Population control is an extremely ancient idea, and so is destroying the family. Plato especially advocated the latter. When utopianism or idealism aims to accomplish God’s work (Heaven on earth) without God, then you always get hell and recurring ideas and themes to accomplish it. Plato essentially wanted the State (his Republic) to be the Church ; that is, the new human family, and in order to accomplish that, he determined the “old” family would have to be destroyed, because via it traditional beliefs and values that were not all good (disregarding the really good ones) were propagated from generation to generation. The traditional family also caused mixed loyalties among citizens (family v. government). This was unacceptable to Plato. He thought the best way to get rid of the old family was to encourage state-sanctioned orgies so children could never know who their fathers were, and further children would be randomly swapped and bestowed upon mothers, with or without the mothers knowing. Promiscuity was perfectly fine so long as it did not produce any children as a result. He also advocated a public education system to indoctrinate the population and propogate the laws, ideals and ideas of the republic.
Plato also noted that music should be pre-determined and established, following strict rules limiting or preventing innovations, and any introduction of new music would be synonymous with treason, seduction or subversion. Typical of Plato, he always stumbled on truth but never knew how to properly apply it, or applied it in the only context he knew how. Music reflects and effects culture, beliefs, etc., and is fundamentally prayerful and religious. When it changes, the people have also changed, and if you want to change people’s beliefs and thinking, an easy way to propogate new ideas is through music.
Population control can be seen as early as the French Revolution, where those men who committed regicide to get what they wanted determined France simply had too many people, and that this was why people were starving, so they began to murder mass populations of people, especially those people whom it was politically expedient for them to murder. I believe the USSR felt this was necessary on a few occassions as well.
Frankly, these are some ancient fallacies and like all the worst crimes often have their roots in good intentions.
