Farewell to Future Generations

It is oft good – if still disheartening – to read of one’s deepest fears realized, for it signifies that one’s thoughts are tending in the right direction, even if those same thoughts lead to a dark place. It is thus that I, with some dismay, read the musings of one Professor Todd May of Clemson University, who claims that the extinction of humanity would be a good thing for the planet and all its animals; even if on the other hand, it would also be bad, losing all that culture, like ‘Shakespeare’, other ‘art and culture’, as well as the capacity to wonder, which the professor claims is missing in most, if not all, other animals.

May does have some hesitation on killing off people now living:

To demand of currently existing humans that they should end their lives would introduce significant suffering among those who have much to lose by dying.

Well, thanks for that. But he goes to offer a solution:

In contrast, preventing future humans from existing does not introduce such suffering, since those human beings will not exist and therefore not have lives to sacrifice. The two situations, then, are not analogous.

Yes, some sort of a priori extinction through contraception and just not having that extra child, or any children at all. The reader may peruse his original article in the New York Times here, but beware, for you will only have one free trial article left, wasting your other on this Manichean mush. And all this right before Christmas, when we celebrate life, and the Life that gives life. Professor May is some kind of Scrooge, squared. Here’s hoping for his conversion, sometime after Midnight Mass, with a visit from some kind of hopeful, or Holy, Ghost.

What amazes me most is that people actually pay to attend Clemson University and May’s lectures. Perusing their webpage, I noticed that Clemson is in South Carolina, originally an agricultural college, which still focuses on that noble enterprise, but whom will the farms feed, if it feed not those non-existent future generations? The institution also holds the honour, if it be such, as the ‘safest campus in the nation’. Well, that depends on what one means by ‘safe’. It’s not so safe, it seemeth, from intellectual idiocy from one’s professors.

Things may be moving in May’s preferred direction, with fewer and fewer humans, as the United States – one of the few countries on Earth still actually reproducing itself – has seen its slowest population growth since 1937, when the Great Depression was at its nadir, or zenith, depending on your perspective. As others have said, a nation is primarily a metaphysical entity, requiring a purpose and will, to plan, build and sacrifice for the future, including raising children. If one loses hope, why do anything at all, except maybe lounge around, going to ‘work’ in some desultory job, until the boredom and pain get too much? As the British economist John Maynard Keynes (+1946) said, ‘In the end, we’re all dead’, so why not rather spend now, rack up the debt, and let the ‘government’ take care of everything? Keynes was a great fan of stimulus spending to ‘shore up’ the economy, which has the eventual effect of socializing most ‘industry’, an enervating policy that has influenced governmental policies across the world, including Canada.

People seem to have to learn the hard way – as we do most things – that socialism is an intrinsically evil system, whose primarily deleterious effect is to vitiate human energy and initiative and, in the end, the very will to live.

Contra Keynes: In the end we’re not all really dead, but rather called to eternal life, and to that end we will all be judged, primarily on how we have used our talents and the time we have been given.

And Prime Minister Trudeau continues his own socialist ways, adopted from his father, the apple not falling far from the red maple leaf, ways which have not worked so far, but why should that stop him? Hot on the heels of the half-billion of our dollars doled out to the media industry, he is now offering Albertans 1.6 billion dollars – a ‘loan’, as it is put – to shore up the faltering economy of the province, which is selling its once-precious oil more or less at a loss. A cynic might think he was trying to buy votes for the upcoming election.

Of course, this cash will be burned through in due course, along with the billions given to universities, schools, indigenous programs, green energy, providing almost no lasting value. For it is not so much the economy that is crumbling, but the capacity and will to produce real wealth, about which Trudeau knows little, having made so little of it himself in a life coddled and protected –as most of ours have been, mind you – from the harshness of the ‘real’ economy and all the ‘real’ vicissitudes of life. But at least we should be aware of what we do not have, have not done and are not doing.

It is by the labour of working men that States grow rich, Pope Leo XIII wrote.

And now it seems we’re not just running out not just of working men, but of men themselves.

A Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop

As a follow-up to my thoughts on Payette’s payout, here be a stark image of where are here in Canada. As the graph shows in, well, graphic terms, since 2025, the public sector has contributed to 95.5% of economic growth. The private sector – which funds the public sector, or is supposed to – has[…]Continue reading→

Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk

(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→

Presidential Pardon of Weronika Krawczyk

As a good news, follow-up to our story from Poland, of the persecution of Weronika Krawczyk for her pro-life views, we heard that she has been granted a presidential pardon. One might still wonder why one needs a presidential pardon for simply holding the long-held belief that the child within the womb is a child,[…]Continue reading→

Pope Leo and a Rosary for Peace

Pope Leo XIV has asked Catholics across the world to join him in a Rosary for peace today, at 18:00 Rome time (6 pm), which would be noon from where I write (EST). If you are able, whether at that time or another, and in whatever way you pray, to join in intercession with the[…]Continue reading→

Payette’s Payout

I was glancing through some headlines, and noticed a mention of Julie Payette – engineer and astronaut and sometime the Queen’s representative in Canada – which brought back vague memories. She was appointed Governor-General by Justin Trudeau in 2017. Ms. Payette resigned in 2021, amidst claims that she created a ‘toxic work environment’, with allegations[…]Continue reading→

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→

Weronika Krawczyk and Injustice in Poland

Catholic Action in Poland has issued a formal statement appealing to the President of the Republic of Poland to pardon Weronika Krawczyk—convicted for warning other women against an abortion-performing gynaecologist. Catholic Action (AK) emphasizes that no apology is owed to a doctor who has performed numerous abortions and proposed others; furthermore, the organization considers the[…]Continue reading→

Three Easter Musical Gems: Bach, Palestrina and Byrd

A very blessed and glorious Easter! Christus surrexit vere, alleluia! As we begin this Easter Octave with the great Solemnity of Easter, music to lift the soul would be one of Bach’s Easter cantatas, composed during his time at Leipzig in the early 1700’s, for the six Sundays of this festive season, leading up to[…]Continue reading→

Saint Isidore of Seville, the Internet and Industriousness

Today, April 4th, muted this year by Holy Saturday, is the commemoration of Saint Isidore of Seville (560-636) a bishop and doctor of the Church during a tumultuous age, when civilization was crumbling, coming apart at its very seams, which may sound sort of au courant. Then again, the form of this world has always[…]Continue reading→

An Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is one of waiting, in silence, as the world wonders – anticipates – what will happen, after the death of Christ. We re-live this time each year in the anamnesis of our liturgy, and in turn look forward to the glorious re-creation of all things at the[…]Continue reading→