Demons ! — the 'Whys?' of the Hardinian taboo
Maurice King, University of Leeds
Comments??? Send them to m.h.king@leeds.ac.uk
'The Hardinian taboo' is the name for the taboo which prevents the demographic entrapment of Middle Africa ever being discussed. This is a situation in which there are more people than the land can support, and they have nowhere to go, and they have too few exports which they can exchange for food and other essentials. The result is the direst poverty, starvation, and often violence. My African colleagues and I argue that it is most important that this taboo be lifted, and a crash demographic transition attempted, because the ‘crunch message' which is "Reduce your fertility or starve", is well taken in Africa .
One has to presume that there are reasons for this taboo. These reasons need a name, so they have been called its 'Demons', a demon being anything which is likely to prevent the Hardinian taboo from lifting. The most significant feature of this taboo is that it is overpoweringly evil – a word unknown to science. Imagine it, most of a continent is demographically trapped and yet everybody turns the other way. Since a Demon is a piece of evil, this is an apt term. For example, Demon 6 is the many problems of one-child families, which may be necessary when entrapment is severe. Are they better or worse, than the starvation and violence which is the likely alternative? The Chinese thought they were better.
Such a colossal piece of evil as the taboo might seem impossible to overcome. However, it could be that, by splitting up the taboo into its constituent demons, and discussing them, the taboo would break into manageable pieces and lift ? ??
The Demons are the various reasons for the taboo which have suggested themselves to me over twenty years — they are hypothetical, unproved suggestions as what might be causing it. They are very varied, and very numerous and seldom seem to act alone. They are sometimes tangled together, and may even appear to be nested inside one another. They are different sorts of things and act in different ways. Many are recent 'discoveries' so list is unlikely to be complete. They have been numbered more or less chronologically as they appeared and have not yet been collected into groups. Since some of them seem to be more powerful than others, they have been crudely graded with hash signs — ########## — ten hash signs being the maximum. The strength of a Demon depends greatly on the circumstances under which it acts, and the opinion of whoever assesses its strength, so much so that trying to grade could be almost meaningless.
Although all the Demons might be objectively measurable, the only measurement tool that is presently said to exist is a tool to measure Demon 17, peer pressure. Richard Horton is Demon 50 , is all-powerful. Since he controls the publication of the definitive paper in the most influential print, he scores 10. However, most demons are weak. Most future demons will probably be found to be close variants of the existing ones.
An interesting question is how far we are morally responsible for the demons that beset us, and how far we can blame the culture that nurtured us?
Demons vary with time, place, and person
As to person, the eminent and the powerful seem much more susceptible to the Demons, than the rest of us. For example Anthony Costello, Professor of International Child Health at the UCL, is credited with Demons 45 and 60.
As to place, I was told by a distinguished missionary, Dan Fountain, that the Hardinian taboo doesn't exist in Africa. Although I have sometimes found signs of it, the taboo is, mercifully, not nearly as strong in Africa as it is in London. Africa does however have its own demons, for example, Demon 11 African traditions of high fertility. Nevertheless, despite these demons, demographic entrapment can be readily discussed in Africa .
As to time, at the Caro population conference in 1994 I was interviewed by the CIA, generating, Demon 21 [see below] This was completely successful, but once the US objective had been obtained, it was no longer needed, so that for the time being at least it has ‘died'.
This account of the psychology of the demons barely touches on their true complexity, particularly on the various psychological levels and circumstances under which they act - in the individual, and in the group. From another perspective the problem is starkly simple. Much of Middle Africa is demographically trapped, but this terrifying fact is tightly taboo.
THE DEMONS LISTED
Demon 0 (zero) Lack of integrity and moral courage When much of Middle Africa is demographically trapped resisting the taboo that prevents its discussion requires (a) enough intelligence to understand the problem, and (b) enough integrity to comprehend it's true awfulness and (c) enough moral courage to denounce it to one's peers. These are qualities of the person, or his this community, rather than of particular Demons. Sufficient intelligence is seldom lacking, what is missing is enough of a compound of (b) and (c). It is this that the Demons attack. Lack of the compound of these two qualities can properly be called a Demon because it helps to keep the taboo in place
Demon 0 is specially resistance to the demons of the political correctness group, behind which, in the back row of the scrum as it were, are the heavyweights, particularly Demon 24, Garrett Hardin's lifeboat. This Demon has been separated from the general sequence, because integrity and moral courage are Demon resistant. This resistance is to Demons in general, rather than to specific Demons. For lack of intellectual integrity read intellectual corruption.
