. . . Thomas Malthus . . . wrote the darkly influential Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798 . . . [T]he “lifeboat ethic” advanced by Malthus meant that much of humanity had to be pushed overboard to save “the fit.”
. . . From 1800 to 1914, Europe’s population rose from 180 million to 460 million. This, together with the specter of cultural degradation that went along with it, sent the intelligentsia into a panic about mass culture. At its zenith, this fear merged with proto-fascist politics, eugenics schemes, and genocidal fantasies.
. . . Strangely enough, though, many of these same . . . fantasies have now been absorbed into contemporary mass culture itself.
. . . The 1990s . . . marked the tipping point; contempt for the human race acquired a certain jaded cool, and made a countercultural pose into a mainstream one. Kurt Cobain, now revered for his sensitivity . . . said, “Humans are stupid. I’m ashamed to be human.”
. . . [Murray] Bookchin saw in the ’90s “a deep-seated cultural malaise that reflects a waning belief in our species’ creative abilities.”
Angela Nagle, «Enemies of the People», in TheBaffler.com ; New York : Baffler Foundation, 2017-03-06 (excerpt La Litera información)
