A Pat Benatar song came on the car radio the other day and I was instantly reminded of a blog post I wrote years ago about antinatalism.
Antinatalism is the belief that it’s morally wrong to have children. Why is it wrong? Because “life is harm” and because the unborn is unable to give consent.
On the face of it, this argument is just nuts. I mean, it’s unconscious knowledge that this is nuts. By unconscious knowledge, I mean instinctual knowledge. We may also find it self-evident that a person who believes that “life is harm” is a deeply unhappy person.
But in trying to refresh my memory on the lunacy of antinatalism, I came across an essay that tries to refute the idea that antinatalism is a philosophy borne of depression. Yeah, well, some depressed people may see things more realistically than an incurable optimist, but it’s inherent in the illness to see the world in distorted ways that only therapy or meds can modify. (The most well-known proponent of antinatalism is a guy who insists on strict privacy about his private life so that we can’t extrapolate anything from his history or psychological make-up. Hint: He is miserable.)
Anyway, Pat Benatar caused me to go back and read the post from 2008, and just as I recall, the comments are hilarious. Comment threads like these have kept me writing here for a million years, and while they don’t occur very often, they are pure joy. I hope you will go read that post and then laugh your heads off at the comments.
And I hope you will be moved to comment here, so we can laugh some more.
I read the old post and made it over halfway through the comments, full of ideas and points aching to be born, when all my humanity and every possible focus and meaning of it was collapsed, like one of of those black holes with the mass of a million suns and gravity so great that not even light can get out, into the singularity of a large turd placed by my cat on the carpet a mere foot away from a smooth, easily-cleaned floor. A turd I stepped in, unknowingly, and distributed around the kitchen, before a persistent smell tipped me off that something in my world was foul.
So, is this one of those reasons nobody should have kids? Isn’t shit a product of life, fertilizer for growing more stuff to feed more life? It’s way too complicated for me, whose only purpose is the achievement of shit-free surfaces.
But I will keep reading your brilliant writing! Never stop.
xoxox
Bevitron – Oh dear! Is the shit a metaphor for antinatalism??
Nah!
I don’t have the sophistication to speak metaphorically! The antinatalism topic is so beyond me it doesn’t take much to break my tenuous grip on such a discussion.
I was really typing to put off cleaning up the carpet, floor, shoes…
Such an interesting subject.
I’m fine if others want kids. I used to be one of them. Maybe it’s just too hard to think of watching a person that I would have created, to suffer, as we all must. I’m not sure I was/am strong enough. Anyway, it’s too late for me …at one time, I desperately wanted to have a child and I would have treasured it, but in the end I guess things work out for the best.
Natalists tend to be right-wing Christian conservatives, so it’s weird for me to see an atheist Jew being so extremely opposed to antinatalism.
Poopface – No such thing as “natalists” just as there aren’t “round-earthers.” There are only normal people and anti-natalists.
Your argument asserting antinatalism is lunacy is supported only by the convenient declaration that it is unconscious knowledge. You will have to offer more substantial evidence if you expect us to believe this. Apparently, my unconscious knowledge is not the same as yours.