A secular decline in integrity and moral courage?
In considering how difficult the taboo is proving to be to lift, and how little progress I have made in 20 years, it occurred to me to wonder if perhaps the integrity and moral courage of today's intelhimligentsia might perhaps be weaker and less demon resistant than those whom I had met in my formative years in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, I cannot imagine Sir Bernard de Bunsen, sometime vice Chancellor of Makerere, or Dr Spooner then Dean of the London School of Hygiene, or Sir Theodore Fox editor of The Lancet in those days, as having anything less than crystalline courage and integrity in respect of the demons, and the need to lift the taboo, with the less eminent thinking similarly.
In short, is it proper to ask, if perhaps there might have been a secular decline in integrity and one moral courage, and if so why has it happened?
Discussion with Dame Beulah inclined me to believe that this secular decline is real. The result has been that the relevant sciences, demography and development economics have become so demon ridden, in never recognizing 'carrying capacity' and the consequences of its being exceeded, that they can properly be called corrupt.
Unsurprisingly, the decline in the moral integrity of academia seems has close parallels elsewhere in society, notably in the expenses scandal in Parliament, and in the excesses of the finance industry.
As to why there should have been this decline in moral integrity, all I can suggest is that it parallels the decline in theism - in the conviction that that there is more to this life than the 'circle of the visible' and the comforts of the here and now.
########## Demon 1 Carrying capacity. This is the critical demon which underlies both demography and development economics. It is the failure to accept that the concept of 'carrying capacity' applies to man, no less than to the other animals. It is also the inability of us humans as a whole to adjust our population numbers to the carrying capacity of our ecosystems. This inability has been taken as a ‘given' by the disciplines of demography and development economics which assume that, although carrying capacity may apply to the animals, it does not apply to us. This 'convenient' assumption relieves them of the necessity to think about what happens when carrying capacity is exceeded – which is in effect 'entrapment'. Since it is a deep fault deep in a scientific discipline, the result is a particularly powerful and sinister Demon. Mercifully, it appears to be unique in that no other demons of a similar kind have been found.
It is perhaps unfair to name this Demon after Garrett Hardin since he was much concerned with our profound inability to adjust our population numbers to the carrying capacity of our ecosystem, as being something seemingly hard-wired into our minds, and because he would certainly like to have had it removed. He was however much concerned with our profound inability to adjust our population numbers to the carrying capacity of our ecosystem, as being something seemingly hard-wired into our minds. See also Demon (40) Garrett Hardin's lifeboat.
########## Demon 2 Unhappyness. This is a code word for all forms of anger, aggro, and stress associated with demographic entrapment. It's peculiar typography could be a useful psychological trick in reducing that stress. Some people accept the idea of demographic entrapment without difficulty. Others get very unhappy and worried. Elsewhere on this website it has been called 'benign uproar' (fierce argument), as being better than ‘malignant uproar', which is the starvation and violence of entrapment. Everybody likes a quiet life, and nobody likes unhappyness, so they try to avoid thinking about entrapment. The wish to avoid unhappyness is therefore a powerful Demon. It appears to be a compound of many other incompletely articulated Demons.
##########Demon 3 If the South must reduce its fertility to avoid the starvation and violence of entrapment, the North must modify its resource consumption. This is based on the premise of equity, and is strongly held by the South, and rightly so. The importance — and the usefulness —of this demon is that it links the taboo on entrapment with that on the eschaton [last things] and global heating [warming].
