This post contains some of the most inane mass psychologizing witnessed so far in human history.

Did you just seriously argue that the Japanese are less likely to have children because they're bummed about WW2?

Religion and culture certainly affect how likely folks are to have children to some extent, but the causality claimed in your post is boggling.

As it stands, this explanation for Japan's declining fecundity is a Just So Story.

How could it be compared to other possible causes?

How could it be turned into a testable hypothesis?

Although the cult of the emperor and the code of bushido were relatively recent inventions in Japanese history, by the time the war began, at least three generations had been immersed in it.

Yes, and what they were immersed in was a reign of terror, which most Japanese ought to have been very glad to see the end of. In between 1912 and 1945, Bushido fanatics murdered six Prime ministers and twelve cabinet ministers. Military officers regularly assassinated their superior officers, for the smallest reasons. Imperial Japan had no written penal code and judges lived in fear of their lives, so almost no one was punished.

As you point out, this was a modern mania, mixed up with lots of other modern manias: Fascism, Marxism, Syndicalist Anarchism, and gangster movies. But there's a much older Japanese problem - xenophobia, the disease of the East. It's been the ruin of China, too. That's why World War II was remembered as a moral defeat, not a deliverance.

I call BS on this. Other nations have experienced the same rapid declines in fertility. For example, Iran has a TFR (total fertility rate) of around 1.7. Rates of around 2.1 are what is assumed to keep populations stable, i.e. replacement.

Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Greece, Denmark, and Switzerland all have very low fertility rates, population crashes. Some did not experience any WWII destruction (Sweden, Switzerland) and others had fairly light to almost non-existent WWII destruction. Ireland and Spain come to mind.

Iran of course, along with Algeria, and Tunisia, all below replacement at 1.7 or so, while being Islamic are instructive.

It would seem to me, that female literacy + improved wealth + women's social position improving + pill + Condom (available by trade at least) = declining fertility. Japan having higher rates of all, will experience a population crash akin to Spain, Greece, and Italy.

Women, in a consumerist, "Sex and the City" society would rather not have children. Until they are at the very end of their fertility window, because they are looking (in the market) for the very best mate and genes they can get. The most socially dominant male available. Therefore their strategy, with wealth of their own, is to search for such a mate, delay any children which would negate their search for said mate.

How to test?

There are a number of stats/maps on the internet. One maps total sexual partners for men and women. I saw it but don't know where it is. Didn't bookmark it sorry. There's another at Spengler, Asia Times, showing female literacy, religious attendance, and TFR.

IMHO, it would be instructive to construct a regression testing:

Female Literacy.
Sexual partners for women.
Sexual partners for men (at least a proxy to above).
Per Capita Income.
Median income. [I.E. how wealthy is the society, how much wealth is spread across]
Women's median income.
Religious attendance.

See how each factor affects or not, TFR. I think the results would be interesting.

Yes, I suspect they would be interesting.

I'm not going to totally discount the role of spirit. On the other hand, I would like to see the idea examined with data and rival explanations inserted.

It just strikes me ... I've seen all sorts of things bandied about "why" the West stopped reproducing, going to Church, lost it's belief in itself. About Gramsci and other intellectuals, about evil Marxist plots (I don't doubt they existed, just their ability to sway so many) and so on.

And it strikes me ..

Modern life is often lonely and disconnected, while very wealthy and alienating. Women in particular have far more choices than they ever did with total control over fertility, wealth to live on their own, Welfare States (for the moment) to replace fathers. And a consumerist society that reflects their tastes (TV is a gay and female ghetto by ads).

The pill and condom. Cheap, affordable, effective, reliable. Increased wealth, and increased ability to live a life of one's own for women.

These to me seem far more influential in that they touch more deeply far more people, directly, and influence their behavior. It would account for cases like Iran, Algeria, Tunisia, and Switzerland, Ireland, Spain, and Greece.

If one lives in Japan and dates Japanese women some insight can be gathered. To whit:

(1) They don't want to have children, at least many of them. Blame crass materialism (e.g., most could not afford Gucci if they had children), or perhaps it is a very deep financial insecurity (since most women never advance far enough in careers, due to ceilings, to make a large salary and thus be able to save significant money before their child bearing years end).

