The Rise of Birth Control & the Decline of Civilization

In The Sociological Tradition, Robert Nisbet referred to the Industrial and French Revolutions as the two great ideas of the western world.[1] No two events so dramatically altered civilization as significantly, their temporal overlap only intensifying their effects.

If the two Revolutions are the two great ideas of the Western world, then the third great idea must be birth control. No innovation has fundamentally altered the premises of civilization quite like birth control.

While liberals believe the central unit of life is the individual, conservatives believe that it is the family unit.[2] We are not a civilization of individuals, we are a civilization of families, with the family unit being the foundational brick on which civilization is built.[3]