(#)Demon 4 The means of employment that the Northern lifestyle provides, in that to alter it, unless other radical and difficult changes are also implemented, will increase unemployment. This is a minor Demon him
(#)Demon 5 Northern food habits, which are integral to this economy and lifestyle. Another minor demon
######### Demon 6 The many problems of one-child families. This is a very critical demon. If one-child families had no problems, there might be no taboo. Are they better or worse than the starvation and violence which are the likely alternative. The Chinese thought they were better To talk about one-child families in Africa, is generally considered ridiculous. However, the dialogue on one child families can at least be opened in Africa, where it will get to is for the future to decide.
### Demon 7 Current notions of human rights, especially as they relate to human reproduction (largely dominated by the US). The human rights movement has never debated human rights under conditions of entrapment, and presently holds that a mother has a right to as many children as she wishes. Until the movement has debate human rights under conditions of entrapment, its rulings have no the validity, since they are not based on 'the real world'.
#Demon 8 Some aspects of ‘The feminist agenda' (also largely US). The feminist agenda is closely linked to feminist concerns with human rights, so closely linked as to be barely distinguishable from it.
##### Demon 9 The attitudes of many religious fundamentalists, Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim to abortion. If entrapment is severe, one-child families may required, and if so additional pregnancies will need to be terminated. The termination of unwanted pregnancies at whatever parity would seem to be essential if crash demographic transitions are to be attempted.
###### Demon 10 The Holy See's attitudes to most methods of family planning. At present the only methods accepted by theHholy See are the natural ones. It is therefore most important for demographic disentrapment that his Holiness promulgates and encyclical to the effect that in trapped communities all methods of family planning are acceptable, and by implication, although this need not be specifically stated, the postcoital ones also.
##### Demon 11 The cultural attitudes of the South that favour high fertility . Mercifully, this is weakening, although it is still strong. Massive publicity campaigns are required to weaken it further.
# Demon 12 ‘The Iron Age Taboo' , which is the failure to accept that most of Africa is less than a hundred years out of the Iron Age. Paul Demeny, in the process of rejecting a paper on entrapment for his journal, the Population and Development Review, editor asked "Why can't Malawi do a Malaysia and become a tiger economy? He forgot that China, the major driver of Malaysia's economic miracle, had millennia of development behind it
######## Demon 13 Charles Elliott 's demon ‘Paediolatry' the high status of the child in Western liberalism. In 1962 I wrote a paper see arguing that in trapped communities public health programs for child survival don't necessarily have to be applied, because they could make the entrapment of a community worse. I should, of course, have attacked fertility rather than mortality, because, as was soon pointed out, it has a much greater effect on population numbers. However, besides not being a demographer I was new to the problem and was still in thrall to the Demon 6 , the many problems of one child families, and to Demon 59 , population control. Charles pointed out that in the current intellectual climate of late Western liberalism, there is extreme uncertainty as to the basis of ethics, and that for lack of anything more solid to hold onto we grasp the idea of 'the child' in the vain hope that 'in getting things right for him , ' we can somehow get things right for everybody else. Anything which attacks the 'sacredness' of 'the child', as does entrapment, is thus especially distasteful, and helps to keep entrapment taboo.
In support of this, Charles pointed out that there is a UNICEF for children, but at that time there was nothing for any other category of humanity. That is now UN Women.
This 'paediolatry'' is well shown by the present extreme emphasis on child mortality, when there may be no ‘carrying capacity 'to support the children so saved. This focus on the child, this paediolatry, is presently so firm, and so absolute, that even questioning it, as I do here, is anathema.
However, I argue that the entrapment of much of Middle Africa compels us to shift our focus of intention from the 'survival of the child' – paediolatry – to the survival of the community. Resistance to this shift promises to be a powerful demon.
### Demon 14 The metaphysical position of modern man ‘What are we here for anyway? This should perhaps come first, because it underlies everything that follows. This is also another slant on the Charles Elliott 's paediolatry demon and the ‘…the current extreme uncertainty as to the basis of ethics…'. As for what we are here for, one example might be "To know God and love our fellow men – come what may".
## Demon 15 A dread of the future, in that abolishing the Hardinian taboo acknowledges that an anarchic ‘population future', which is now approaching at nearly a billion a decade, is already upon us with 2 billion more people expected, and food supplies already showing signs of getting tight. This is another member of the 'metaphysical triad' with the previous two demons.
