⚓ Welcome to Tidal Echoes
Series: “Youth Speaks Its Mind” (A republication of our hometown newspaper, The Suffolk County News, from 65 years ago)
Our history isn't just a timeline; it's a series of waves that shape who we are today. In this series, we revisit the bold voices of Sayville’s past. Today, we listen to Duncan Dwelle as he offers a stark, philosophical warning on population and survival in 1961.
Originally published in The Suffolk County News on December 14th, 1961. Transcribed for the Sayville Alumni Association.
Survival of the Fittest or Extinction?
By Duncan Dwelle, Sayville High School
Of all the human beings who have ever existed, one in 20 is now living. Recently The New York Times stated the year and day, early in the next century, when, at current rates of population growth, there will be no more room on earth for human beings. Already two-thirds of the world's population is underfed. Our reserves of organic fuel are calculated to last another 50 years at most. This is a most familiar but most urgent problem.
If a solution to the population problem is not soon executed, the human race faces one of three alternatives: we shall all be consumed in one final nuclear display of man's power and glory (It has been said that the Fourth World War will be fought with a stone and a spear); we shall degenerate into the form of civilized savagery portrayed so gruesomely by Huxley in Brave New World, dictated ruthlessly for the production of the greatest number of humans; or we shall be forced to explode outward to new planets. In light of the present difficulty in orbiting a single man, it hardly seems probable that man will be ready to colonize Mars before we are crowded off Earth.
If the human race is to survive, it must step back and take a good long look at the meaning of life itself. Do human beings exist simply to produce more human beings, to produce more human beings, to produce more human beings, ad infinitum et ad nauseam? I doubt it; yet this appears to be the operating philosophy of our society. Every day modern medicine allows more infants to prosper and fewer aged to fail, placing the burden on the strong. Every day legislation codifies the beliefs of those who value human life above all else, including sanity and freedom (I'd rather be Red than dead), those same ones who would clutter the highways with Sherman tanks to prevent traffic fatalities. Every day educators stretch themselves in their struggle to provide everyone with some education.
Is it the ultimate aim of such people to create for the human race a gargantuan incubator in which a trillion human beings may be stacked like cord wood, fed antibiotics and vitamins intravenously, protected from their savage environment, sheltered in foetal immortality? This, surely, would provide the maximum number with the maximum security. But is “maximum” a satisfactory goal? I would prefer to substitute “optimum.”
Nature has a time-proven method of maintaining an optimum. This method, called the balance of nature, has been constantly destroyed by man throughout his infamous history. For example, in nature the deer population is controlled by disease, predators, and famine. Man has cured the disease, killed the predators, and alleviated the famine. In consequence, the deer multiply out of control and the entire population is threatened with starvation. Now man must declare a hunting season on those same deer to keep their numbers reasonable.
Homo sapiens is in a plight similar to that of Odocoiteus virginianus. I do not advocate a “hunting season”—mercy killings or the arbitrary execution of abnormal infants. I do suggest that in light of the above information man should review his position on this earth and choose either the survival of the fittest or the extinction of the race.
⚓ Cast Your Thoughts
How do these words from 1961 land today? Reflecting on Duncan Dwelle's insights:
- duncan references brave new world and the fear of "civilized savagery"—was this dystopian literature a common topic of discussion in your sayville english or history classes?
- he makes a very bold comparison between human society and the population control of deer. how did his provocative "survival of the fittest" argument go over with your classmates in 1961?
- with the global population now well past what early 60s scientists predicted, does his warning about an "optimum" versus "maximum" life feel more or less urgent to you now?
