Have ya'll ever met eugenicists and racists? those are some of the most natalist motherfuckers out there. You think all the mystic woo woo "having children is like +1 good" bullshit you want, THOSE PEOPLE THINK THAT HARDER THAN YOU DO!!!
This rant is sponsored by yesterday's grandma demanding in the form of a question when I'm going to shit out babies for her and also random strawman comments in an obscure subreddit.
Edit: ITT: people actually starting to bully me for not wanting to have kids. Did not expect this on "leftist" website.
You must log in or register to comment.
There is a difference between "I would rather not have children" and "Having children is morally wrong". The first is just a personal preference. The second is anti-natalism.
The problem is that personal ethics doesn’t actually really exist. It’s kind of just… nonexistent navel gazing.
No, you can't. Unless you think "I believe abortion is wrong, and I would never have one, but I believe they should be available to others" or "I believe homosexuality is immoral but the government doesn't have any business policing peoples' sexuality" are normal and good takes.
Believing that something is immoral but supporting and apologizing for those who do it makes you worse than a bigot, it makes you a hypocrite.
How about "Cheating on your partner is wrong, but adultery shouldn't be illegal"?
makes you worse than a bigot, it makes you a hypocrite.
Bigotry is worse than hypocrisy.
I believe abortion is wrong, and I would never have one, but I believe they should be available to others
I struggle to see how that isn't being pro choice. I thought the whole point was that no one should be forced to give birth
But the second isn’t eugenics, it’s the idea that no one should have kids.
But on any practical level they're both ideologies which cannot be implemented without the forcible suppression of the reproductive rights of billions of people. To me, that's a kind of "it's not racism, Islam isn't a race" kind of distinction where it's technical to the point of pointlessness.
I think the misunderstanding there is that anti-natalism is not (necessarily) an “ideology” to “implement”. It’s just a moral standpoint. i.e. you morally shouldn’t have kids because the world you’d be bringing them into is incredibly fucked*, but no one is going to forcibly stop you from having kids.
* not in a Malthusian “excess population” kind of way, but just that things are getting worse as capitalism decays into fascism and climate change ramps up because capitalism has done nothing to stop it. It’s not that having kids makes things worse, it’s that things are already bad and you’d be subjecting them to that.
The point of any philosophy, including moral philosophy, is to change the world with it. And there's no real way to implement anti-natalism without Malthusian eugenics or genocide.
Or sci-fi tech or world peace and if it’s the latter, good luck convincing people to not have kids because life apparently can suck. Not saying that argument wouldn’t be true in that case, even- just that people are not going to buy it.
I think that there are people who treat it as either or both. That said, I think the personal expression and ideological expression are very different things. Like how a disabled person who doesn't want to have kids so as to not pass on their disability isn't the same as a eugenicist.
Yes, they're different, but the latter doesn't exist in any serious capacity. There are no groups of people practically trying to express anti-natalism as a sterilize everything movement.
For the vast majority, this is somewhere between a thought exercise and a gentle plea to others to consider not having kids. Not disabled others, or poor others, but any others.
Yes, they're different, but the latter doesn't exist in any serious capacity. There are no groups of people practically trying to express anti-natalism as a sterilize everything movement.
There was one user here with a long established post history who did argue to the point of a temporary ban (so I won't name the name) that no one should reproduce, and no animal for that matter, until and unless some magical means to determine consent for the unborn before they were born could be established. That was their absolutist position, and may well effectively be a sterilization mandate as a nihilistic power fantasy.
The thing about materialism is that it's trying to describe the way the world the way it is, and why it is that way, and what we can do to achieve a better future. It's inherently political.
Theres no practical way to even pursue the goal of sterilising everything. It's purely a moral philosophy with no possible praxis. There's no way to build a political movement out of this. When people here talk about natalism, they seem to want to believe it's motivating people into action, but how could it? It's lile believing everybody should be able to summon portals --A cool thought, but at the end of the day, an idea that doesn't exist on any political spectrum.
That particular user with the "nothing should ever be born again" take was terminal-stage idealistic about a nihilistic proposition. I didn't even know how to respond except by posting this comic.
Show
It's purely a moral philosophy with no possible praxis.
Which is the issue. It can’t really be acted on except as bastardizations of the idea that end up hurting people.
There's quite a crockoduck from either of those to racism and eugenics.
Plenty of ideas can be expressed in contradictory ways. Plenty of racists simultaneously think that certain groups of people are subhuman but also control all of society, the economy, and government. Plenty of people bray for wars but would never enlist to fight in them.
Anti-natalism, specifically defined as the idea that nobody should have children, tends to overlap with general misanthropy that also overlaps with Eugenics-adjacent ideas - one of which is the belief that an imperfect life or a life of hardship is one that should not be lived.
