This essay is what's known in English writing as "straight-faced" satire. Well, it's just a little too straight-faced for me. Swift's extended ironic rambling suggest's using Irish children as a food source to solve the problem of the down-trodden masses. It eliminates 100 thousand children from extended suffering, provides an income source for their poor parents, and provides table fare for the upper society. Swift was extremely aggravated with the Irish political system, the English class system, and the lack of desire by the lower classes to improve their position. It certainly makes his point well enough, just not in a very tasteful manner.

What a relief! After hours of increasing nausea over watching the political budget and default baboon side show in D.C., something made me drag out this side-splitting gem, a true timeless classic, that seems to get ressurected and re-read when people need a good laugh over an apparently hopeless social crisis. Jonathan Swift presents a methodically reasoned and convincing solution-plan -a painfully funny/sardonic remedy--for the tragic historic Irish Famine of his day (1729). With a straight face, flawless logic and bullet-proof support, he argues that his plan is 1) simple 2) easy to excute 3) quickly effective 4) economical and 5) solves several confounding collateral crises involving human suffering and desperation in one fell swoop. End the hunger, deaths from famine, drastically reduce future crime and human suffering, create jobs, get people back to work, increase productivity, ensure national security, make everybody fat and happy.

The situation:

"It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to ...."

Bottomline: Eat the kids. With a little salt and pepper, a dash of this and that, a nice side dish of boiled cabbage .... Ireland is back on the road to propsperity. Seriously.

I wonder how an old bag of Congressional bones would do in a homemade three bean soup . . . .

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift was a total surprise.

I came to this short book/essay (40 pages) not knowing what it was about and not knowing anything about the author.

First things first…………. I needed to read the initial pages a few times over to get used to the style of writing. Once that was done, I was sorted.

Next – Whhhhhooooooaaaaaa!!!!! Eating babies????

I didn’t expect that at all, then I just laughed – what a hideous suggestion!!

His preposterous proposal involves selling ‘plump’ breast-fed babies at 12 months of age (one presumes the 12 mth investment would only be a couple of shillings) to rich people who can cook them in a variety of ways, thus enhancing their status in society – cooking and eating such expensive delicacies. Swift even proceeds to describe 4 methods of cooking – as one baby could provide food over a four-day period. A bit like a turkey I suppose.

He even is specific enough to state actual numbers of babies to be used. Around 120,000 he reckons. We can save 20,000 for breeding (a quarter of which need to be males) and the other 100,000 to be butchered. The skins can even be used for gloves and the like.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading!! I mean, not even Monty Python went this far, and swift was kicking goals back in the 1700s. Amazing.

It’s only after a while I realised, he is not trying to be deliberately gross or funny, he is making a point, or many points.

Swift has an axe to grind about many aspects of society – he takes shots at the rich, landowners, the English (join the club), Catholics (ditto), the poor, even the parents of these hapless babies.

By the way, he does consider farming older kids, in their teens – but this meat would be more like venison, a bit tougher and not as delicious. Swift even convinced me, babies would be more pleasing to the palate. It makes me uncomfortable to even admit that, but his writing is so clever he grabs you and whizzes you around and you start ‘getting’ some of his arguments.

This essay gave me great reason to do some more reading about Swift – he is described as a Juvenalian satirist. These guys criticise establishments and certain people with ironic criticism, moral indignation, personal invective and pessimism. He does this masterfully in this essay and quite dispassionately – I think. Presenting an unfathomable notion as if he was describing the weather.

At the end of the essay – I just sat there thinking “what a ride”. This piece is really a criticism of society at that (and this?) time.

Satire – bring it on.

I am already a Swift Fan and am looking forward to reading is 1712 piece titled An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity. I also want to know more about this man.

5 brilliant stars

Dontcha just hate it when those interminable debates about overpopulation and poverty drag on, with everyone proposing the same imbecile solutions like taxing the rich or creating more jobs, when it is obvious to anyone with a lick of sense that the real problem lies in the excess of screaming, wailing, and perpetually hungry babies littering the streets, and so - in a fit of sheer revelation - you come up with the most practical, economical, and dare I say, gourmet solution that not only tackles the issue of poverty, but also provides a culinary delight, suggesting in a voice dripping with mock earnestness that we should simply start consuming these surplus babies, proposing tongue - in -cheek recipes and cooking methods to tenderize their youthful flesh to perfection, praising the virtues of this " modest proposal "with the same fervor as one might recommend a new type of fertilizer , and as you continue this elaborate jest, layering it with meticulous détails and statistics to lend an air of credibility, you can't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the whole affair, knowing full well that society might suddenly wake up, and come up with another similar idea, but which could target you personally ?

Book 3 / 30 days Challenge

I feel like there are reviews longer than the actual book!
Honestly I can't say I had fun reading this book, I was actually grossed out at some parts which is so weird. I did laugh out loud because its just make you say "what the fuck" and nervous laugh about it, loved it and need to read more books from this author.

Group read for Catching Up With Classics for March 2020

Book 8 of my Penguin Little Black Classics 80-book-box-set challenge.

I've been wanting to read A Modest Proposal for a long time now, but never ever thought that it was a modest proposal of eating the poor Irish families' unwanted or surplus babies which cannot be cared for due to poverty, after the age of 2. An interesting approach. Huh.

Gloom and doom

When I was an undergraduate, Thomas Malthus’ 1798 An Essay on the Principle of Population was on the geography curriculum, and as a studious student, I read (some of) it.

It was depressing, as the gist seemed to be that we’re all going to die. All of us. Slowly. Painfully. Because population grows exponentially, whereas the ability of humans to feed themselves grows only arithmetically/ linearly.


