Clement Astor, American Renaissance, June 26, 2015

It is a tragedy when something of value ends, and an even greater tragedy when it need not have ended. The declining number of whites is leading to just such a tragedy. What are the causes of this decline and what are the cures? The crisis we face is largely self-imposed. Our physical circumstances are far less daunting than those our ancestors faced, but we are here because they survived. Today, our challenges are sociological and psychological rather than material.

The continuation of the white race has obvious merit. Both biologically and culturally, whites are a vitally important sub-species of Homo sapiens. Our appearance–our variety in hair and eye color, hair texture, and ethnic variations–is unique and beautiful. The contributions of whites to culture, art, science, philosophy, and societal structures are unequaled.

And yet, the decline of whites is usually treated as if it were a trivial matter or even a good thing. Susan Sontag famously complained that “the white race is the cancer of human history.” Somewhat more mildly, William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution says that without non-white immigrants the United States would face “a bleak future,” and he wants to “share the good news about diversity.”

The decline of whites can be expressed in terms of total fertility rate (TFR), or the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime. The TFR for a replacement level population is about 2.1 children per woman (rather than 2.0, to account for women who do not survive to reproductive age). Unfortunately, as the table below shows, whites in the United States have been below replacement level for decades. Even rates such as 1.85 and 1.79 are overstated because the Census Bureau reports only the race of the mother, not that of the child.

Here are TFRs for other white countries:

Lithuania: 1.29

Ukraine: 1.30

Romania: 1.32

Poland: 1.33

Slovenia: 1.33

Latvia: 1.35

Slovakia: 1.39

Greece: 1.41

Italy: 1.42

Serbia: 1.42

Hungary: 1.42

Germany: 1.43

Austria: 1.43

Czech Republic: 1.43

Bulgaria: 1.44

Croatia: 1.45

Estonia: 1.46

Spain: 1.48

Portugal: 1.52

Switzerland: 1.54

Canada: 1.59

Russia: 1.61

Armenia: 1.64

Belgium: 1.65

Denmark: 1.73

Finland: 1.73

Australia: 1.77

Luxembourg: 1.77

Netherlands: 1.78

Norway: 1.86

Iceland: 1.88

Sweden: 1.88

U.K.: 1.90

Ireland: 2.00

New Zealand: 2.05

France: 2.08

These figures, already low, do not state the race of the mother or of the child. Therefore, the real TFR for whites would be lower for nations with significant non-white immigrant populations, such as Belgium, the United Kingdom, and France.

In the United States, which has seen considerably more non-white immigration than any European country, white babies have been less than 50 percent of all births since 2013. At the same time, deaths of whites outpace births–by 61,841 from 2013 to 2014.

Western Civilization cannot be sustained without whites, and from a Western perspective, life without Western Civilization has little appeal. Many people confuse the products of Western Civilization with its essence. We see this in the Peoples Republic of China where, at least in the major cities, there are advanced infrastructure and technology, yet underneath there is a harsh, intellectually constraining social structure. It is not Western. Many people predicted that China’s transition to semi-capitalism and industrialization would cause other changes that would align China with the Western model. This did not happen, because the Chinese are Chinese. The trappings of Western Civilization do not turn the Chinese into Westerners.

The essence of our civilization cannot be sustained by the “things” we have produced. The ruins of ancient civilizations are fascinating, but they are still cold and dead if there are no descendants of the people who created them to give them life and meaning. Other races will not use what we built to continue our civilization. The magnificent Greek Orthodox Church, Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople (now called “Istanbul”) was desecrated and converted into a mosque and then into a museum. We can try to impress the intellectual works of the West on those who are replacing us, but they will follow their own ways and reject ours. The only way to sustain our civilization is through our descendants.

To the extent that whites even think about the prospect of becoming a minority, they probably believe they will still prosper because of their skills and abilities. This ignores the extent to which quantity has a quality of its own. As whites become a minority, they can hold a country together only for so long. In the end, if they are overwhelmed demographically, they will be overwhelmed culturally and spiritually as well.

Another consequence of the decline of whites will be destruction of the environment. It is whites who build and sustain environmental movements. Even at start of the industrial revolution, William Blake longed for a greener, more pastoral England in his poem “Jerusalem.”

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England’s pleasant pastures seen? . . . And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark Satanic mills? . . .

China treats the environment callously. Africans kill endangered species for food and sell their body parts as medicine or aphrodisiacs to Asians. Even the wealthy and civilized Japanese would rather eat the whales than save them. Squalor and density that are anathema to a Westerner are common in the rest of the world. The preservation of the environment needs more–not fewer–whites. Whites who think they are “saving the planet” by not having children have got it completely wrong.

Why are whites failing to reproduce themselves? There are several reasons. One is the litany of anti-white propaganda from the media, academia, government, anti-white activists and sometimes even from ordinary whites. This constant anti-white message may dissuade some whites from having children. Germany, where 30 percent of women are childless–the highest rate in the world–may be especially afflicted because of its history. Its working-age population is projected to decline more rapidly than any country on earth. At the same time, Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany is becoming “a country of immigrants,” and urges Germans to welcome non-European refugees.

The economic and societal pressures of globalization also depress white birthrates. People reproduce more when there is less stress. Economic shocks, offshoring, outsourcing, immigration, “affirmative action,” and constant demands for higher productivity worry whites to the point that they are hesitant to have children or even get married. Blacks, Muslims, and Hispanics are willing to have children under financial circumstances whites would consider irresponsible.

