Fertility and the Bourgeois Mind

Jonathan Liedl
By | June 26, 2014

With American fertility at an all-time low, popular wisdom suggests that a flagging economy is responsible for the flagging birthrate.

But while material concerns should not be completely factored out of assessments of the West’s declining fertility rate, our society’s tendency to impulsively point in this direction as some sort of all-encompassing explanation may reveal a more essential factor at work, one that operates behind the scenes; not in our collective sub-consciousness, but constitutive of it: the bourgeois mind.

In a 1935 essay, the Catholic historian Christopher Dawson explored the contours of the bourgeois mind, which he described as a particular spiritual temperament that had penetrated every level of modern society. There is a “fundamental disharmony,” Dawson noted, “between bourgeois and Christian culture and between the bourgeois mind and the mind of Christ.” If his assessment rings true, it shouldn’t be at all surprising for us to find that the bourgeois mind is also at odds with fertility, understood as a self-giving openness to new life.

This opposition goes beyond the external and the material to human nature itself. “The essential question,” Dawson tell us, “is not the question of economics, but the question of love.” Following the German social scientist Werner Sombart, Dawson argues that the bourgeois mind corresponds to a “closed” temperament, a disposition that is diametrically opposed to the “erotic life,” understood as a radical openness and characterized by “the man of desire,” such as St. Augustine.

The spirit of the Gospel, Dawson says, is also characteristic of the “open” or erotic type, “which gives, asking nothing in return, and spends itself for others.” It views goods as internal, not exhaustible or mutually exclusive, not affected by “scarcity” or “opportunity costs”—the parlance of our day. This erotic temperament is opposed to the “spirit of calculation,” as well as to worldly prudence, self-seeking, and self-satisfaction, all bourgeois qualities that today are easily observable as the “reasons” more and more individuals are choosing to delay or forgo having children.

To be sure, prudence does have a place in such choices, a truth that has been affirmed by Church teaching. But just as the Christian ethos is an ethos of love, questions of fertility must be answered with love; and prudence, in this sense, should help us discern how to love best.

As this realm is closed off to the bourgeois mind, fixated as it is on the quantitative rather than the qualitative, it is closed off from contemporary society, which is defined by bourgeois standards from top to bottom. Understood thusly, the “fertility crisis” in America is not the product of a bad economy, but of bad minds. In order to resolve it fully, we need to do more than change the GDP or the job market; we need to change the way we think.

Editor’s note: This article is part of a series on the “fertility crisis” suggested by recently released data, designed to explore the topic in 1000 words or less. The entire series may be found here.

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  • Dan Hugger

    Is there any prudence that is not worldly as such? St.Thomas defines prudence as necessarily worldly:

    “In order to act well, we need to make good judgments about how we should
    behave. This is precisely the sort of habit associated with prudence,
    which Aquinas defines as “wisdom concerning human affairs” (STIIaIIae 47.2 ad 1) or “right reason with respect to action” (STIIaIIae 47.4). In order to make good moral judgments, a twofold knowledge is required: one must know (1) the general moral principles that guide actions and (2) the particular circumstances in which a
    decision is required. For “actions are about singular matters: and so it
    is necessary for the prudent man to know both the universal principles
    of reason, and the singulars about which actions are concerned” (ST IIaIIae 47.3; Cf. STIaIIae18.3). This passage may appear to suggest that prudence involves a
    fairly simple and straightforward process of applying moral rules to
    specific situations. But this is somewhat misleading since the activity
    of prudence involves a fairly developed ability to evaluate situations
    themselves. As Thomas Hibbs explains: “prudence involves not simply the
    subordination of particulars to appropriate universals, but the
    appraisal of concrete, contingent circumstances” (Hibbs, 2001: 92). From
    this perspective, good decisions will always be responsive to what our
    situation requires. Thus we cannot simply consult a list of moral
    prescriptions in determining what we should do. We must also “grasp what
    is pertinent and to assess what ought to be done in complex
    circumstances” (Ibid., 98).”

    http://www.iep.utm.edu/aq-moral/#SH3a

    And since, as you admit, prudence has a place in such choices then shouldn’t we be guided, at least in part, by our appraisal of our concrete, contingent circumstances? And is not this the very genius of the bourgeois mind and economics? How is one to appraise circumstances without a science of calculation?

  • jojo

    Very nice and concise. I agree.

  • jojo

    Stay focused on fertility and reproduction if you are to critically examine Mr. Liedl’s article.

  • Brennan

    Apparently Christopher Dawson is an American heretic born in Britain.

  • Diego Fernando Ramos Flor

    Sorry, could I ask you for a further explanation?

  • Dan Hugger

    Alright.

    Since Mr. Liedl admits prudence has a place in such choices regarding fertility and reproduction then
    shouldn’t we be guided, at least in part, by our appraisal of our
    concrete, contingent circumstances? The ‘science of calculation’, particularly concepts such as ‘scarcity’ and ‘opportunity cost’ would be essential for any such appraisal. In fact, they just might provide a powerful reason to be more open to life:

    http://www.npr.org/2011/04/22/135612560/selfish-reasons-for-parents-to-enjoy-having-kids

    Better?