(2) Relationship dysfunction: perhaps here is where Mr. Sensing's theory might hold a bit more water. Namely, the young Japanese male appears (to me anyway) to be demoralized, and thus not aggressive enough in finding and pursuing the female. Were Japanese males culturally emasculated as a way of keeping them from repeating the sins of their grandfathers? Or, on the other hand, was a minimum salary so solidly guaranteed that a young male could always be able to afford a "delivery health service" instead of pursuing a real friendship with a female friend?

(3) Then there is the whole geography problem - frankly, Japan cannot support its own population wrt food or energy, and a sustainable society that would not dependent upon imports for the basic survival staples would likely only number between the 30 and 60 million people, similar to that previous eras contained. So, could we just be witnessing a fundamental biological process taking place within an isolated population of homo sapiens which is being constrained by land area?

Regardless of the reasons, the feeling I have gotten from the society around me, when living in Japan, is that of a deep resignation, a perpetual ennui that on occasion can be masked by enough neon signs and seducing electronic gadgets. Perhaps the nature of the loss in WWII has a part of that, but I do believe the reasons have to include the entire 20th century gamut of changes.

The market will provide a solution. Seriously. When children become a valuable economic aset because the population is too aged to care for itself, children will be in vogue again. I've never bought into the demographic handwringing.

The demographic catastrophe will hit Europe too..

The demographic winter is coming to Europe.

Aging workforce.
geocities(dot)com/demographic_crash

Good information on the subject. Welcome for a visit.

P.S. Also new website prowomanprolife(point)org.

Ms Miller: That was perilously close to what we call a "drive-by". You're welcome to stick around and be part of the conversation here.

The stunning readiness to blame any negative developments on US policies guarantees such problems will never be properly addressed. It parallels with the blaming of witches for every calamity in the Middle Ages. However, it is easier for modern intellectuals to blame the devil du jour in any given situation than to think critically. I suspect it also helps at social gatherings and in grant requests.

a). Abortion in Japan was legalized after WWII while MacDouglas was around; one can argue that that factor in the equation could be blamed on the Americans, but that is not the author's point.

b). As abortions are legalized and accepted, more are performed. The more fetuses you abort, the less children you have (that would seem to be a given, but having witnessed the distress of many middle-aged childless women, it is my opinion that not everyone is immediately aware of the cause and effect).

c). In nations where abortion is legal and accepted, the bulk of population increase via births comes from the fecundity of new immigrants.

d). Japan discourages immigration. Most other countries (with legalized abortion) actually encourage immigration, to the point of population replacement.

If it's an urbanization (alienation) factor, then why does the burden of the population crash fall most heavily on the hinterlands and rural communities?

I'm hostile to theories of catastrophic Japanese exceptionalism, but it is true that Japan's demographic crash is the most severe, and not really comparable to any country outside of the old Warsaw Pact countries.

The combination of the above two issues, distinctive Japanese demographics and the rural burden, tends to undermine the more obvious utilitarian hypothesises. The amoral Japanese and Warsaw Pact attitudes towards abortion is highly tempting, but then you have to ask why Catholic Mediterranean countries like Portugal, Spain, and Italy are in the next rank up of demographic crashes, and the notably abortion-hostile former West Germany does more poorly than the Scandinavians.

I would put my money on the steadily increasing urbanism in Japan. My guess is that almost any heavily urbanized city in the world will have a lower birth rate than rural areas of the same country. In Japan, the people are moving to the cities because that is where the economic and social action is. That depopulates the countryside and further depresses the reproduction rate. I can't cite any sources for my contention, just a hunch.

Plot against "average educational level".

Professors don't have eight kids. You can even normalize a lot of factors by just examining American cities. Seattle has a lopsided graduate student-to-no GED ratio... and no kids.

I think Jim Rockford makes some good points, but I think the statistical analysis should include the suicide rate. I suspect that if you include that factor, we might find that there are some cultural aspects in play as well as economic and technological.

The market will provide a solution. Seriously. When children become a valuable economic aset because the population is too aged to care for itself, children will be in vogue again.

