{"id":127426,"date":"2025-01-24T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/la-demographie-de-lextreme\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T10:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:15:17","slug":"la-demographie-de-lextreme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/la-demographie-de-lextreme\/","title":{"rendered":"La D\u00e9mographie de l\u2019extr\u00eame"},"content":{"rendered":"
Re-reading works of fiction can shed new light on the current trends and concerns surrounding demography. Aggravated by waning birthrates, these concerns relate to fertility, migration, aging, or (more broadly) the environment.<\/h6>
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V\u00e9ron<\/span> Jacques and Rohrbasser<\/span> Jean-Marc, La D\u00e9mographie de l\u2019extr\u00eame. Quand la fiction anticipe l\u2019avenir des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s,<\/em> Paris: La D\u00e9couverte (Cahiers libres), 2024, 296 p.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n \n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Two French specialists, Jacques V\u00e9ron and Jean-Marc Rohrbasser, have written an original book on the subject [Extreme Demography: When Fiction Anticipates the Future of Societies<\/em>]. Working at the Institut national d\u2019\u00e9tudes d\u00e9mographiques (INED) (French Institute for Demographic Studies), these two prolific readers examine what literature can tell us about demography. Drawing on their reading of stories, novels, essays, and various tales, they analyse population changes to address the question: \u201cAre the dystopian worlds and \u2018demographic hells\u2019 portrayed by authors entirely unrealistic?\u201d Their work provides an opportunity to explore the realities of global demographic dynamics and to revisit an intellectual world of utopias and dystopias.<\/p>\n

The authors examine a demographic science that is driven by the search for the optimum and the maximum, permeated by quantitative Malthusianism and qualitative eugenics. Through their prolific study of texts, they also show how collective fears have evolved. Whereas in the mid-twentieth century there were fears surrounding the P-bomb (or \u201cpopulation bomb\u201d),[1]<\/a><\/sup> today these have been overtaken by concerns about the D-bomb (or \u201cde-population bomb\u201d).<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n The Invention of the Future: Foresight and Science Fiction<\/a>\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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27 June 2016<\/div>\n KLEIN G\u00e9rard<\/a>\n
\n 24 p.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Article Revue\n <\/a>\n Science and Technology<\/a>\n Society<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Several classical thinkers, including Plato and Thomas More, imagined utopias based around the stability and quality of populations. The supposed populational paradises in these texts are made possible by totalitarian policies that restrict individual freedoms. The societies described by Plato and More are utopias because they correspond to their wishes. Other, more numerous authors have described dystopian societies, embodying their fears: ecological or demographic collapse requiring drastic changes to either ban reproduction (in the case of over-population) or make it compulsory (to combat under-population). The ideas present in dystopian works are based on very dark projects. Many futuristic perspectives prove to be obscurantist, and religious and military totalitarianisms are also at play, fuelling apocalyptic prophecies. While some approaches use hellish and terrifying images, others are more comical or amusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V\u00e9ron and Rohrbasser observe that the most coercive measures portrayed in works of fiction have been implemented in the real world. They give the examples of forced sterilization in India and China\u2019s one-child policy. They then emphasize the recent complete U-turns on the part of the elites in these two countries in favour of a more natalist aim. Totalitarian regimes have swung from wanting fewer children to wanting more children. On a global level, including in democracies, the same shift can be observed. The authors write that: \u201cThe idea of controlling birth rates, to either curb or encourage births, is a widely recurring one. After the Second World War, the focus was on reduction, then much more recently it has moved to increasing births.\u201d However, it is worth noting that policies to reduce births have been more effective than those aiming to encourage them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, demography is a complicated issue. It mixes the most private matters (the decision to have children or not) with the most collective ones, because these individual decisions combine to have significant collective consequences when it comes to balancing a society\u2019s accounts (children are needed so that they can grow up to work and help fund welfare systems) and the broader balance of societies. As aptly stated by the authors, \u201calthough whether to have children is primarily a couple\u2019s decision, declining birth rates are a matter for the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

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This concise yet educational book provides insight into the contemporary trends and concerns about urbanization, migration, aging, and gender equality. It raises questions about our current geopolitical and environmental fears, about urbanization as a consequence or a driver of demographic growth, about pollution, recycling, and waste management (including the bodies of the deceased), about female or male infertility, about the quest for immortality, about euthanasia and end of life, about epidemics, and about environmental migration (however difficult to categorize and evaluate). By evoking the disaster scenarios of what the authors call \u201cextreme demography,\u201d the book provides some helpful perspective on our fears and hopes (whichever may dominate).<\/p>\n

This clever work, which blends fiction and nonfiction, is also a fascinating read. It inspires us to reflect and to read (or re-read) Swift, Montaigne, Beauvoir, Anthony Burgess, Romain Gary, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, and Georges Perec. What could be better? In any case, if there is one must-read book on demography today, this is it.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n Growing Old in Tomorrow\u2019s World<\/a>\n \n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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26 April 2023<\/div>\n PARANT Alain<\/a>\n
\n 16 p.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Futures of Yesteryear\n <\/a>\n Economics<\/a>\n Society<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Translated and edited by Cadenza Academic Translations.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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    Reference to Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich\u2019s work, The Population Bomb<\/em> (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968). \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Re-reading works of fiction can shed new light on the current trends and concerns surrounding demography. Aggravated by waning birthrates, these concerns relate to fertility, migration, aging, or (more broadly) the environment. V\u00e9ron Jacques and Rohrbasser Jean-Marc, La D\u00e9mographie de l\u2019extr\u00eame. Quand la fiction anticipe l\u2019avenir des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, Paris: La D\u00e9couverte (Cahiers libres), 2024, 296 … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":101425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[212],"keyword":[847,3534,1185,1168,974,872],"class_list":["post-127426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-seen-heard","tag-societe-en","keyword-demographie-en","keyword-dystopie","keyword-fiction-en","keyword-population-en","keyword-science-fiction-en","keyword-utopie-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127426"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127436,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127426\/revisions\/127436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127426"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=127426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}