  • Teresa Grodi

    It was an act of Providence that I opened the email with this title this morning! All morning I was thinking about the Duggars (you know, 19 Kids and Counting) and just how vehement people are about their feelings towards their decision to just “let things happen” - (the Duggars don’t try for 19 kids, they just let things go naturally). As a true historian (married to a philosopher), I tried to think through the history of this last century and try to figure out what mechanisms/events led to the idea that not carefully planning the exact number of children you have is a societal *sin*, not just a different way or a different path, but something that should cause disgust in the general population. I started re-reading the Duggar’s first book this morning when I opened your email :)

    Second, have you read That Hideous Strength, by CS Lewis? In the last book, there is a moment when Merlin’s prophesy and wrath comes down upon Jane. It’s worth the read (around page 278). Abortion is an evil — there is no denying that. However, we as Catholics *hope* that each of those little lives that God called into being have Eternal Life with God. There is hope. But contraception is full of nothing. An eternal soul that God intended to be, never exists. There is not some soul in Heaven “waiting to be born” — it does not exist. If God exists and the Catholic Church is His true Church, contraception is a true evil. It is a void, a nothing, a cause for despair… I cannot imagine the burden of marriages in which the couple is contracepting. It must be a heaviness, an uneasy feeling, unrest. This is not a judgement — just philosophical musings (as well as discussions with other friends and families).

    There is a lot that has to change and it has to change in the hearts and minds of individuals. It’s just such an enormous historical topic to consider what led us to this point.

  • Brennan

    I just meant that as Dawson criticizes the bourgeois mentality, and American culture is thoroughly bourgeois, he is thus criticizing American culture itself, and thus is an “American heretic” (and he was born in Britain).

  • JL

    Of course we should. Dawson doesn’t critique the “science” of calculation, but the “spirit” of calculation, an understanding of prudence that does not have love as its final end. In other words, it’s not so much What Would Jesus Do as it is How Would Jesus Think. The bourgeois mind and the spirit of calculation are opposed to the mind of Christ.

  • Dan Hugger

    When you point to Dawson saying, ““The essential question is not the question of economics, but the question of love.” what I see is love (a general moral principal) set over and against economics (which describes our concrete, contingent circumstances). I don’t think virtuous action is possible without the consideration of both. Love will always responsive to particular situations, it will need to be lived out in discrete concrete ways, and it will take many forms. So in so far as economics describes part of our experience in the world (And I believe it does), it is indeed just as essential a question. We need two spirits just as (And here I stretch the allegory to mystic proportions!) Christ needs to natures.

  • JL

    No Dan, because economics and calculation is subservient to the spirit of love, in other words, valuable only insofar as they are used to love better. Apart from love or any other higher virtue which orders it, calculation is not a desirable trait to have. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that they’re two equals.

  • Dan Hugger

    Could you interact a little bit with the argument I made above about how love necessarily must, “always be responsive to particular situations, it will need to be lived out in discrete concrete ways, and it will take many forms”? Or STIIaIIae 47.4 cited earlier? Or Shawn Floyd’s discussion of it in the article I originally cited? (http://www.iep.utm.edu/aq-moral/#SH3a) I’m familiar with your original thesis already and restating it really isn’t necessary.

  • Matthew Lawrence Campbell

    Thought provoking piece. I think it’s important, though, to keep in mind that the bourgeois mind has often historically been operative on precisely the other side of the divide on this issue - in that portion of the broader culture that embodies a more conservative or traditional stance on the issues of childbearing, family life, and sexual ethics. When I think of “bourgeois” - at least in its more modern forms - I admittedly usually think of something like the “white-picket-fence” life paradigm, which, as we all know, traditionally *includes* children. Instantiations of this lifestyle are often just as susceptible to an insular, calculative, conventional, security-minded approach to life as any so-called childless one. I mean, look at history: the beatniks, the hippies…all those progressively-minded, counter-culture movements attempted (in their own short-sighted, limited way) to break free of what they considered America’s bourgeois complacency and to live their own version of the “erotic life.” I guess I say all this not in support of the childless-life culture (because I don’t support it), but to hopefully curb any potential triumphalism when critiquing it. And if we are going to critique it, we should at least be aware that it’s historical opposite isn’t necessarily the best way to go either. In pointing out the shortcomings of certain developing cultural trends, we often risk falling into the temptation of simply returning to old ways of doing things, which ain’t the answer, either. Because, if we’re honest with ourselves, the bourgeois mind is everywhere and penetrates all of us, rarely respecting the ideological boundaries we draw up among ourselves.

  • http://atlantarofters.blogspot.com/ The Sanity Inspector

    A century ago, G. K. Chesterton had some tart things to say about a culture that “exalts lust and forbids fertility”.

  • Jeddsmom

    There is much more anxiety, burden, unrest, and heaviness on a family who has lost their job, their home, their paychecks, and their health insurance than over using contraception. Period.