A Modest Proposal?

The work by Jonathan Swift was obviously quite shocking. I knew this article would be about cannibalism, but not about consuming peasant children to control the population in Europe. Wow. Several of Swift’s comments made me pause to reflect. He ends with the statement that he could think of no argument or objection against what he is proposing. Really? Not even one? I have little understanding of the culture in Europe at the time, but it is hard for me to imagine that the public embraced Swift’s ideas and no one would have any objections.

Swift is not just proposing the use of babies for food, which is slightly off-putting, but also using their skin for gentlemen’s boots and women’s gloves. I am sure many animals in the world cannibalize their own kind. I just wonder how many would use the skin or body of the dead animal for any purpose. I also began to wonder in what context would I be able to force myself to eat another human being? If I were starving and stranded on a island, maybe, but I can’t know without being in that situation. The living conditions for the people of Ireland and the United Kingdom would have to be exceedingly terrible for Swift’s ideas to be accepted. He makes one comment about how sad it is that “poor and innocent babes” are sacrificed by abortion and murder by the mother’s of these bastard children, when he is proposing the same thing. An objection to that claim I just made would be he is proposing to use these children to benefit society. Basically, I’m just a little disturbed by the whole idea.

Alive; the story of the Andes survivors. Read, Piers Paul, 1941. Philadelphia, Lippincott
1974