####### Demon 16 Political correctness. This Demon, can hardly be separated from the next two. Together these three are responsible for maintaining the taboo in an institution, such for example as the London School of Hygiene. 'Political correctness' can also be seen as merely a weaker form of the taboo as a whole. This is a new term, imported from the United States in the 1970s. To discuss or even mention demographic entrapment is become extremely politically incorrect. The extensive use of this term in many different circumstances suggests that it describes something which is very real, and for which no previous term had been available. It also suggests that, whatever political correctness is, it has been increasing.
### Demon 17 Peer pressure. This is the pressure to conform to the thinking of those around one, and not to be different from one's peers [the people like oneself]. This makes thinking differently from other people, by recognizing entrapment, difficult.
### Demon 18 Institutional conformity. Institutions, like the London School of Hygiene, have an 'agenda'. To think outside that agenda is not comfortable. What is the general policy of the institution in which you work? This may not be specifically laid out as its ‘mission', but it will be real nevertheless.
###### Demon 19 The accidie Demon, sloth, torpor, despair, cynicism, “Why bother? What can we do about it anyway? This is a powerful reason why many of those who could do something to lift the taboo on entrapment don't.
## Demon 20 Self interest, and ‘loss of face'. A miserable pair.
########## — briefly Demon 21 The corruption of demography and the ‘policing of the population policy lockstep' by the US Department of State. In 1994 I wrote a paper called "A one-child world' for The Lancet in preparation for the Iinternational Conference on Population and Development — the ICPD — in Cairo . Unwisely, I sent a copy to a colleague, who circulated it. Subsequently, the then editor, Robin Fox, said that on two occasions he had been buttonholed at cocktail parties and advised not to publish it since it would upset the US intentions for the 'Cairo process'. It was not published! In Cairo I was interviewed by Charles Cargill on behalf of the CIA. At the time, this was an all powerful demon, but after the conference there was no need for it, so it promptly 'died', perhaps someday to be resurrected?
## Demon 22, friendship - we don't like quarrelling with our friends. About 1990, and I was busy with my first paper on entrapment [], I was written to by hand by an old friend Richard, later Sir Richard Jolly, to the effect that, for the sake of Auld lang syne would I kindly desist from my study of entrapment. A most persuasive demon. A good example of the power of friendship resisted.
### Demon 23, racism - the fear that even to mention entrapment is to incite racism. I have been uniquely fortunate in having worked 20 years in Africa, and for many senior people to have been readers of my first book, Medical Care in Developing Countries when they where students. This gives me a considerable immunity from being declared a raciest
########## Demon 24 Garrett Hardin's lifeboat. This is the fear that, if Middle Africa finds that it is demographically trapped, there will be massive emigration northwards which will overwhelm the EU. It could well be that in influential circles, this is the most powerful of all the demons. I reply that emigration northwards is about maximal anyway, and that we have no right to condemn those poor souls in Africa to starvation and violence, without doing our utmost to encourage crash demographic transitions.
### Demon 25 Fear of being considered a Malthusian. Malthus has been much out of fashion. However, there are signs that he is coming into popularity again in academia. Even so, neo-Malthusianism has yet to reach the aid agencies.
## Demon 26 The hope that disentrapment will happen naturally by starvation or disease. This is merely to hide one's head in the sand, and is reallyi only another manifestation of Demon 19 accidie.
# Demon 27 The ethnocentrist Demon. This is probably only the raciest demon by another name. It is the argument that any discussion of entrapment is 'ethnocentrist'. It is really rather silly Demon.
#### Demon 28 John Guillebaud's eliding, fudging, prevaricating Demon. John uses ‘fuzzy logic' to make demographic entrapment disappear. For example, John argues that having promoted family planning in Africa for 40 years, he has addressed entrapment. I reply that he has not addressed crucial issue — communities which exceed the carrying capacity of their ecosystems, and have nowhere to go, and have insufficient economic links with the outside world. As an eminent family planner he has threatened to sue me if I attach his name to this particular Demon.
