I continue to be interested in our discussion about Governor Sarah Palin and why she generates such strong emotions. Before the extent of her effect became clear, I wrote:
As I ponder all of this, I think McCain/Palin versus Obama/Biden vividly reflects the cultural divisions that are tearing our society apart more starkly than any election in my memory.I think it is fair to say that subsequent events validated that view—and isn’t it interesting how much of this involves bioethical themes, human exceptionalism, and the growth of anti-humanism I have been warning about?
That also seems to be Jonathan Last’s take over at the First Things blog. Last, who used to edit my Daily Standard pieces, also thinks, as I do, that Trig’s birth is a major cause of the bitter antipathy toward Palin we have seen in some quarters. But Last looks more deeply into our collective ID—if that is the right term—than I did, also mentioning her religiosity and, more emphatically, The Palins’ fecundity. From his piece:
I think these factors are also why so many people love her. In any event, something has to explain the depth of vituperation and adulation she has aroused—and the “experience” and energy issues aren’t of the kind that stir such strong emotions. Last has given us an interesting analysis to chew over. Check it out.The Palin family’s five children would have been unexceptional forty years ago, but today constitute something of a fertility freak show. They’re the type of people for whom the epithet “breeder” was invented...
Why the worry about this? First, there’s the fact that few of Palin’s tormenters can understand the fact of her large, traditional family. That is certainly not the way in which they have structured their lives.Second, there is the left’s long-standing concern about overpopulation, which has become a staple of modern environmentalism, beginning with Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb. Ehrlich preached a Malthusian near-future in which hundreds of millions would perish by famine as the world’s unchecked population growth spiraled to infinity...
But [despite being wrong] Ehrlich’s prognostications never fell far out of favor, particularly with environmentalists who take it as an article of faith that the planet is already overcrowded. To them, the prodigious Palin family is surely seen as taking more than its fair share.