Image: Linear versus exponential growth (Source.)

So we’ll starve. And before that, we’ll be too poor to buy what food there is, because population growth will increase the labour supply and drive down wages. The birth rate must be cut. Celibacy should be promoted, too. And higher death rates accepted.

Kenneth Boulding’s poem, from a 20th century environmental angle, seemed to agree:

nA Conservationist’s Lament

The world is finite, resources are scarce,
Things are bad and will be worse.
Coal is burned and gas exploded,
Forests cut and soils eroded.
Wells are dry and air’s polluted,
Dust is blowing, trees uprooted,
Oil is going, ores depleted,
Drains receive what is excreted.
Land is sinking, seas are rising,
Man is far too enterprising.
Fire will rage with Man to fan it,
Soon we’ll have a plundered planet.
People breed like fertile rabbits,
People have disgusting habits.

Moral:
The evolutionary plan
Went astray by evolving Man.

(Douglas Adams agreed with that moral.)

Soylent pink?

I also discovered that seventy years before Malthus’ book, Jonathan Swift had a different solution to the problem of overpopulation. A Modest Proposal starts with grim descriptions of extreme poverty and hunger in Ireland:
“It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms… [and] women murdering their bastard children.”

A particular problem is that children are an expense for years before their parents can get any return on the investment they can’t afford in the first place:
“I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl, before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity.”

After such concern, his “modest” proposal is a total shock, and would have been even more so to 18th century readers unused to deadpan satire:
“A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust.”


Image: Dinner! (Source.)

He goes into great detail, not just culinary, but about the practicalities of the trade. He indirectly mocks his own suggestion by saying the only possible objection anyone might have is that it would reduce the population, which, he points out, is his intention. And just in case readers can’t think of any better solutions, such as raising taxes, controlling rents, buying local products, he lists them (supposedly to dismiss them).

But we’re still here

(I hope that writing that during the Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic isn’t tempting fate.)

When I was reading Swift and Malthus a couple of centuries after they were written, there was certainly poverty and hunger around the world, even in England, and the Chinese One-child policy was being strictly enforced. Malthusianism hadn’t gone away, but it hadn’t entirely come true either. I had no immediate fears of starvation or even poverty.

Why was this, I wondered? Kenneth Boulding had an answer:

nThe Technologist’s Reply

Man’s potential is quite terrific,
You can’t go back to the Neolithic.
The cream is there for us to skim it,
Knowledge is power, and the sky’s the limit.
Every mouth has hands to feed it,
Food is found when people need it.
All we need is found in granite
Once we have the men to plan it.
Yeast and algae give us meat,
Soil is almost obsolete.
Men can grow to pastures greener
Till all the earth is Pasadena.

Moral:
Man’s a nuisance, Man’s a crackpot.
But only Man can hit the jackpot.

Back then, I was firmly with the optimistic technologist.

As a cynical middle-aged adult in a country torn by Brexit and ravaged by a global pandemic, I think both poems miss the crucial social-political aspects, and the fact that humans are not omnipotent.

Science has certainly helped, but it's not all positive:
* Crops and livestock have higher yields and are more resistant to disease - but there are risks from GM and antibiotic resistance.
* Land that was unsuitable for farming, can now be used - but irrigation in one place leaves others barren.
* Machines work faster than people - so some lose their jobs.
* Packaging and chilling reduce damage - and yet waste increases.
* Efficiency increases in many spheres - but that increases demand, so resources are used up faster (Jevons paradox).
* Technological advances benefit the rich more than the poor.

And we could all be wiped out by a virus. Cheers!


Image: Optimist, pessimist, realist, opportunist (Source.)

Sources

You can read Swift and Malthus, free on Gutenberg:
* A Modest Proposal, HERE
* An Essay on the Principle of Population, HERE.

n  n    Book Reviewn  n
A Modest Proposal is a satirical work of fiction by Jonathan Swift, written nearly 300 years ago. It is an Irish piece, originally published anonymously, but served as a way to shove stupidity in the face of the English government and wealthy. Essentially, in order to solve the problem of poverty, people should eat their children. But it was written in a very serious manner, as though it were meant to be real suggestions. Ahead of its time, it propelled Swift to the forefront of both English literature and the 18th century collection of masterpieces.

Although not very long (under 50 pages), the language is a bit outdated and requires a few translations to understand what he meant back during that period of time. The humor is undeniable. The time he took to create a solution for every aspect of the problem, as well as provide counter points, is incredibly delicious -- pun intended! Though a bit too absurd, even for me, it's still one of those parts of our English courses we all enjoy reading. It's hilarious to a 15-year old, who may not know all the different parts of history or the way in which governmental red-tape can work. Find a few pages online after perusing this review... just sample some of the words and phrases he used. It may push you into reading the whole thing!

n  n    About Men  n
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.

[polldaddy poll=9729544]

Written centuries ago and this is still how we look at solving the world's issues, economic or otherwise, by making those without a voice pay. Swift's satire is right on the mark and is well worth a read even today. Every time someone in the world comes up with a policy they should read A Modest Proposal and if one has the slightest feeling of being mocked, then that policy definitely requires some rethinking.

Swift made a dark proposal through this satire and he must have shaken the society of his time to the core. I wonder what he would write if he lived now.
This essay made me feel somehow immersed in that political context in Ireland, but I can also see how it endured for generations because the issues of poverty and inequality continue to be part of our present struggles.

The first time I read this, it was apart of a project for my senior English class and the entire story went right over my head. I took A Modest Proposal seriously and yet the satire was so obvious. I was horrified the first time I read it but when I reread it, I got the satire.