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Demography Hervé Le Bras  Book Description | Endorsements |
Table of Contents    The Dynamics of Change in Demography
Demography has often been contrasted with psychoanalysis. Both
are studies of man and society: one is concerned with
populations, the other with individuals. One makes use of
mathematics, the other focuses on language. For one the
individual is an anonymous and isolated gambler who draws the
events of his life as in a lottery; for the other, society
remains a shadowy multitude governed by the primary drives of
life and death. To these differences I would add another that
appears to me to sum them all up: demography has one and only
one theory, one and only one paradigm, whereas the many
competing schools of psychoanalysis defend rival and mutually
incompatible theories. An analyst will be labeled as Freudian,
Jungian, or Lacanian, and will invoke such and such a master
when defining his or her position and clinical methods. A dem