Population Policies

Marian L. Tupy’s article “Disagreeability, Mother of Invention” (November 16) is excellent and thought-provoking. However, I disagree with the conclusion in the last paragraph that our society should encourage population growth to ensure vigorous innovation and invention. This view assumes that a high rate of invention is more desirable than other goals to which lower population growth contributes, such as preserving natural habitats and protecting the environment. It is certainly arguable that these other goals and similar ones that greatly benefit current world inhabitants are more important than maximizing innovation. This article is an example of a claim that the matter in which the proponent is most interested should override concern for other important related matters.

F. Arnold Romberg La Grange, Texas

Marian L. Tupy responds: Thank you, Mr. Romberg, for your kind comments about my article and for taking the time to write to NR. However, it is not my position that “our society should encourage population growth to ensure vigorous innovation and invention.” As the last paragraph of my article clearly shows, I am merely opposed to the government using force, laws, nudges, incentives, and propaganda to artificially limit the fertility rate. In fact, I am against having a “population policy” of any kind — pro-growth or against. Far from being “an example of a claim that the matter in which the proponent is most interested should override concern for other important related matters,” my article is compatible with the likelihood that the human population will peak at around 8.9 billion by 2060 and then decline to 7.8 billion by the end of this century. That could potentially reduce future economic-growth rates — a scenario I would not like but would accept as a free expression of preferences and expectations of subsequent generations.

Litterateur and Skeptic

I must admit my confusion as to the ultimate point of Bryan A. Garner’s three-part series, “A New Socratic Dialogue” (September 21, October 19, November 16). While many have made the charge that Aristophanes was of a politically conservative bent, as portrayed here, we must remember that much of his genius lies in the poetic manipulation of the Greek language, not a stodgy following of rules. His Assemblywomen even boasts the longest word in Greek. Plato’s Socrates, on the other hand, seems to me antithetical to his liberalizing spirit here, as I would suspect him to postulate some absurd theory of the “Ideal Grammatical Form.” In Clouds and the Apology, these two Greek titans had their say against each other, so perhaps it is best to leave it there.

Carl Hamilton Upper Gwynedd, Pa.

Bryan A. Garner responds: The point of the names was quite simple: Aristophanes was the litterateur, Socrates the skeptic. That’s all. I ascribed dialogue to them only on that basis. The “ultimate point” of the three-part series had to do with modern education, not the two historical figures who so kindly lent their names — for which I hasten to utter belated thanks.

Correction

Richard Lowry’s introduction to the 65th-anniversary issue stated that NR’s old offices were at 35 E. 35th Street. In fact they were at 150 E. 35th Street.