######## Demon 29 The female education demon. Educated mothers have fewer babies than uneducated ones, and the more educated they are, the smaller the fewer that babies. This is the basis for expecting female education to reduce fertility. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to act— it doesn't act fast enough! Meanwhile, populations can grow to the point where they may exceed the carrying capacities of their local ecosystem, if indeed they have not already done so. Much more vigorous methods of fertility reduction, particularly 'the crunch message' need to be attempted.
####### Demon 30 The coercion Demon. Nobody likes interfering with the rights of a mother to have as many children as she wishes. Unfortunately, lack of carrying capacity should restrict fertility.
# Demon 31 The consultancies Demon. Consultancies can be a useful addition to academic income. An agency which hires a consultant wants to know what it is getting. This is likely to put orthodoxy at a premium and discourage unorthodox views, such as the recognition of demographic entrapment .
##### Demon 32 The development Demon - the unjustified assumption that development is going to take place, sufficient to produce the foreign exchange needed to buy food and other essentials, when there is no hope of this happening in time, or it is already too late. For example, Dan Fountain ran an excellent mission hospital at Vanga in the Congo, so excellent that the community which had grown up around it, had become increasingly short of land. When I asked him what was going to happen, he replied "Development will solve the problem! Unfortunately, communications in the Congo are such that that is no hope of sufficient development taking place.
(#) Demon 33 Failure to accept that not all human groups are equally able. The Chinese think that the Japanese are brighter than they are!
##### Demon 34 The SCALE of the problem demon. If Jack Caldwell is correct in stating that most of Middle Africa is demographically trapped, the magnitude of the problem hardly bears thinking about.
######## Demon 35 Intellectual corruption at specific institutions. It is arguable as to whether there is a specific Demon for an institution as such, in addition to Demon 16 'political correctness', Demon 17 'peer pressure', and Demon 18‘institutional conformity'. I suspect there is, since some institutions, notably the London School of Hygiene and the Institute for Development Studies in Sussex, are so dominant that their intellectual corruption is also dominant. Such is the population policy lockstep see, that if either of these institutions where to 'come over' and recognize entrapment, everybody else would have to.
##### Demon 36 The intellectual narrowness Demon. When I first started investigating demographic entrapment, Philip Payne, then Professor of nutrition at the London School of Hygiene, told me that he was always telling his colleagues in demography what a miserably narrow subject they had made it, and kept encouraging them to look outside it. And so indeed I have found it. The critical topic which they should have investigated and never have, is of ‘course carrying capacity' in relation to population. There is an unfortunate tendency for demographers (and indeed all academics) to teach what they were taught. Besides, PhD students study whatever they can get money for. Thinking in demography has therefore been tragically ‘donor driven'.
A good example of the resistance of demography to new ideas is the rejection of a paper on entrapment by Alan Hill, of Havard, on the grounds that he had never heard of ‘entrapment' used in the demographic sense, only in the legal sense.
## Demon 37 David Bradley's quantitation Demon. This is the fallacy that anything which cannot be quantified, and studied statistically, is not a proper topic for a PhD. This was David Bradley's opinion when he declined to supervise a student who wanted to study demographic entrapment. It seems that each particular PhD student must have his 'body of data' to analyze, and must avoid such tortuous abstractions as we struggle with here – especially the demonic !
# Demon 38 The moderation demon . This is the reluctance to recognize extremes, such as the reality of entrapment.
###### Demon 39 The corrupt reviewers (and editors) Demon. If a paper accuses a discipline of being corrupt, as indemography not recognizing demographic entrapment, no reviewer in that discipline will ever clear the paper for publication, thus powerfully maintaining the taboo. For example, I have submitted what is intended to be the definitive paper on entrapment to The Lancet three times, and had it rejected, the last time with the comment, “…important, but not a Lancet paper…”. [In fact, the two previous versions had been rejected by reviewers, this one was rejected by a group of sub editors] [Powerful 8]
Demon 40 Susannah Mayhew's charming smile. Whenever I bring up the subject of demographic entrapment, all I get from Susannah, is a charming smile. Since she is a senior member of the staff the London School of Hygiene, and is well aware of entrapment, being supposedly the major staff member concerned with Africa's population, I can only guess at the Demons which might be bugging her... ... ... ?