I don't believe the magic hand works intergenerationally like that. Parents have to bear the cost and inconvenience of bearing and raising children, and once a kid can do work that has economic value, they can simply leave. There is a complete disconnect between who incurs the cost and who receives the benefits.

IIRC the youngest the USA has ever been was in the Jacksonian era when about 95% of the population lived on relatively isolated farms. This meant that disease levels were low, diet was good, and parents could enjoy the labor of their children without competition.

The childbirth rate began to drop by mid-century when young adults left to seek their fortunes in the small towns that were building up. (Abraham Lincoln is the prototype here)

For the market to work here, we would probably have to treat children as indentured servents, liable to their parents for their births.

If birthrates are dropping across the civilized world, what if it is a case of availability of retirement?
In the past, or in poorer countries, children were necessary so one could be taken care of when he or she became old. In wealthy nations, retirement can either be saved for, or is provided by the state (ussually a combination), thus there is no incentive to invest in children, since its easier and cheaper to invest in an IRA.

I dont know how one could test this theory, do you have any ideas Jim?

I dont know if the market can provide a solution. Sure at some point, it will be very valuable to have kids, but by that point the population may be too old to have them, and will likely be too old to wait untill they mature.

Ken: the thought that my 401(k) is a force for depopulation is quite amusing. But you raise a valid point, I wonder if we can test birthrates against a country's relative safety net? Or maybe the expansion of Social Security type entitlements?

We are reaping the benefit of the Nuclear Family pushed years ago.

I am going to have to join the chorus of those who think the explanation is a lot simpler than what Donald suggests.

Consider :

1) Japan is a wealthy nation with high population density, so high real-estate costs. It is hard for young people to get their own homes and have kids.

2) Taiwan and South Korea have fertility rates just as low as Japan, and the same constraints as in point 1) above. They were not defeated by the US in a war. They suffered different tragedies in the 20th century, yes, but those were entirely different.

3) Japanese who leave Japan and go live elsewhere (like the US), have normal levels of children.

So I don't think that their low birth rate is for any reason other than the same reason that other high-density wealthy countries have the same phenomenon.

Another point against the article is :

When Japan was indeed thriving in the 1970s and 80s, why didn't birth rates rebound? That was far enough in the past that many who remember WW2 were still alive - why didn't birth rates rebound in the 70s and 80s?

"Iran of course, along with Algeria, and Tunisia, all below replacement at 1.7 or so, while being Islamic are instructive."

Turkey is also below replacement. Malaysia is getting there as well.

Unbeliever:
I believe that my hypothesis also explains why immigrants drive the birth rates of developed countries. Arriving immigrants are less likely to get a good job, and even if they get one, it is virtually impossible to save up for retirement well if you start saving in your 40's or 50's. Without retirement savings (and sometimes less access to the societal safety net) children become more important. If course, there are some cultural influences there as well.

If this is correct (and its a pretty big if) that the proper action to reverse population decline would be to break the ponzi scheme nature of social security on family lines. In other words, one's entitlement is obtained by taxing ones children. If ones children make more money (whether by high income or by having many children) ones retirement is in better shape.

We are reaping the benefit of the Nuclear Family pushed years ago.

I don't think that is the case. Here are some historical fertility rates for whites in the USA:

1800 = 7.04
1840 = 6.14
1850 = 5.42
1880 = 4.24
1920 = 3.17
1940 = 2.22

I think these track fairly favorably with a transition from urban to rural livelihoods. And more specifically, a certain type of rural livelihood in which a six year old and a sixty year old can provide economic value by hauling water from the well, feeding the chickens, and gathering firewood. Where the farm is a small manufacturing facility for soaps and clothes and furniture.

But the linked chart also shows a lot of variability in the twentieth century once fertility rates dropped below 4.00:

1940 = 2.22
1960 = 3.53
1980 = 1.77
2000 = 2.05

I suspect the economic rational for children ended by the 1920s. What value children have today is entirely non-economical and rooted in culture, optimism, events like war, curiosity, and desire for familial love and companionship.

Hmmm - I find this interesting.

