A Modest Supposal

In “A Modest Proposal,” English satirist Jonathan Swift takes aim at government officials despised as much then as now: stupid social engineers and blundering bureaucrats.

---

Swift suggested commercial cannibalism as relief for the starving Irish, who, as he wrote in an August 1729 letter, had endured “ … three terrible years’ dearth … every place strewn with beggars….” Hoping a satirical slap would awaken government leaders to the reality that merely throwing money at problems with no concern for results measured by social and moral reforms (as is seen in this country, where entitlements remunerate young women content to be “breeders,” indifferent to their children’s legitimacy), Swift suggested that 120,000 one-year-old Irish children, fat and healthy from mother’s milk, could be sold — not to be raised, but eaten! Swift’s contemporaries believed that Americans adopted savage survival practices, and sometimes ate their own kids. Arguing that one-year-old Irish children would also make tasty, wholesome repasts, Swift wrote,

“I have been assured by a … knowing American … 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, and … will equally serve in fricassees or ragouts.”

When I read this quote, my British Literature students became uncomfortable. The next Swift quote pushed them over the edge:

“… I rather recommend buying the children alive and dressing them hot from the knife — skinned and gutted — as we do roasting pigs.”

“Swift’s proposal is anything but modest,” one student railed. “Do you really feel that, in modern, politically correct classrooms, such repulsive literature is appropriate? What transfer value does this satire have? How can we utilize moral or social teachings from this cruel essay, written almost three hundred years ago?” “The word ‘moral’ should provide proper social parameters in this century, as it should have, but didn’t, in Swift’s time,” I said. Joining their classmate in attack mode, students asked, “How so?” Knowing many college students favor the new Health Care Law, but are unaware of its devastating social and economic repercussions, I asked, “How many of you have parents and grandparents past middle age?” Most raised their hands. “What mother would willingly sell her child, knowing it would be eaten?” I got negative nods. “By the same token, which of you could be so cold-hearted as to go along with the Health Care Law provision mandating elderly Americans attend death counseling seminars, and if deemed societal liabilities by bureaucrats, must be destroyed?” Following their pensive silence, I ended the discussion in Swift-like, satirical fashion. “Suppose you demanded payment for their aged bodies? They’d be tough, sinewy and unpalatable, but you could require that the remains be cooked into prilled pellets and fed to bottom-feeding catfish, known to ingest any type of nourishment, regardless of its source. Filleted and fried, they would rival tender young babies as a wholesome food source.” Stunned, the students didn’t know whether to groan, gasp, giggle, or gag at such a modest supposal.