(#) Demon 41 William Blake's enigma. William Blake is said to have argued that good should be done, and evil attacked in little pieces at the time, that is by 'minute particulars'. He is also said to have argued that to attack 'the general evil', as by trying to lift the taboo on demographic entrapment, is the work of a scoundrel. Those who uphold this point of view would — presumably — argue that the taboo should not be lifted. This is a highly arcane argument, and barely relevant— a very interesting none the less.
Is lifting the taboo merely rather a large ‘minute particular', or a futile and ‘scoundrely' attack on ‘the general evil'?
######## Demon 42 The— idiotic — argument that a large population is necessary for a thriving economy. This is the argument that has apparently been driving President Museveni of Uganda 's vigorous pronatalist policy to the extent that Uganda has a total fertility of 6.7, with a million school leavers coming on the job market each year.
########## Demon 43 the ‘population policy lockstep'. This is really only political correctness and peer pressure acting at the level of the agencies. 'Lockstep' is a method of marking with each person's leg close underneath the leg of the person in front, such that if anybody suddenly changes step, the whole squad falls over.
Demon 44 reluctance to deliver the ‘Crunch message' which is "Reduce your fertility or starve". In other words reluctance to tell the poor to have fewer babies.
Demon 45 Anthony Costello's first demon — ‘marginalisation by personalisation'. Anthony would like all the ' Maurice King -isms' removed from the discussion of demographic entrapment, by which he means the taboo and the Demons. This would of course ‘disappear' the whole problem -- a most effective Demon! See Demon 60 for his second Demon.
Anthony is Professor of International Child Health and Director of UCL Institute for Global Health. He is also highly intelligent! It is therefore only to be expected that, if an effective attack on the concept of demographic entrapment could be made, this is one of the places where the attack might come from, both because (1) it challenges paediolatry (Demon 13), and (2) because it makes nonsense of ‘global health', in that to aim for global health, without acknowledging that much of a continent is demographically trapped, is to fail to comprehend what is probably the largest focus of 'global ill health'.
########## Demon 46 failure of the moral imagination. Zygmunt Bauman has argued that one of the reasons why good men do evil things is a failure of their moral imagination. He quotes Eichman, “… such a good family man …” who was responsible for organizing gas chambers in the second world war, and those who were responsible for unnecessarily dropping the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Those who willingly leave the Hardinian taboo on demographic entrapment in place, when they could readily assist in removing it, lack the moral imagination to comprehend the scale of the starvation and violence that they are assenting him to. This lack of moral imagination is a deep cultural failing and is a major demon.
## Demon 47 smothering, and sidestepping the problem. If the discussion of entrapment is mixed in with other things, it is much more easily smothered and avoided.
##### Demon 48 "Who is going to look after me in my old age?" It is sometimes argued that families have to be large in Africa so that parents have somebody to look after them in their old age, and that consequently a crash demographic transition to lower fertility is impossible. The only way out of this difficulty is for the community to look after one another in their old age, and for the 'old' to look after the 'old old'. Such arrangements may be difficult, but the alternative is starvation and violence.
#### Demon 49 Maurice King. Anyone who tries to lift a taboo become so unpopular that he collects the unpopularity to himself. As long as he is around, nobody else wants to lift it. Should he therefore make arrangements to die?
######### Demon 50 Richard Horton. Richard Horton is presently the editor of The Lancet, and although he could easily lift the taboo by publishing a definitive paper on it, by somebody or other, or in an editorial of his own, he presently decides not to do so. He is therefore a critically powerful Demon. He is to remain in post as the 50th Demon, with all the preventable starvation and violence that this involves, until such time as he decides to lift the taboo and indict demography and relevant economics as being intellectually corrupt in that they never discuss demographic entrapment. When that happens he will find himself transmogrified into an angel.
Demon 51 The intellectual corruption Demon.
#### Demon 52, the one-child-no-strong-state Demon. This is the argument that population control and particularly one-child families are only possible in strong states with the power to implement them, and are therefore impossible in Africa, because it has no strong states. The challenge therefore is to see if they can be implemented at a community level..