Not wanting to have kids is fine. Anti-natalism is crank shit
belief that an imperfect life or a life of hardship is one that should not be lived
perfect summation, i wouldn't call it adjacent, rather it's exactly eugenics.
this is completely incorrect, negative eugenics, the version most popular and most implemented is not about breeding 'correct' people, it's about preventing the reproduction of undesirable groups. which obviously became marginalized people, even if some people in the movement tried to claim it wasn't inherently based on class and race.
- the practical implementation of anti-natalism (preventing those who are most likely to suffer from being born) already exists in multiple countries as policy and it is often used to prevent neurodivergent people from even existing
Because anti-natalism isn't about personally not wanting to have children, it's about the belief that having children is morally wrong, which always harkens back to malthusian arguments about overpopulation, classist bullshit about the poors breeding too much and irresponsibly, and nihilism. It's definitely not a revolutionary ideology by any means.
Anti-natalism really has little connection to Malthusianism, the people who use both are just cynical misanthropes. There is no ideal lower population number for the anti-natalist except 0 because their concern isn't with carrying capacity or whatever but what they see as the fundamental nature of sentient life.
David Benatar, the main anti-natalist 'theory' guy, has a whole section in his book on overpulation. It's definitely one of their talking points.
Anthropocentrically, there may not be enough food to go around, or the world may simply become too crowded. Environmentally, the ecological ‘footprint’ of a very large human population may be too great.⁶ Thus the usual concern is to avoid having too many people around at one time or within some specified period. That is a reasonable concern
He then goes on to say argue that any number of people are too many people, but that having an "overpopulation" of people is worse than having just a few.
Yeah, every anti-natalist I've ever read or spoken with cared much more about "overpopulation" than the issue of consent at being brought into existence. Anti-natalism is without any doubt very strongly tied to malthusian nonsense even if some of the more philosophically educated among them like to couch it in terms of sentience and consent. To think otherwise is to completely misunderstand the movement.
Edit to clarify: I know that there are plenty of people who exist who hold the position that what is problematic is that life inherently involves suffering and so bringing it about is causing suffering which is immoral. I'm even somewhat sympathetic to that view even if I don't agree with the very premise of it. But I've (personally, anecdotally) never seen those people refer to themselves as anti-natalist. However those who have self described as anti-natalist and certainly any of them who considered themselves part of a movement were eco-fash adjacent malthusians. The overall anti-natalist movement is deeply entwined with and cannot be separated from malthusianism.
DB might be the most big-name modern antinatalist, but he doesn't speak for the view in its entirety. In fact, I would consider him to be under the cynical misanthrope label for just the reasons you describe.
I am sympathetic to the antinatalist viewpoint but have zero sympathy for malthusianism or eugenics. My sympathy for antinatalism comes more from what Schopenhauer suggests rather than Benetar's bullshit. Ironically, I think there is sort of a logical fork between antinatalism and transhumanism where it is at least extremely difficult to counter the purely antinatalist view without relying on the (to be clear, very real) possibility that we can change what it means to be human on a fundamental level in order to make it better (and yes, this could only be meaningfully accomplished in a socialist society, it would be a eugenic nightmare under capitalism).
Is there a term for "I'm tired of natalists abusing me 24/7" that doesn't mean all these wacky words? My personal decision to not have kids is economically dictated by capitalism creating a descending hellscape than any of those other mystery words.
Just "not personally wanting to have kids".
Anti-natalism means you think humanity as a whole should stop reproducing, and that reproducing in general is immoral. If that's not something you agree with, then you are not an anti-natalist.
Not entirely sure but, based on what I’ve seen, the individual choice to abstain is labelled “child-free”
Anti-natalism is just Reddit-tier reactionary bullshit that should long have been banned from this website. I truly don't understand why it hasn't yet. It's about as reactionary as anarcho-primitivism. Like, imagine peddling this reactionary bullshit to Gazan women who just gave birth surrounded by rubble. The anti-natalist's first reaction is to spit in the faces of these happy women for having the shameless audacity to bring forth children into a cruel life in a concentration camp, a concentration camp that is undergoing the final solution courtesy of IDF fighter jets no less.
Antinatalism is not allowed on the site or in this community. I have left this thread up because of the good work comrades have and are continuing to do to debunk it. If the tone sours, I will lock it.
It is banned from this website. There’s an entire sidebar that talks about how much it sucks.
This shows the fundamental issue, which is when one fails to temper any sort of analysis like anti-natalism with an outright anti-individualistic lens.
When you are even remotely willing to entertain individual solutions to moral issues, anti-natalism becomes a horrific ideology. Nothing about it is redeemable, as it merely condemns those who are already suffering.
But when viewed through a purely social lens, it becomes much more palatable. The question then becomes how best to reduce child birth and in the least horrific way possible. The answer is socialism, followed by intense philosophical scrutiny and elevation.
