Ross Douthat on Digital Alienation, Birth Rates, and Demographic Collapse
"I like Italy. I like South Korea. I enjoy the existence of distinctive human cultures. I would prefer that these cultures and countries not disappear," the New York Times columnist tells Reason.
In his April essay "An Age of Extinction Is Coming. Here's How to Survive," New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argues that falling birth rates and fraying cultural institutions signal a civilizational bottleneck—and that mastering our digital tools may be the only way through it. Douthat joined Reason's Just Asking Questions podcast in April to discuss demographic collapse, technological alienation, and whether the American suburbs might be more resilient than they seem.
Q: What are some of the biggest telltale signs that lead you to believe we're facing an age of extinction?
A: Digital existence is really hard on basic modes of cultural transmission and also the literal reproduction of the species. These two things are connected. The way we live digitally tends to distract us from the forms of creation and educational transmission of literature, art, religion—all the human culture that people take for granted.
It also tends to distract us and separate us from the real-life ways of hanging around with other people—making friendships, going on dates, finding romance, having sex, and having kids—that allow for the very literal continuation of the human species.
Q: The literal extinction we're facing is a falling birth rate—we're below replacement rate in the U.S., and it's worse in places like South Korea, Japan, and much of Western Europe. What are your anxieties about this?
A: I like Italy. I like South Korea. I enjoy the existence of distinctive human cultures. I would prefer that these cultures and countries not disappear. I think that's a reasonable impulse.
You'll have these societies that are emptied out. Actually, probably intensely concentrated—people will move to big cities—but there will be depopulated hinterlands, depopulated areas.
Yes, there will still be people speaking Italian in 50 years and people speaking Korean, but there will be a kind of actual collapse of real-world nations and cultures if this trend continues.
Q: Is the picture you're painting too bleak? Is it possible that the suburban middle class isn't disappearing, but simply evolving into something less familiar?
A: Yes, I think it's absolutely true that part of what will happen is that there will be adaptation, cultural evolution, and new modes of existence. Many of them will probably be suburban and not urban, because the suburbs are themselves a good technology for child rearing. One of the advantages in fertility the U.S. has over parts of Europe and East Asia is that we have a highly suburbanized society.
I'm not arguing that the bottleneck makes everything disappear. People who go through the bottleneck will use aspects of the new technology to enable forms of human flourishing. However, there will also be people—and you can see this right now—for whom the absence of the family restaurant or the local bar just means they don't see people anymore. They exist in a kind of virtual bubble in which they don't have enough friendships, they don't meet their future spouse, they don't do things in reality that are necessary. Those people are not going to make it.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.
