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May 30, 2007

The 'Youth Bulge'

Thomas Lifson
No, this is not an item about childhood obesity, it is about violence and terror. A demographic bulge of young males yields increased levels of violence, and in the right ideological circumstances, terror. This is the thesis of German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn, as interviewed by Lars Hedegaard, and in its basics, it is indisputable.

Gates of Vienna brings us a translation (from Danish - by Zonka) of the interview, and it makes for fascinating reading. Particularly when Heinsohn examines history and draws out policy implications for today, as when he notes that actual hunger or starvation does not produce violence, as the left tries to claim, so that relief efforts for the Palestinians, for example, encourage violence. Hungry people are preoccupied with their next meal and have no time or energy for much aggression. It is when they are reasonably fed and with time on their hands that male youths generate trouble for others on a significant scale.

Professor Heinsohn is not afraid to venture into a number of sensitive areas of current affairs with somewhat speculative projections. For example, this answer to interviewer Lars Hedegaard's question:
But will we even deal with nations in the future? If Europe gets a Muslim majority, it isn't certain that Danes, Germans, Frenchmen, etc. will bow to Sharia. Could the result be that the indigenous population withdraws to their own enclaves, from which they will try to defend themselves, as we have seen in Bosnia?

"That is of course a possibility, but one must ask oneself, who is it that will stay and fight? It is possible, that I would, because I am more or less forced to stay here. But if I was a young 18-year-old ethnic German, done with high school, then I would do like most others are already doing. I would want to study in the Anglo-Saxon world, and then I would emigrate. I wouldn't want to stay and fight. The Anglo-Saxon world needs 50 million well qualified immigrants within the next 30-40 years, so well qualified young people from Western Europe will have every incentive to go there instead of staying and fighting.

"A possibility is to aim for Chinese immigration. If we in Germany had the same number of Chinese immigrants as they have in Canada, we would have had 3 million. But immigration from China has not even been considered in Europe.

"China is the fastest-ageing nation in the world after Germany, Japan and South Korea. We usually view China as a sleeping giant. I on the other hand see China as a source, from where the Western nations can skim the best. And they will get them. Currently, rich Chinese are preoccupied with moving their riches to Switzerland, because with the few children being born in China, people in their 40s have no chance of ever getting a pension. China is down to a fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman. Already today China loses 500,000 of their best. Therefore they settle in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, etc.
I think there is one other factor which Professor Heinsohn oddly neglects: sex. Not reproductive sex, which is fundamental to reproduction, but the availability of potential wives for the young males. To put it bluntly, horny, frustrated young men, especially those unable to find a potential spouse and imagine a family to care for, cause endless trouble. That is a strong argument against polygamy (practiced in some Islamic lands), which leaves no wives for other males. Three years ago, I wrote about my worries about China (which has limited families to one child, and where tradition causes families to abort females and wait for a male heir) in the article "Forty Million Frustrated Bachelors."

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip: Larwyn

Posted at 11:47 AM | Email |

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