However, calling the latter anti-natalism is… questionable, but only because of the individualistic nature of the currently existing movement, and the extreme lack of moral judgement. That, and the very real possibility that said philosophical scrutiny could reveal an entirely different mindset, and might not even lead to anti-natalism. The alternative: forced genocide and sterilization, though, is much worse, so it still makes sense to go for the cultural route, ultimately. Plus, whoever is theoretically disagreeing with anti natalism in the theoretical communist future might just be correct. They probably have much better philosophical tools and perspectives then we do.
Antinatalism is nonsensical edgy thrashing at best, and Malthusian at worst. It's usually the thrashing, but it's presence on the modern internet has clearly been guided and platformed by the latter. Building socialism as a method of reducing birthrate is a generous redirection, but the core concept of antinatalism is always purely individual and irredeemable as you've stated.
Whenever boomers ask me when I'm having kids I always ask them when they plan on fixing the world they destroyed.
Mostly nobody asks me anymore. It's nice.
Some of the arguments for antinatalism can get malthusian. I think you can just not have kids without turning it into an identity. The moment someone calls themselves antinatalist I can't help but think they're a dork at best or have some fascist idea about there being too many people at worst.
I know an antinatalist who simply believes that suffering in life is inevitable, but joy isn't so guaranteed, and would prefer that no creature or organism at all have children. That life itself is an unjust thing and that perpetuating it perpetuates a system of suffering.
I guess you could slot him under dork, but it's definitely not about the number of humans.
Thank you for saying that. Obviously I'm not the friend in question but I do have chronic pain and it gets lonely when even leftists act like I need to pull myself up by the bootstraps and ignore my disability so I can be better at parties, or whatever.
It's not directly racist or eugenics I guess. But it overlaps with the crowd and could be used for those purposes. David Benatar is the guy who brought up antinatalism in the modern day; his academic pages is full of edgy stuff and debates over affirmative action and cancel culture or whatever: https://humanities.uct.ac.za/department-philosophy/contacts/david-benatar
The reason life sucks under the current system of capitalism, classism, racism, patriarchy, etc. is not an ontological or moral problem...it's the system itself. We haven't fixed the world yet ie global socialist revolution, and blaming previous generations isn't a solution meanwhile.
Leftist philosophy is one of praxis and change, not accepting and moralizing about the current state of things, especially taking capitalism, racism, patriarchy etc. as given. If a leftist is calling an antinatalist racist or eugenicist, I think this is why. They seem to have rejected that capitalism is able to be abolished. They seem to put blame on individual actions, most of whom are in the oppressed classes and have no true individual freedom. They prefer inaction and waiting for things to end for individuals, and look at others to do the same.
It seems like an op actually IMO
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
Either have a fucking child or don't. Shut the fuck up
99% of IRL is natalists shoving their worldview down my throat.
Damn I don’t know why these people who only exist because someone had a baby might be in favor of people having babies when it’s presented as a philosophical question. They must be insanely racist.
Actually, I am a "white passing" individual, so their demands that I have children might be influenced by qanon-style concerns about race demographic chnages in the US, which would in fact be a form of racism that is insane.
It's not a philosophical context, it's random inlaws bullying me at thanksgiving.
In laws arent random. They’re like the opposite of random. They just want you to have kids so they can blow their retirement fund on Lego sets for em. The older they are the more dire it feels for em because each year, month, week or day could be their last and they wanna pet that baby, can they pet that baAaBbY?
Should they be pushing their ideas about what you ought to do on you? Idk. At a certain point in the function that’s all there is to talk about.
“My family wants me to have kids, they might be racist” is a wild take.
I already know they're racist, this about them pressing me into having kids I don't want.
family pressure to have kids you don't can be invasive. relatives pressuring you to have kids is almost certainly because they want more children in the family
Anti-natalism is reactionary, and any opposition to it is therefore good. Hope that helps
Because most of them are racist eugenicists. And classist too.
reddit antinatalism had a main undercurrent of a collective politically illiterate acknowledgement that life is getting harder as time passes, in spite of the background radiation of soylent-fueled liberal toxic positivity propaganda, a despairing conviction amongst its users to rebel against the cruelty of the world by denying it any children
however, I suspect a combination of astroturfing and the western tendency to neurosis diverted it hard into individualistic moral calculus and racism, earning it its current reputation, all the good posts about the toil of 9-5+ and how awful the elite are were replaced by sneering at third world citizens and single mothers for being stupid for having kids (perpetuating the same sort of soylent-brained superstructure that is a symptom of the greater issue) or whatever the fuck bullshit they come up with these days
I've never seen a good retort to anti-natalism that doesn't just fall back on "you're just saying this cuz you're depressed". Even if that's true, it doesn't really address the arguments anti-natalists make, you can be depressed and right.
