Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Seasons of Grace

Home
Catholic
Swift’s Modest Proposal, Revisited: Eating Our Children (UPDATED)

Swift’s Modest Proposal, Revisited: Eating Our Children (UPDATED)

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 3:55 pm by Kathy Schiffer

Swift’s Modest Proposal, Revisited: Eating Our Children (UPDATED) 2016-09-30T15:55:37-05:00 Kathy Schiffer

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“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 …”

Sometime in about my sophomore year in high school, our literature class studied Satire, that literary genre in which vices and shortcomings are exaggerated and held up to ridicule, with the goal of shaming individuals and society into improvement. Satire is so preposterous as to be funny—but its greater purpose, beyond titillating the reader, is constructive social criticism.

One of the great satirical essays I remember most clearly is Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Swift, well known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels (1726), penned A Modest Proposal to expose the cruel hegemony of England toward the Irish people. In it, Swift proposes a solution to the problem of Irish children born to impoverished parents who cannot afford to feed them: Sell them for meat, thus relieving the burden for hardworking parents, and ameliorating the food crisis which plagues the Irish people. Swift writes:

Infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish infants is at least three to one in this kingdom: and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us.

Swift’s indefatigable irony drew a strong response from our class of 15-year-olds. One student, I recall—a sensitive girl who hadn’t yet grasped the idea of “satire” and thus believed the author to be truly advocating for roast baby on the dining table—cried quietly in the back of the room.

* * * * *

The theme of depraved people-eating came up again in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson. The film takes us to New York City in the year 2022, when the city’s population has grown to forty million people. Housing is dilapidated and overcrowded; the streets and fire escapes and stairways are crowded with homeless people, clamoring for food and a place to sit. With farmers unable to produce sufficient crops for the burgeoning populace, most people survive by eating small, green wafers called Soylent Green which, according to government sources, are packed with “high-energy plankton.”

The sci-fi horror film ends with a sickening disclosure: With even the ocean’s resources depleted, there are no plankton remaining. Soylent Green, we learned in horror, is people. The corpses of the dead are taken to a processing plant where they are ground and transformed into food for the next generation.

* * * * *

And still, life imitates art.

Recently I read news reports on “human flesh capsules” from China. South Korean government officials have confiscated thousands of smuggled drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies. The infants—some aborted, some dead newborns—were chopped up, dried on stoves, then ground into powder, mixed with herbs to mask the contents, and packed into capsules. The macabre pills were either carried in luggage or sent via international mail.

South Korean customs officials have confiscated the capsules which contain, not only human remains, but also bacteria and other harmful ingredients. But because the amount was deemed “small” and because they weren’t intended for resale, no one has been punished. The smugglers have claimed that they thought the capsules were ordinary “stamina boosters,” and that they didn’t know their grisly contents.

UPDATE: This is actually not the first time I’ve written about eating children in China. Check out this older post. Gross, if I do say so myself.

* * * *

Here in America, our national obsession with “reproductive rights” has led us to accept that children are dismembered in the womb; that born-alive infants are allowed to die in buckets; that unspeakable things can be done to screaming infants in Kermit Gosnell’s clinic. Perhaps this gruesome story will cause some to blink—and to ponder whether infants are, in fact, to be intrinsically valued because they have been endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. One can only hope.

Hope and pray.

