A Modest Proposal

Dedicated to my mother, Dema Savage (1932-2012)

It is international women's day, and as such I offer this modest proposal to heal what humans have become.

It is a gloomy aspect as we look upon the violence plaguing us today. The poor are forced to go on Kickstarter to raise money to buy their guns, and there is little work for them besides enlisting to fight in seven official, and scores of unofficial, wars on countries the U.S. empire seeks to control. Or they may be counted lucky to find work with contractors feeding from the federal trough, building weapons of mass destruction with which to threaten the poor sitting on resources in every part of the globe.

I think it is agreed by all parties, that the prodigious number of angry, and heavily armed, males, among the U.S. population, is a grievance borne by all; schemes for gathering up their weaponry in a general amnesty, such as emanated from Canberra these decades since, have fallen on barren ground. Each outburst by a self-pitying male who sees, in his power to destroy by means of machines perfectly designed to do so, a balm to his emotional pain, perversely drives more people to rush to buy more guns. Seemingly an endless circle of cause and effect that has presently reached a fever pitch of irrationality in the call to arm, and train, teachers in order to protect the schools from attacks by madmen. Or perhaps not mentally ill males, simply white males that feel they have not received their entitlements, and are consequently lashing out, with ridiculously powerful guns.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes, I have found them grossly mistaken in their computation. 

The problem we face is that of a severe imbalance and distemper resulting from the presence of too many males in the world. Their numbers have caused them to become disproportionately in charge on account of sheer aggressiveness, competitiveness amongst their numbers, and propensity for loud, self-proclaiming speech and showy possessions.

To restore the natural balance of peace and prosperity once enjoyed by human societies that were non-competitive, cooperative and unmaterialistic, I propose that we reduce the relative numbers of males to females to, perhaps, 1 to 4. This may not be the precise ratio most likely to bestow felicitous results on humankind, but it would be a start, and it could be adjusted.

If males were in the minority, their competitive and aggressive tendencies would be much diluted. As a collateral benefit, their very scarceness would render them the attention and regard that many mass shooters find so painfully elusive.

The present patriarchal systems of hierarchy and extortion could be intelligently dismantled by networks of cooperatively-minded women, often mothers and grandmothers, whose first care is for the wellbeing of the young. To those who would claim that women will be not better governors, that is perhaps so, as the bulk of women in government at present have indeed clawed their way to the top of a patriarchal system. My modest proposal is simply this: that women would be much less successful mass shooters; because, to date, there is a dearth of mass shootings in the U.S. these three score decades perpetrated by women.

Lest you think my proposal itself calls for violence, let me hasten to assure you that it does not. Simple demographics could be used to implement a correction almost immediately, albeit slowly, with the effect building over a generation or two to achieve a harmonious ratio of females to males alive at any given time. Simple procedures which can be obtained easily with household ingredients will be all that is needed to tip the scale back toward a sustainable, sensible and sane world in which random shootings occur in all sorts of locations.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not myself promoted this necessary work, for it is an understanding which came to me relatively late in life. I share it now, having no other motive than the public good of my country, and my planet.

Source: http://blog.ninapaley.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Earth2_1.gif