My retort is: if you don't think anyone should have children, for whom are you trying to build socialism?
Also, fascists and chuds will be having kids regardless of how moral you find it. I don't think this is a compelling reason to have kids but a kid raised by leftists is at least another potential comrade
My retort is: if you don't think anyone should have children, for whom are you trying to build socialism?
Some people, you may know a few, are alive right now. More are going to be born regardless of my feelings on the matter. Them.
Socialism is a political philosophy, but it's also a praxis. It's a practical material approach to reduce the suffering of people who live and will live.
Anti-natalism isn't a political philosophy. It's just a moral belief in what is right and wrong. It does not, and cannot be applied in any practical material sense aside from a magical theoretical life eraser button.
Socialism is something an anti-natalist might support because it's something they can actually DO to help, while still believing in the innate injustice of existence itself
They start out with this presupposition that existence is innately suffering, which they have absolutely no evidence for by the way. Not an X that inevitably comes with existence, but existence itself. They say this because were it an X that leads to suffering, the reasonable idea would be that we ought to combat X so that X either no longer exists or is severely mitigated if X is inevitable. This is why people consider them to be as best depressed and at worst eugenicists with extra steps. They evaluate their own life to be devoid of joy and project their own subjective understanding of their existence onto the subjectivity of other people. Like, their entire argument falls apart by just saying, "I feel that my life is full of joy and that life is worth living, and everyone else around me agrees with me with respect to my own life and their own lives." An anti-natalist has no choice but to pull some bullshit "uh acktually, you're not really happy, that's just copium for this miserable existence."
Suffering isn't an objective quality. It's a subjective quality that is contingent on the subject's experiences and self-evaluation. What is suffering for you may not be suffering for me and vice versa. By what grounds does the anti-natalist have to disregard the subjectivity of other people for their own?
"I feel that my life is full of joy and that life is worth living, and everyone else around me agrees with me with respect to my own life and their own lives." An anti-natalist has no choice but to pull some bullshit "uh acktually, you're not really happy, that's just copium for this miserable existence."
The retort to this I've seen more is "well it's great that you're enjoying your life, but that's luck of the draw. Every child born is a gamble, there's always some risk they will live a miserable life, especially with the way the world is going now but even in better times it's a risk. If you had been dealt a slightly different hand your life could have been miserable. So every parent that is bringing a child into this world is taking that gamble without the consent of the unborn, they have not say on whether they want to take that risk, it's better to just not risk the harm at all from a morality standpoint."
It's fairly defeatist that the misery couldn't be solved or that most people would find life to be miserable. My example specified "everyone else around me," so the anti-natalist has to make this incredulous argument that not only was I extremely lucky, but almost everyone around me was lucky as well. They would most likely fall back on "uh acktually, they're not happy, they're just being polite, you don't know what they're actuallly thinking."
Like I said earlier, anti-natalists have to sooner or later resort to denying the subjectivity of other people. Because overall, most people don't feel all that bad about their life. Even in places that are facing literal genocide like Gaza, I see Gazans holding on to the hope that Palestine will be liberated and Gazans getting on their knees to prostrate and thank Allah even in the midst of utter misery. Not to make light of their situation, but it's honestly very inspiring that they can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste so much death and destruction but yet still have the mental and emotional resolve to march forth and face another day, day after day until the day of liberation when they can feel the soil and breathe the air of a liberated Palestine. Anti-natalists can call it cope or religious brainwashing all they want, but it's quite clear that for all the misery that comes from genocide, they don't actually hate their lives but instead hate the wretched entity with all their hearts, the source of their misery. But instead of a vague notion like "existence," the Zionist entity has a history. It has a beginning and a middle, and it will have an end too. It was made with human hands, and it will be undone with human hands as well. This is why anti-natalism is rightfully associated with depression and reactionary defeatism because that's what it is in the end.
Consent, when applied to an agent that doesn't even exist yet, makes no sense whatsoever.
If you were suddenly granted the power of precognition, and saw that any child you would create was doomed to live a horrible life, would you still do it?
Retort to anti-natalism expressed as individuals not wanting to have kids, or expressed as the idea that nobody should have kids?
Someone who personally doesn't want kids isn't an anti-natalist though
Oh cool a “both sides” conversation about a topic that’s banned from this site for good reason. We’re doing such a thorough job debunking here, why don’t we start letting the fascists post too, we will do such a good job of tearing down their arguments, free posting here can only hurt their cause
Edit: also, op, kids are born, not “shit out,” fuck you
When it gets into weird sophistry like "no one alive now or in the past ever consented to being born so the only ethically sound position is to cease all births until and unless some means of determining pre-birth consent can be found" as I've seen in previous Hexbear struggle sessions, yeah fuck that. I don't know if it's eugenics or racism or just some edgy pop-nihilistic teeth-gnashing but it's counterproductive and clownish.