I'd put it more to the more likely cause of the dreary Japanese economy from 91 on. Bank crisis, near deflation, crashing GDP growth, subpar GDP/capita growth. Only in the past 5 years has GDP/capita approached the US.

The '47 baby boom kids grew up and saw their country become stronger, since it was so weak after WW2. Their children, the 71-74 boom, saw the country rise and get stronger again, with amazing GDP growth from 1970-1990. And then after 1990, the rise stopped, and problems started. That this changed something, for the first people in over 40 years to stop seeing their country grow stronger, probably meant something as well.

Combined with everything else - urbanization and the costs involved, low immigration, etc - this could give another factor.

why didn't birth rates rebound in the 70s and 80s?

They stabilized in the 70s, then plunged in the 80s, even as we were convincing ourselves that the Japanese were going to take over the world, or at least the management of it.

Population decline is tied to economic decline, which is why the EU is not going to be the economic superpower they dream of being.

The politics of the future will offer solutions to this. Can robot workers restore prosperity to aging, declining populations? How about clones? How about lots of clones? When countries are so desperate that they're willing to buy clone slaves, what will stop them from finding a seller?

The cause is simple. If a mother wants to work and apply the experience and education she has gained throughout her early life and career, having children makes that very, very difficult. Good daycares are expensive, hard to find and have long waiting lists. Ditto for day homes. Nannies are even more expensive and can come with lots of downsides. Employers are often not very accomodating / understanding, and work schedules often don't align all that well with daycare / nanny schedules. And the school system is horrible for working parents trying to accomodate both their jobs and their children at school -- late start times, early end times, lack of pre- and post- school supervised activities, constant long holidays and days off -- none of this meshes real well with most companies' ideas of 9-5-ish workdays.

So something has to give. That typically means either someone giving up a career, deciding to bear (reluctantly) enormous hassle and additional expense over many years (in which case you better start late if you hope to afford it and still enjoy a decent standard of living), or having less kids or kids later in life (at which point having less is no longer really an option). And the longer you wait the harder it is to say goodbye to that two income, free-as-a-bird lifestyle. I know all of this from personal experience.

To sum up my argument: we're all collectively having less kids because our society is structured to discourage having them at all.

The above said, though, I think Mark in #8 is 100% right. Eventually the market will adjust, societies will change, children will become more highly valued, and presto! More kids. Either that or it's "Children of Men" time.

Wouldn't real slaves be much cheaper than clone slaves? The same laws govern both, after all why wouldn't a close human being be any less human?

So population decline causes economic decline, and economic decline causes population decline?

Clones are not sentient beings; they may appear human, but they are decidedly not. Laws against slavery do not apply.

Clones are not sentient beings; they may appear human, but they are decidedly not. Laws against slavery do not apply.

Are you serious? Why wouldn't they be sentient beings? The cell may be constructed in a laboratory, but the baby is still born to a human surrogate mother. After that its raised just like a normal human baby, that happens to be sharing its genetic code with an older human being. Its very similar to an identical twin. It is not some sort of sci-fi scenario where fully grown human being jump out of tanks with bubbling blue water.

There's a list of Total Fertility Rates compiled by the Population Reference Bureau, here.

Countries mentioned (comments 4, 20, & 22):

1.3 Japan

2.9 Malaysia
1.1 South Korea
1.1 Taiwan

2.4 Algeria
2.0 Iran
2.0 Tunisia
2.2 Turkey

1.9 Denmark
1.3 Greece
1.4 Italy
1.9 Ireland
1.4 Spain
1.9 Sweden
1.4 Switzerland
2.1 U.S.

0.9 Macau (lowest)
7.9 Niger (highest)

Re: clone slaves - Very dangerous ground any nation would be treading, that deigns to go that route. Once the clones decide they don't want to be enslaved by a bunch of elderly, natural-born but not-child-bearing-themselves humans anymore, the latter are Screwed, with a capital S.

I'm going to pile on urbanization as the root cause band wagon as well.

The rural areas of Japan are dying, becoming ghost towns. Meanwhile the urban megalopolis just keep growing. The Tokyo megalopolis is up to, what 35 million counting the surrounding areas?

