished.
Thank you! Love this. Was just writing a story about pretty much the same subject. And then i open my email and read your piece. Made my idea feel somewhat daunting and somewhat already done simultaneously but also it made me more motivated.
It is important to note that the 1960's obsession with over population came to nothing. It was a ploy for more government meddling in our lives. It is always the same, invent a crisis. Terrorize the population with "in twenty years this horror will happen". Constant hammering in the media. Even in the silly series Lost in Space they were leaving earth because of over population. Then they tax, curtail freedom, and/or try to destroy society. It is always a power play.
What a wonderful review. Selonick’s summary of Vanishing World’s generic precedents along with global sociological trends places the novel firmly on a pedestal of cultural relevance. Her depiction of its binary magnetism—at once repellent and attractive—renders it artistically irresistible. Well done!
Thank you, Daniel!
It is a good book but I think Murata's others are all far better. Earthlings is hilarious and sickening in equal measure.
I’m looking forward to reading Earthlings next!
An interesting review. I wasn’t sure what it was till I got to the end.
Like you, I’ve read a lot of apocalyptic fiction. I read the oldies when I was a young man in the 60s. A nice summary of all the awful futures conjured by scribblers through the ages, mostly men—in the bad old days, of course. Now they can’t get in the door of big publishing. Your experience will likely be different. I guess you’ll soon put pen to paper and write your own apocalyptic novel. But when you do, you’ll find the field crowded. But won’t everything be? Us sci-fi/fantasy writers will be jammed together like Tokyo subway riders, each one screaming at the top of her—maybe a few his—voices, “Mine, damn it! My writing is earth-shaking, sky-falling. Just read a few pages…”
I thought the lead up to the review was a little long. And I’m not so sure about some of your prefacing. Yes, less babies. Less intimacy. Goes along with less conservative and/or traditional culture. You might want to look into the whys of that. Some fertile soil there for social sci-fi.
Malthus jumped out at me. Surprised you seem to give him credence, but the 4 billion people living on the planet take away his credibility as a prophet. You say that large swatches of the planet will become uninhabitable. If you’re going to write a novel about that, you’ll have to dive deeper into the why.
We writers have to be mindful of our audiences. This, “… alt-lite trolls and blonde, barefoot tradwife influencers…” will likely sound ‘offensive’ to some and could lose you some readers. Personally, I don’t worry about shit like that. It’s impossible not to offend ‘someone’ if you write.
You obviously like Murata. Don’t know much about her, but her work sounds, to me, imitative of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But, then again, I’ve just read a snippet, and isn’t all art imitative?
I’ve been a scribbler for fifty years, writing and trying to find a home for my work. I’ve produced, I believe, several respectful (as my first agent would say) works, but so far none of them have taken off and made me rich and famous.
You are young, well placed (part of The Metropolitan Review), check a lot of the right boxes, and have a nice resume. Good luck to you in your future endeavors!
Replacement is not a theory. It is the government policy of importing demographically significant numbers of people, who are then made citizens with voting rights, and who can be relied upon to vote to the left of legacy populations, to effect political change. This was and remains the policy of, among others, both the British Labour Party and the American Democratic Party, with the acquiescence of the traditional center-right parties. Despite occasional public denials, the policy is unconcealed, unapologetic, it has already happened, and it works. It has nothing to do Jews, except in the imaginations of people who blame everything they don't like on their imaginary version of "the Jews."
As to the book under review, I find it hard to imagine an otherwise healthy man needing a video primer on how copulate if he was in the same room with a willing woman. Some things really are driven by instinct. But instinct can be overcome by indoctrination and psychological conditioning, so maybe. Further, the idea that an entire society could be alienated from in-person contact and be disgusted by the idea of skin-to-skin human sexuality is, regrettably, plausible. Where all this is headed is a worthy topic for speculative fiction. There are too many books to read, but this one sounds intriguing.
Distasteful? It’s a reality, not a matter of taste. A bitter reality, yes. Distasteful is your anti-blond anti-white anti-blue-eyed and ultimately anti-Platonic and anti-Socratic bias. Once those populations are replaced as it seems it’s happening, we won’t have a West anymore. Tragic, in the greek sense.
I’ll have you know that my dog has beautiful blue eyes.
Blue-eyed is a matter of speaking. Dogs are carefully bred by races, purity and all that. But we (you) are talking about something different: we’re talking about “cultures”, in the modern sense. Persia was a great culture and now is an Islamic nightmare. It was conquered, replaced in the sense that its original culture perished and became something else. In Europe, that culture happens to be white. White is a horrible skin color, I particulary prefer black or mulatto. But I live in a culture created by the white palefaced brutes. And you too.
Persia’s high water mark was during the early medieval period, specifically when the Caliphate took over, and the Umayyad Caliphate took a deep interest in Persian culture, and adopted quite a bit of the culture as its own.
that’s what gives Iran its natural culture. the place’s culture is built from balancing the original Persian culture with medieval Islamic culture and modern culture. That’s Iran’s identity even today, and has been for nearly 500 years.
ironically for you, it’s one of the few places whose culture survived Islamic conquest — so much so, it went on to influence Islam deeply in aesthetics, art, literature, banking, and jurisprudence.
there’s a lot to be said about how Islam’s unifying culture wouldn’t be what it is today without the Persian influence.
that culture never went anywhere. it was such a unique and beautiful culture that it didn’t just survive repeated civil wars, endless foreign wars, conquest by Islamic theocrats, and modernization — it’s thrived for the last half a millennia.
that’s an utterly fucking absurd comparison to make — that just shows how little you actually do know about the region and its culture.
perhaps if you ventured outside pasty-fucking-white, ancient, dead men’s accounts, you might actually learn something that’s been relevant in the last thousand years.
the Classics have their place.
but the world’s moved on a bit.
Not true. Savage Arabs learned Poetry and Mathematics in Persia. To this day Persians lament the Islamic catastrophe.
if you were told fanservice in anime is bad, wouldn't you assume women don't have a sex-drive and would stop having children