Previous Post

April 23, 2013

Learning From The Best: Imitating Our Heavenly Mother

Next Post

April 23, 2013 The Mall of America, the Ladybug, and the Queenship of Mary

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category #Synod14 Abortion Abstinence Abuse Addiction Adoption Advent Adventure Advertising Aging Agnosticism All Saints Day All Souls Day Amish Anathema Angels Anglican Animals Annulment Annunciation Apocalypse Apologetics Apostles Apostleship of the Sea Apparitions Archangels Archbishop Cordileone Archbishop Dolan Archbishop Vigneron Archeology Architecture Art Art Buchwald Ash Wednesday Assisted Suicide Astronauts Atheism Athletes Babies Baptism Beatification Beauty Bible Biochemistry Bioethics Birds Bishop Lori Bishops Blasphemy Books Canon Law Canonization Capital Punishment Cardinal Burke Cardinal Dolan Cardinal George Caritas Catechesis Catechism of the Catholic Church Catholic Catholic Education Catholic Higher Education Catholic Social Teaching Celibacy Cemeteries Character Charity Chastity Cheapskate Christian Unity Christmas Churches Civil Rights Cloning Comedy Communion of Saints Community Kitchens Confession Confirmation Conscience Consequences Consistory Constitution Contraception Conversion Cooking Councils of the Church Creativity Criminal Justice Cristero War Crucifixion Crystal Cathedral Culture Death Death and Dying Death Penalty Department of Health and Human Services Diaconate Dictatorship of Relativism Dignity Disability Discrimination Dissidence Divorce Doctors of the Church Early Church Fathers Easter Economics Ecumenism Education Encyclicals Environmentalism Episcopal Church Eucharist Euthanasia Evangelism Evangelists Evangelization Evolution Excuses Facebook Faith Families Family Fashion Fasting Fatherhood Federal Government Feminism Fiction Film First Amendment First Communion For Greater Glory Forgiveness Free Speech Friends Friendship Gender Discrimination Germany Gnosticism Good Friday Government Grace Greed Gregorian Calendar Happiness Health Heaven Heresy History Holidays Holiness Hollywood Holy Land Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Holy Week Holy Year Home Sweet Home Homosexuality Hope Humanism Humility Humor Imagination Immaculate Conception Immigration Impulsivity In Vitro Fertilization Incarnation Indulgences Infallibility Internet Islam Italy Jerusalem Jesus Judaism Justice Kathleen Sebelius Labor Movement LCWR Lent Life Literature Liturgy Lourdes Love Magi Marketing Marriage Martyrdom Martyrs Mary Mass Media Medical Ethics Mexico Michigan Miracles Missionaries Modernism Modesty Monks Monothelitism Motherhood Movies Mushrooms Music Muslim Mystery Mysticism Mythology Nativity Natural Law Nature New Evangelization New Media New Year New Year's Resolutions Nostalgia Obscenity Occult Old Testament Origen Orthodox Orvieto Pallium Papacy Parenting Patience Patriarch Bartholomew Patriotism Peace Peace and Justice Penitence Pentecost People Persecution Philosophy Poetry Political activism Political Correctness Politics Polls Pop Culture Pope Benedict XVI Pope Francis Pope John Paul II Pope John XXIII Pope Paul VI Pope St. Pius X Pope Urban VII Population Prayer Preaching Prejudice Pride Priesthood Pro-Life Protestantism Psychology Purgatory Queenship of Mary Racism Rape Real Presence Reconciliation Reformation Relics Religious Religious Liberty Reliquary Renewal Reproductive Technology Resurrection Rights Romance Rome Royalty Sacraments Sacred Heart Saints Satanism Science Science Fiction Scripture Seal of Confession Secularism Seniors September 11 Seventy Times Seven Sexuality Sharks Sin Smoking Social Communications Social Justice Social Networking Social Sciences Space Exploration Spirituality Sports St. Luke St. Patrick's Day St. Paul St. Peter St. Teresa of Avila Stations of the Cross Steve Jobs Superstition Supreme Court Symbolism Synod Technology Teen Rebellion Television Terrorism Thankfulness Thanksgiving Theology Think This, Not That Tobit Toilets Toys Tradition Traditions Transplants Travel Trinity Twitter U.S. Air Force Uncategorized United Nations USCCB Valentine Vatican Vatican Archives Vatican Blogfest Virtue Vocations Where We Pray White Heart Women World Day of Social Communications World Meeting of Families World News World Youth Day Worship Writing Year of Consecrated Life Year of Faith Year of Mercy Youth

Select a Month December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who had a dream about a statue made of various metals?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Joseph Daniel Nebuchadnezzar David