Feminism is also an important factor in the decline in fertility in the West. White women have always been especially susceptible to feminism, and many are now indoctrinated to see white men as oppressors, and to try to be independent from them in every way. It can be argued that modern feminism carried to its extreme is almost a death cult, to the extent that it teaches that men and child bearing are essentially superfluous. Relations between men and women, especially younger ones, are surely at a historical nadir.

Feminism coupled with economic pressures has created a class of people I call “nuns” and “monks”–women and men in professional life who never marry or have children. From what I have seen in my corporate career, the nuns began with the baby boomers, while the monks started later. Furthermore, modern corporate policies prescribe draconian penalties for even perceived flirtation, so the monks and nuns dare not venture beyond professional relationships with each other. These people are certainly not having a wild time at work, and from what I know about them, their life outside work is tepid, especially as they get older.

I still see a lot more nuns than monks. Corporations like them because they devote all their talents and energy into their work instead of raising a family. A lot of good genes have been lost to artificial entities that exist only from financial quarter to financial quarter.

Another recent phenomenon has been the “childless by choice” mantra of couples who are physically and financially able to have children. The “DINK” (double income, no kids) trend is another reason for white decline. Today, many whites are so narcissistic, so unable to look beyond their own material ambitions, that they have no room in their lives for children. Of course, without modern birth control, none of this would be possible.

An example of a modern “compromise” with selfishness is the one-child-by-choice household. In China the government had to force parents to limit themselves to one child, but in the West many people do it voluntarily. If everyone did it, each generation would be 50 percent smaller than the one before. This practice also leaves children without siblings, which is utterly unnatural, and means that, as adults, they are without an essential support group in a precarious world.

Ultimately, it is a collective choice to go extinct or not, but voluntary childlessness is contrary to nature. We must purge ourselves of sick and destructive ideas that have arisen only in the past few decades.

One of the sickest ideas of our time is that children are a bother and a distraction from the life that really matters. In our society, you will look mostly in vain for descriptions of the intense joy that comes from creating another being that is part of you. The closest we usually get is the story about some celebrity who has gone from “baby bump” to mother, and who tells the tabloids that little Brittney is just “awesome.” There is almost complete silence about the joy that children bring to fathers.

I have led an interesting, challenging, well-traveled life, but I can state unequivocally that being a father trumps every other experience by far. And I should know: I have four children, from pre-teen to early twenties. You will feel no love that equals the love you feel for your children, and nothing is more rewarding than the love they show you in return. Your children may very well become your best friends . . . for life. Being a parent will draw you out of the confines of your own existence in a way that nothing else can, dramatically broadening your perspective and calling to life deep reserves of emotion and attachment you never knew were there. Bringing forth the next generation is the central miracle of Nature, and no one who has not experienced it can claim to have fully lived.

Being a parent will sharpen your perception of the present, and focus your concerns about the future. And it will give you the incomparable pleasure of raising a child in the learning and traditions of Western Civilization. It is thrilling to see your child’s eyes light up with the awareness of our Western heritage, and become the living embodiment of it.

Jean Raspail writes in his prescient novel Camp of the Saints that “only a white woman can have a white baby.” It also takes a white man. Both men and women must escape the animosities between the sexes that have accumulated over the past few decades and return to the beautiful and natural state of family and creation. A women’s fertility declines after her mid-twenties, so it is prudent to start having children early.

Of course, children can be a challenge and a frustration, but do not forget that every one of your ancestors met the same challenge and frustration. If we do not do our duty–and partake in our share of joy–there will be nothing left but the memory of our civilization. Given the proclivities of certain barbaric groups, perhaps not even that.

Survival is the first law. The 21st century may therefore require a broader concept of family if that is what it takes to make more white children. We should not immediately reject cohabitation, single motherhood, mistresses, or polygamy. How is society hurt if a wealthy, desirable man has children with more than one wife, especially if she would otherwise have had no children or been unable to support them? Homosexual couples could have and rear white children and thus tip the balance in our favor. Which is more important: survival or tradition? All whites are in this together, whatever their orientation or circumstances.

There are also things that whites should not do. They should never waste their energy rearing other groups’ children. It is almost exclusively whites who have the bizarre desire to adopt children of other races. This is yet another practice that contributes to our decline. Other racial groups must rear the children they produce, not us.

At the same time, other groups exploit our altruism and appeal to the vainglorious “compassion” of white elites for other races. “Refugees” know they can count on the foolish generosity of Americans and Europeans who have already perfected state-run wealth transfers from our families to those of non-whites. Government policies help destroy white communities through forced integration and Section 8 housing. Our government even sends young men–and now even young women–to their deaths in futile attempts to civilize Islamic tribes in the Middle East.

Our European cousins are just as determined to throw away their birthright as we are.

Whites must understand that other races are, at best, utterly indifferent to our survival, and that hundreds of millions of non-whites will swarm into our homelands and dispossess us if we let them. To survive, we must throw off the suicidal thinking of the last few decades and rekindle the racial consciousness that was common among our ancestors.

Our survival and the continuation of Western Civilization must be our only priorities. Our rulers may try to swamp us with immigrants and “refugees,” but our own reproduction is something that we–and only we–control. No one can take that away from us, and it is the one sure way to turn back the demographic tide.