# Demon 53 “… not enough time in the curriculum…” What a weak excuse!
# Demon 54 "… cannot get his or her mind round it..." this is partly a matter of giving it the necessary time.
# Demon 55 Kevin Ward's “…too complex, too scientific Demon”. Kevin is professor of New Testament studies in the University of Leeds, with long experience in Africa , but no scientific training.
# Demon 56 demographic entrapment is not my business - when it quite obviously is.' This Demon is shared by David S. Jolliffe CB FRCP, Chairman of the Court of Governance of the London School of Hygiene, and Charles Warlow, Ombudsman to the Lancet
### Demon 57 the supposed immunity to the accusation of being called ‘corrupt' Demon . This the great reluctance of academia to accuse anything relating to itself as being ‘corrupt'. It is as if it were impossible for an intellectual discipline or institution ever to be termed ‘corrupt ' in that it refuses to grapple with what is quite obviously it's proper concern.
#### Demon 58 Sir Richard Jolly's ‘playing with fire' Demon. Sir Richard Jolly is Emeritus Professor of the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex . He argues that to mention ‘demographic entrapment' is to play with fire, but is not prepared to say what that fire is. It is presumably the most heated anger and argument, a particularly intense form of Demon 2 unhapp Y ness , probably much influenced by Demon 24 , Garrett Hardin's lifeboat..
####### Demon 59 the population control demon. This is anathema in many quarters, the absolute 'No, No'. It is, in effect, the decision to let population increase run its course towards starvation and violence, and that nothing must ever be done to control it. This is a position taken by various population activists, notably - ‘ People and the Planet', the ‘Population and Sustainability Network', and ‘The Optimum Population Trust', to whom demographic entrapment is a particular 'un-discussable'.
########## Demon 60 Anthony Costello 's second demon - attacking the definition of entrapment [Demon 45 was his first one] One of the ways to attack demographic entrapment, is to attack its definition. Human society is hugely complex – a mass of interacting factors, processes, and events. To extract a meaningful entity from this morass is difficult. I was therefore particularly pleased when I explained entrapment to a senior malariologist, who knew Africa well, but whose main concern had been a single disease, to be greeted with the reply "Ah, that makes sense!” Actually, when I explain entrapment, almost nobody ever disputes its existence, even though they may not want it recognized!
Demographic entrapment' explains itself and hardly needs a definition. Thus, when I asked Africa's most eminent demographer Jack Caldwell, how much of Middle Africa he thought was demographically trapped, and he replied that "Most of it is", we never even discussed the definition.
One has only got to walk around a Malawian village to realize that it is trapped – tiny 'gardens' getting continually smaller as the population grows, large families, much stunting, great environmental degradation, dire poverty, etc.
To be useful, a definition has to be short. This means (1) that it has to use words which may have several meanings, and use them as best it can, and (2) that it has to end somewhere, so it has to be limited, for example we don't say much about entrapment in shantytowns.
One of the words that may need to be elaborated is the concept of 'community'. For example, are the miserably poor peasants of southern Malawi , the elite of Blantyre, and Malawi as a whole, the same ‘community'? I argue that they most certainly are not.
Anthony argues, that because Malawi is said to show rapid economic growth, it cannot be trapped. I cannot find evidence for this, apart from the Kayelekera uranium mine, which is small, is said to have only an 11 year life, and from which the government only gets 15% of the profits.Assuming that there is economic growth, does this mean that Malawi is no longer demographically trapped? It all depends on whether the beneficiaries of the uranium and the trapped peasants are part of the same ‘community'? If they are, and its benefits are shared, (unlikely), Malawi is not trapped. If the uranium benefits only a tiny elite (most likely), Malawi is trapped.
If the uranium revenues enable Malawi to feed itself, Malawi is not trapped.
If rapid economic growth of whatever kind, enables Malawi to feed itself, it is not trapped, otherwise it is.
Presently, Malawi is in need of continual and increasing food aid.# Demon 61 'not enough data'. This is the argument that the case for demographic entrapment is not proven, combined with the reluctance to collect the data that might prove it.