There just aren't any jobs in the rural areas, so the young people move to the cities to get work, but the incredibly expensive living costs in the city make it all but impossible to afford a family. Meanwhile none of the employers move out to the cheaper rural areas to set up shop because all the prospective employees have already moved to the city. A rather vicious death spiral.

In this case an economic boom will help a bit, shifting some of the marginal cases over the line into family rearing, but mostly will have little effect as the boom will also push up the already astronomical urban real-estate prices, increasing the cost of family housing still farther.

Looking at the US, Europe, and Japan, I suspect that the key factor in why the US birthrate stays higher than the others may be our suburban commuter culture, which is relatively unique to the US, as it allows young families to afford sufficiently rooming housing and find work at the cost of a long commute.

Once the clones decide they don't want to be enslaved by a bunch of elderly, natural-born but not-child-bearing-themselves humans anymore, the latter are Screwed, with a capital S.

Never mind the clone slaves; the masses of underpaid and unassimilated immigrant workers may reach that conclusion first. Which is why we need the Japanese to build us some giant robot dinosaurs now.

Even without clone technology, corporate baby-farming may be a very profitable venture in the future. Mom Incorporated can supply all of your labor needs - all of them speaking your language and trained from birth to vote for the Ruling Party.

Instead of breeding masses of workers, though, clones could be used to boost natural (or near-natural) fertility rates. How about an affordable Paris Hilton Party Model?

As Ken [#30] explained, clones are just children, each a genetically identical twin of its parent.

Well, not quite identical under current technology. From the sheep experiments, it appears that the genetic copy is more flawed than the original, with health consequences.

Nonetheless, these are real human children, growing up in some environment. Any of you who think that their opinions and actions can be controlled like robots must not be parents.

And speaking of robots, the Japanese are great fans of robots, with a lot of explicit discussion of using robots as care-givers for the elderly.

That wooshing sound you heard was PD Shaw's joke going completely over heads. Check his link. The secret to clone's is you have to train them from birth for total obedience, and make sure they are obedient to you and not some codger with a perchant for fine robes.

"Parents have to bear the cost and inconvenience of bearing and raising children, and once a kid can do work that has economic value, they can simply leave."

They can, but that isn't what generally happens. Notwithstanding the fact that we have for some insane reason reverse loaded our entitlements to move wealth from the young and starting out to the retired and (statistically) more wealthy. That is untenable. Regardless it is highly unusual for children to allow their parents to go destitute.

"For the market to work here, we would probably have to treat children as indentured servents, liable to their parents for their births."

First- we already do that, and I don't recommend it. Second, this is a solution in search of a problem. Children DO take care of their parents in the vast majority of cases. The idea of wanting someone there in your golden years to look out for you is hardly novel or rare.

Yes, I was joking. But it's always good to remember that George Lucas made it respectable for Americans to enjoy killing "Storm troopers." 'Cause they're clones, damn it.

Closer to some point approximating the thread though: If the problem is simply that the aged will not have anybody to look after them, then technology might provide suitable substitutes for babies: drugs to control the children, clones or robots. And I admit its quite possible that robots will answer all of our individual needs. (gratuitous link to Futurama piece)

Mark B, how do Americans treat children as indentured servants?

Yup. Whooshed right by. Never followed the link.

I was a big fan of Star Wars back in the days of 4, 5, and 6. Saw 1, then somehow never found the time to see 2 or 3. So it goes.

The decisive defeat was psychological and spiritual. Japan's deepest wound was the destruction of its national mythos.

The deepest wound was the destruction of their young men in a fool's errand. And they know it.

Japan's conviction of racial superiority and its embrace of a manifest destiny to dominate all Asia almost completely formed the national self-identity and national purpose.

And still does. Ever been there and done business with them? I have. For the last two and a half years.

Understand that Japanese militarism, chauvinistic racism and Shintoism/bushidoism were in fact combined to make their national religion. This was what the war destroyed so deeply that it disappeared in only one more generation.

I apologize, but BULLSHIT. It is still fully operational. What the hell do you think the 70's was about? Just an extension of WWII but a different battlefield. What has crushed them now is that they have found it still is a fool's errand. The kids see that there is NO HOPE of advancement inside a stratified and static culture. Be a company man or starve. Be a farmer or starve. Emigrate and see some kind of advancement but stay away too long and no longer be counted as 'really' Japanese.

