Free Game Control by Lionel Shriver Page B

had sickened me. My society that hated its own children. And now I have recovered and know boundless joy.
      'So I returned to Kenya. Since then I have been working with game parks to encourage their utilization by the Masai, for I believe setting man's persistence against Nature's to be a mistake. It was pointless, you understand, to pursue a position with university population programmes or family planning donors when my purpose would be their destruction. Recently, I have been offered a contract by the World Health Organization, helping with their sero-prevalence research. A dreadful disease stalks the land. These doctors need Swahili speakers who know the people and the country well. I know little of medicine, but I am grateful to be of any assistance I can.'
      'Mmm.' Eleanor seemed to nudge herself out of a queasy trance. 'There's a lot of money in AIDS right now.'
      'You have lived far too long in the company of those who profit from suffering.'
      'I didn't mean that's why you—'
      'Please. This issue is grave to me. The money is quite irrelevant.'
      Eleanor picked flakes of varnish pensively off the arm of her chair. He could see she disagreed with everything he said. 'If "orthodox demography" is a lie,' she said at last, 'why do most people believe that population growth is a threat, except you and a straggle of your disciples?'
      'If I were to use your way of thinking, I would say money. The population conspiracy is based entirely around this "explosion" hypothesis, and without its ranks of whole organizations are unemployed. But the idea preceded its institutions. And "over-population" has taken hold on the common man, who has no apparent vested interest in these unwieldly "charities". Why ?' He leaned forward and fisted his
    hand. 'Self-hatred. Copious quantities of people are therefore intrinsically repellent. Have you noticed the metaphors that population biologists enjoy? Oh, the politic will say humans breed "like rabbits", but give them a few drinks and the bunnies turn to rats. The literature is strewn with allusions to flies, maggots, cancers.'
      'Why, if Westerners find one another's company grotesque, would they choose to live in New York City?'
      'Density is in the interests of the species. It promotes competition, which begets invention. The more of us there are, the cleverer we get. And if crowding does become as desperate as the Cassandras predict, you can bet the solutions will be nothing short of spectacular. We are magnificent creatures. Why, the rise of population and urbanization in Europe made the Industrial Revolution possible. How can you proceed from a history like that to claiming that population growth is economically oppressive?'
      She twirled her empty wine glass. 'If the field's reasoning is so illogical, what motivates the US to pour so much money into Third World fertility decline?'
      'Because there is only one thing an American hates more than himself and that is anyone else. You remember the early days, when African governments were convinced that family planning programmes were racist?'
      'The genocide superstition.'
      'That was no superstition. Those programmes are racist. I don't mean to suggest that diligent women like yourself are not well meaning. But there are siroccos in the air by which you have been swept. We've a demographic transition afoot, all right, and the population moguls are trying their pathetic best to forestall the inevitable. In their moribund, corrupt selfloathing, Europe, America and Russia are under-reproducing themselves into extinction.'
      'Wattenberg,' provided Eleanor.
      'Quite. But Wattenberg mourns the collapse of the world of pallor, where I see the demise of "developed countries" as a blessing. Riddled with homosexuality, over-indulgence and spiritual poverty, the West has lost its love of its own children, and so of humanity itself. The very myth of "over-population" is a symptom of our disease. It is a