## Demon 62 'the miserable little whimper' when discussing entrapment instead of making a job of it. This is closely allied to John Guillebaud's eliding, fudging, prevaricating Demon. For example, on Population Day 2010 at the London school of H range ygiene, the organizers of the meeting arranged for Dan Kaseje to discuss entrapment along with many other things late in the afternoon when he could not possibly do it justice.
### Demon 63 the 'illusion of security'. Most of the time, most of us, live under the illusion that everything is going to be all right — that we are not going to run short of energy, that global warming will at worst be a nuisance, that unending economic growth is possible and desirable, that the circle of the visible is all there is, and there's not going to be massive migration northwards as middle Africa exceeds its carrying capacity. The security that results from leaving this demon undisturbed is comforting.
#### Demon 64 the 'hole in reality'. To argue that entrapment, as defined above cannot happen is to argue for a ‘hole in the possible'. It is to deny that it is not possible for a community to have exceeded the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, to have nowhere to go, and to be penniless. This Demon therefore ring fences a ‘hole in reality'. A group of Demons argues, some simplistically, some less so, that the hole doesn't exist. As an example of this, see the next Demon.
##### Demon 65 Tony McMichael's crooked logic. There are some people who one feels one has to correct every sentence they make. With such people no rational argument is possible, since they are so muddled. However, there are others who are sufficiently rational to make logical argument possible, and yet have faults in their reasoning — quite possibly intentional ones — which need correction. Tony McMichael's is one of these; since it originates from a distinguished professor of epidemiology, in a very influential institution it is particularly interesting. [McMichael, T., Contemplating a one child world. BMJ, 1995. 311: p. 1652.]
Tony McMichael, lately Professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Science, in the London School of Hygiene, wrote: “The alleged taboo is not the only impediment to people accepting the need for action. Controversy surrounds the central concepts and phrases. Many demographers and economists reject, or query, the concept of “entrapment…. ” Of course they do, the purpose of this paper is to expose their disciplines as being corrupt, in that they deny the relevance of carrying capacity for man, Demon 1, and therefore the possibility of its being exceeded which is the crux of entrapment. It is also a warning that we should not necessarily take other people's disciplines for granted, since there are no tight walls round any of the social sciences. “ …The related term “carrying capacity” is loosely used…” It is tightly defined above for trapped communities, such as the villages of Malawi, and is critical. “…For ecosystems with ecologically defined boundaries it is meaningful, but for human populations in an increasingly interconnected world it is less so…” Unfortunately, there is an ecologically defined boundary round Malawi, in that its villagers have great difficulty in migrating out of their trapped community in sufficient numbers. “…The Netherlands can only grow enough food for a third of its population, but it easily purchases the rest.” There is no problem if there is an economy which will provide the means of exchange for the necessary imports, especially food. Unfortunately Malawi does not have such an economy and is therefore in frequent need of food aid. Unto this day, these arguments have been sufficiently persuasive in the London School of Hygiene to keep entrapment tightly taboo and to prevent it from responding to its greatest challenge. The taboo in the School is so tight that I have on occasion been ejected through its doors, across its front steps, and onto the pavement of Keppel Street. I argue that it has to be declared intellectually corrupt !!
Meanwhile, African communities whose see the entrapment process taking place all around them seem to have no difficulty in understanding it.
# Demon 66 John Walley's 'strategy' Demon. John worked in Uganda, and is much distressed by its entrapment. He said "Maurice, you are right, but don't tell anybody I told you". On further questioning it seems that he follows what he calls his 'strategy', and for other people to know that he recognizes entrapment would spoil it. This is only carefully spelled-out political correctness under another name — and a huge lack of moral courage.
########### Demons 67 Susannah Mayhew's 'charming smile'. Susannah is a senior member of the Center for Population Studies at the London School of Hygiene, and the staff member most concerned with the population of Africa. She and I have tried to discuss demographic entrapment for many years. Whenever we do all I get is a charming smile. Which demons you think might be bugging her? If she wished, she could well open up discussion in the London School, which could well be in be the means of lifting the Hardinian taboo globally, so her charming smile is potentially a very important demon indeed! Which Demons are lurking behind her smile?
