Unpleasant stuff -- I got it from Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, who got it from 2Blowhards, who in turn got it from The Economist:
In rural Peru, 24% of young women say they lost their virginity to a rapist. In rural Uttar Pradesh (in India), 83% of married women surveyed said that before they moved in with their husbands, they didn't know how women become pregnant.
Those are pretty unnerving numbers, from the horrific rape statistic of rural Peru to the flat-earth-like ignorance of rural India. Unnerving, but unsurprising: what passes for life in most parts of the world is physically and spiritually grim. Not just Peru or India -- which are probably improving, anyway -- but North Korea, anyone? Algeria? Afghanistan? Not to sound like an uncompromising advocate of reason and capitalism or anything, but isn't it obvious that most of these countries have a few things in common? Like, things they lack? Without reason and freedom and markets and the rule of law, a society is pretty close to a state of nature -- and life in that state is, as Hobbes reminds us, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Some places are worse than others, as the BBC shows us in this series of photos from Chechnya.
And yet, think of public discourse in this country: "serious" debates on same-sex marriage, "privatizing" Social Security, prescription drug "benefits" for "seniors," politicians and commentators shedding crocodile tears over the non-scandal of steroids in sports, FCC actions to protect "decency" in broadcasting. Garbage, all of it garbage, and most of it hypocritical garbage at that. Back in 1944, Hayek could dedicate his Road to Serfom to "the socialists in all parties," and get away with it because collectivism was all the rage in the UK at the time. It's worse in today's United Kingdom, and in today's United States.
Still, the US and the UK are the bright spots, aren't they? Think back on those numbers from Peru and from India. Think on what it must be like to live in Cuba, or parts of China, or Chechnya, or absolutely anywhere for most of human history. What are most of our public intellectuals and leaders and commentators advocating, especially when they wax idealistic?
Posted by Craig Ceely at December 12, 2004 05:00 PM