who shall survive---contemporary questions

[Adam Blatner]

Dear All, 
       I'm reading an amusing satire  titled "Boomsday" by Christopher Buckley. One of its devices is the following: Faced with a growing national debt and the retirement of the Boomers, the young people, led by a 29 year old blogger, stage a minor tax revolution. They don't want to have to pay for the Boomers' retirements! As a solution, a sympathetic senator proposes a law that offers tax incentives and other advantages to anyone over 65 who wants to participate in the Voluntary Transition program. That's an euphemism for killing your self. More benefits for doing it before age 75. Then there's a lot of funny plot and all---the author, the son of the late conservative theorist William Buckley---has written other funny books, too. This book, in my opinion, takes a few more swipes at conservative positions than at liberal ones, but generally makes fun of foolishness all over. 
       I remembered that Moreno had suggested something like this: On pages 609-12 in Book V of Moreno's 2nd edition (1953) of Who Shall Survive?  (you can read these pages by going to the ASGPP website www.asgpp.org  and clicking on the library, then on this book, and then on the book cover, and browsing!  In it he's suggesting that anyone over 35 (!) off themselves and that folks avoid any kind of reproductive control---not even the rhythm method.

    I find this an example of how Moreno could casually "shoot from the hip" and just think out loud on paper. I am not aware of his ever having really deliberated on his thinking, discussing pros and cons. It's also an example in my mind of the way that he was brilliant, but could also be perhaps very, very mistaken. We should avoid making his writings into the type of cultural conserve that we rely on or take on authority. I respect his creativity enough to listen (or read---which isn't easy, by the way), but not enough to buy into everything he says. In fact, I find myself noticing questions in my mind or tentative objections on almost every page.

       On the other hand---back to the neo-eugenic approach both authors note---while I don't support the over-35 business, I do think both have cracked the door open to a social norm that has grown up in the last century. In the olden days we couldn't keep people alive that much. Now with modern medicine, we can keep babies that would have died alive, and extend the lives of adults, so that the population of the world has tripled since Moreno wrote the aforementioned words!!!

       In our present crisis, there is an interesting new idea: What if we need to prioritize, ration, cut back? What if we can't afford to keep alive those who are significant economic drains? What about the fact that our society has more people in jail than any other country on earth? And many other examples of problems that require over a hundred thousand dollars in expenditures to rehabilitate---often over a million dollars, the way technology is advancing. Just to make "a modest proposal" (alluding to Swift's satirical piece), to provoke conversation, would it be taboo to ask whether tax incentives or even saying to some folks, "We'll give $50,000 to you heirs if you engage in "voluntary transition" ? 

       Ah, the many sides of life's conundrums. The sign-off motto for the next decade, I predict. "We can't afford it." 

                   Warmly, Adam
      

            
Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/   
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