For generations to reproduce there has to be some hope inside the culture. Most Japanese see none and choose not to have kids. There is no way to build wealth inside the current culture.

AND Rev, the Japanese are the most racially prejudiced bunch, as a group and society, on the planet. They always have been and they always will be UNTIL there is some sort of sea change inside the culture.

konban wa

Please go read this book - Japan Unmasked

Jim Rockford is mostly wrong, but not for the reasons most think.

InJapan is spot on target. The island can only sustain 70M people tops. MacArthur mandated that Japan support itself, post WWII, no matter what. Food. Energy. Resources.

Even though I'm contributing to thread drift...

I think in the long run clones are likely to be more medical supplies than children, in the general case.

As The Island (2005) showed, clones are "not human", because they have distinguishing characteristics, such as a brand (a "thermal imprint") and a shackle, and someone owns them. Full person-hood belongs to their sponsors, that is, the people with the money. Consequently clones are likely to be harvested or in other ways sacrificed for the benefit of their sponsors or owners.

After all, the same people who have already chosen lifestyles that involved maximizing their own life experiences at the expense of any progeny aren't suddenly going to reverse their values. If you look at it from the point of view of someone with a powerful desire for life extension treatments and a pro-choice and "pro-science" as opposed to a "culture of life" attitude, the right thing to do is obvious.

"Just cause people wanna eat the burger doesn't mean they wanna meet the cow." That means, the more clones will be used this way, the more they will be kept out of sight. You don't want to know about the conditions of the battery chickens that provided your eggs, and you won't want to know about the conditions of the clone that provided your new liver. If it's wrong for people to see those pictures of naturally created human beings being medically disposed of, that will go double for humanoid products that must be kept legal for the benefit of "everyone's" health, and that can't be addressed as morally human without raising challenges to the morality of the best, wealthiest people enjoying the best health that medical science can provide.

In other words, there is no artificial substitute for a culture of life, because a culture of death will devour its artificial children for the same reasons that it devoured its natural ones. And the artificial ones - except for special cases like purpose-grown stars in big money sports - will be in an even worse case than the natural ones, because the social arrangements for their dehumanization, exploitation and destruction will be built into the conditions of their creation, and sanctified with big money and medical science.

Therefore I think it's best to meddle with cloning as little as possible, since while the clones themselves may not be monsters their owners are likely to act like moral monsters.

The right solution has to involve making lots of babies the old fashioned way, in families.

From this point of view, I think it's worth looking seriously at housing for young men seriously interested in marrying and raising several kids while they're young enough for that to happen.

The Soviet Union used to be deeply committed to the idea that industrial productivity was everything, and humanity in effect was expendable. Did anybody else back then look at the kind of housing the state was making available - the crowding, the squalor, the inadequacy of it for Russians wanting to make families in dignified and practical circumstances - and think this means trouble? The state was simply not investing in the physical reproduction of its ethnic core human capital, and Russian housing was a part of that catastrophic investment error.

I think it's worth looking at family housing for young families everywhere we see population declines, partly as a contributor to small and nonexistent families, and mainly as an indicator of bad values that shrink families in all sorts of ways.

When Australian values, reflected and reinforced by government, included "a family wage" (for men), the bolstering of traditional sex roles, affordable family housing and lots of kids, we had "urban sprawl" - and a healthy population situation. Of course our friends the academic experts told us that was all no good. To the extent that government action and elite opinion could fix all that, we did. Now we've got real trouble.

"Mark B, how do Americans treat children as indentured servants?"

Not children, per se, but the entire foundation of the big government, entitlement society is that it is the duty of the young and able to work for the good of everyone else, plus future generations. This is a requirement whether you want children or not. Rationally, I didnt ask to be born, its illegal to commit suicide (the government will try to stop me), and if i choose not to have children I could argue i have no moral duty to leave the world better than i found it. Realistically this isnt the way the world works.

