Eating children satire. A Modest Proposal 2022-11-16
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Eating children is a controversial topic that has recently gained a lot of attention in mainstream media. While some people argue that it is a necessary solution to overpopulation and a lack of resources, others believe that it is a barbaric and unethical practice.
Satire is a form of humor that uses irony, wit, and sarcasm to expose or criticize flaws and problems in society. In this essay, we will explore the idea of eating children through a satirical lens, poking fun at the absurdity of such a concept and using it as a means of highlighting the ridiculousness of certain arguments or beliefs.
To begin with, let's consider the argument that eating children is a necessary solution to overpopulation and resource depletion. On the surface, this argument may seem reasonable - after all, if we have too many people and not enough resources to go around, wouldn't it make sense to reduce the population? However, when we take a closer look, it becomes clear that this argument is flawed in many ways.
First of all, it is important to recognize that overpopulation is a complex issue with many contributing factors. Blaming it solely on the number of people ignores the impact of resource consumption, waste, and environmental degradation. Reducing the population through cannibalism is a short-sighted and ineffective solution that fails to address the root causes of the problem.
Moreover, the idea of eating children as a means of population control is ethically and morally reprehensible. Children are innocent and helpless, and it is our duty as a society to protect and nurture them, not exploit them for our own benefit. Using children as a source of food is a gross violation of human rights and dignity, and it goes against everything that we stand for as a civilized society.
In addition to being unethical and ineffective, the idea of eating children is also logistically impractical. Children make up a small portion of the population, and it would be impossible to sustain a society on their flesh alone. Furthermore, the process of raising, slaughtering, and preparing children for consumption would be a logistical nightmare, requiring a massive and costly infrastructure. In the end, it would likely cost more to produce child meat than it would to address the underlying problems of overpopulation and resource depletion.
Overall, the idea of eating children as a solution to overpopulation and resource depletion is absurd and ridiculous. While it may seem like a simple and straightforward solution on the surface, it is actually a complex and multifaceted problem that requires a more nuanced and comprehensive approach. By using satire to expose the absurdity of this idea, we can shed light on the flaws in this kind of thinking and encourage more thoughtful and ethical solutions to the challenges facing our society.
Jonathan Swift
A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme. I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection. I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that 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 fricassee or a ragout. Second, it will give the poor some property. We should soon see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. 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. And the money will circulate among our selves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.
The Man Who Proposed Eating Children To End Poverty
Packed with irony and satirical revelations of the human condition, this fantastical tract rises to timeless literature. However, I've shelved it for now, as it's just too annoying to read about the life of a privileged upper class person who seems to have no comprehension of how fortunate they are. Fourth, the mothers will be free of the burden of bringing up children. So, too, does the reference to the island of Formosa evoke a kind of English cultural arrogance. I have come across few writers in English that have such a command of the pen. Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice. But with due deference to so excellent a friend and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me, from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to fatten them would not answer the charge.
Well, it would end poverty and help families make a living. There, he saw firsthand the poverty and oppression of the Irish. The authorial voice of that essay is a modern thinker, who ironically proposes a nominal and hypocritical Christianity as the solution for England. There only remain 120,000 children of poor parents annually born. The stereotypes are present in both the reasons for the proposal and the language used. I again subtract 50,000 for those women who miscarry or whose children die by accident or disease within the year.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. With this added irony, Swift is further heightening the satire, suggesting that the writer does not even conceive that the idea of killing and eating Irish one-year-olds could be morally wrong. I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. He defends his friend, nevertheless, by saying that the friend learned of this practice in Asia among certain savage peoples. I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females.
A Modest Proposal: This Solution To The Irish Famine Was Satire At Its Finest
Is Swift just having fun, or does he have something serious to say? The serious point in the passage as written is that people often set themselves up as moral judges, nosing into other people's dirty laundry, which means getting their own noses dirty, not unlike what happens to a broom when it is used to sweep away the dust. The proposer calculates that a plump infant of thirty pounds would provide food for many dinners and, preserved with pepper or salt, will last well into winter. Phiddian stresses that a reader of the pamphlet must learn to distinguish between the satirical voice of Jonathan Swift and the apparent economic projections of the Proposer. Although the Irish are the enemy and it is better to have few of them, at least they help develop the economy and the countryside. As a cry to succor the Irish, this essay earned Swift the title of patriot. Then as to the females, it would, I think, with humble submission be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves; and besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice although indeed very unjustly , as a little bordering upon cruelty; which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, however so well intended. Though Swift wrote the tract in response to the specific social conditions afflicting his native Ireland, its bitter humor shocks and delights as much now as it did in 1729, when it circulated the streets of Dublin as an anonymous pamphlet.
For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it. So, he suggests women should feed them for a whole year, so they can weigh a plump 28 pounds, like little piglets! There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! He said that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age nor under twelve; so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service; and these to be disposed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. He uses methods of argument throughout his essay which not being from Formosa in 1706. Swift, by 1729, was quite late in his career, being already over 60 years old. Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper the remaining eighty thousand. I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come. This plot element recalls the situation in Genesis when two twins are born at the same time in such a way that it is impossible to say with certainty which twin is older. Out of these, only 30,ooo would be capable of properly rearing a family, leaving 170,000 breeders that would find it hard to scrape a living. One day in 1729, the streets of A Modest Proposal. Likewise, in A Modest Proposal, Swift leaps from the sorry conditions of Ireland into a savage attack on human indifference and cruelty, writing in the assumed voice of a modern theorist who ironically proposes death to improve life. The added bonus of cannibalism? I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. A Modest Proposal can be seen as an early warning about the distorted economic system that would produce the ruinous potato famine of the 1840s.
Georgia School Has Students 'Solve' World Hunger by 'Eating Babies'
First, it will decrease the number of dangerous Catholics. Fourthly, The constant breeders, besides the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year. Also, it would eradicate domestic violence, as husbands would be more protective of their wives in order to help them have save and happy pregnancies. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. Of these efforts, which would earn Swift a reputation as a champion of Ireland, A Modest Proposal is the most famous. The Third Edition, Dublin, Printed: And Reprinted at London, for Weaver Bickerton, in Devereux-Court near the Middle-Temple, 1730.
A Modest Proposal and Other Satires Quotes and Analysis
The Works of Jonathan Swift: Containing Additional Letters, Tracts, and Poems Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author. Chinese people have a long track record of eating things like dogs, advocates of democracy, and children. . He points out that they are unfit for any employment, being even too young to steal. He is not willing to entertain any other arguments for solving the problem, like virtue and thrift.
