The Corner : The German Babies

re: "...When I read that story about "dump your unwanted baby here," I knew that picture. It's an old story. Lots of Neapolitan churches had a feature on the front door, a sort of revolving bassinette so that women could take their unwanted newborns, put them in the container, and then revolve it so that the [babies] went inside. /Those babies were called "esposti," exposed, as in "left outside," and as they grew up they were given the last name "esposito." We all know some Espositos, my personal favorite was a hockey star for Boston and then the Rangers. Many of them come from Naples, and at one point or another one of their ancestors was put in that revolving bassinette and rotated inside a church. /So I will, for once, mildly disagree with Mark, who is right about the phenomenon and right to be contemptuous of a wealthy German culture that has adopted a custom born out of the desperation and poverty of the Neapolitan underclass, combined with the generosity and love of the churches that saved these children. But I think he is wrong to call it post-human. It's been there all along. But its meaning is different today. Back then it was the best they could do. Today it's a disgusting form of narcissism..."...