Perhaps one of the more important anecdotes of the year, from Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute:
Last year, during one of the regime’s innumerable, drastic pandemic lockdowns, a video went viral in China before authorities could memory hole it.
In the video, faceless hazmat-clad health police try to bully a young man out of his apartment and off to a quarantine camp, even though he has tested negative for the coronavirus. He refuses to leave.
“Don’t you understand,” they warn, “if you don’t comply, bad things can happen to your family for three generations.”
“Sorry” he replies mildly. “We are the last generation. Thank you.”
That moment prompted the spread in China of a despairing social media hashtag: #Lastgeneration. [WaPo]
Certainly the drop in fertility rates has worried many people in at least the Western world, and perhaps the Eastern as well. I hesitate to spit out any quick conclusions, but I have to wonder if this is connected to the weakening and renting of ethnic, religious, and national mythologies.
Something to think about.