But to get back to the point, if i want to work legally in this nation i am required to pony up for some ponzi scheme that transfers wealth from me when i have the smallest amount in my life (statistically) to people who (again statistically) have far more resources and far less obligation. And i have no say in the matter, only the empty promise that in my turn i will be taken care of (which demographically and economically speaking seems highly unlikely). What is that but endentured servitude?

Among others #s 27, 33 and Robohobo are all on target. My time spent stationed in Japan in the AF echoes Robohobo's experience. And yes, urbanization is a factor world-wide: "How ya gonna keep em down on the farm once the they've seen gay Paree?" One of the reasons rural medical care has to be subsidized is that Physicians wives miss the "Culture" and singles simply go crazy. Even Stalin and Beria (his head of the secret police) combined, couldn't force physicians out into the tiaga--so democratic societies have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping this trend? I've witnessed this first-hand with a then single doctor friend of mine who fled rural Kentucky (and he GREW UP there!) for the big city after trying to do the idealistic "give back to the community" thing.

The post of #27 is largely correct, but I'm less optimistic than he, largely because of what technology and the dumbing-down of the educational system is doing to the development and shaping of the individual and (by extension) collective psyche. The inter-net, cell-phones, etc., while making human interaction more facile and wide-ranging has also made it more impersonal and shallow. English teachers at all levels cite on a daily basis horror stories about the deteriorating written and verbal skills of their students such that increasing numbers are unable to articulate even the simplest of arguments or emotions. Because of these trends then, the ability of individuals to interrelate meaningfully on a personal level is, I believe, slowly being eroded over time. When combined with the economic and financial advantages that a childless life begets, the prospect that "Children of Men" is only a pre- view--as opposed to the main attraction--unfortu- nately cannot be fully discounted.

Ummm, maybe I am just naive, but what is wrong with fewer humans occupying a planet with dwindling resources? Isn't it possible that we are just balancing out the way other populations of creatures will under diminished habitat, resources, etc? Is it possible that even though there will obviously be negative side effects, (as with most things)that our planet and future generations may be better off if there are fewer of us competing for the same slice of pie?

Japan's problems with its self-image are of longer standing than World War II, you know. Essentially, the pre-war national character was simply incompatible with peaceful relations and a multipolar world (or, indeed, any world where Japan was not the pinnacle).

That said, Japan's birthrate problems aren't unique. It's a fully-industrialized society where advancement is difficult, entrepreneurship is hard, and basic living expenses are high. Their accepted child-rearing practices are even more time-consuming than ours.

And you can talk about wider adoption of birth control and availability of abortion, but the Japanese just plain don't have sex much. The studies I've seen on the topic (and keep in mind that I can't vouch for the authenticity of their data) state that the average married Japanese couple has sex less than half as often as the American average. Privacy's at a premium, with small dwelling sizes, especially if there's already a child in the family. All that means that Japanese families are less likely to actually produce a child even before you factor in the other socioeconomic conditions.

You can talk about "national religion" (and I'd expect Rev. Sensing to think of that factor as important, right?), but to be blunt, the Japanese ain't all that religious. The traditional practices were more or less pro forma even in the late Tokugawa period, most of those were further isolated in the Meiji era (1860s and on, basically proto-Imperial Japan), and the whole "worship of the Emperor" thing has always been vastly overstated - he was always more of a symbol of political continuity than someone believed to actually possess qualities of divinity. So the decline of religion isn't exactly something that the Americans instigated, nor was it ever a factor in Japanese life to the extent that it played a role in the history of Europe (at least, not since 1400 or so?)

Gotta agree with Robohobo, though. The Japanese have, collectively, a bad habit of conflating racial sub-type with culture, and assuming that the Japanese are a superior people, and that hasn't stopped being true in the post-war period. Americans and most Western Europeans get a pass (nod to reality, heh?), but this attitude is absolutely in effect concerning other East Asian nations and peoples. Being Korean in Japan is only marginally better than being black in Birmingham fifty years ago - less legal discrimination, as the legal system bears a lot of marks of the American occupation, but your neighbors aren't going to like you any better for it.

"This post contains some of the most inane mass psychologizing witnessed so far in human history."

Proving that the author indulged in rank exaggeration by engaging in the same practice?