Actually, I believe it is known as antinatalism. I had no idea there were so many people passionately opposed to procreation, on the grounds that it morally indefensible to bring a child into the world when we know with certainty that it will lead to suffering and death.
Do you feel this is a crock of shit? I do, and here’s why. I believe that if I invited every antinatalist to commit suicide, I would get no takers. Why? Because they fucking want to live, that’s why! Even though life means suffering, THEY WANT MORE OF IT. But they don’t want to subject this thing they want more of, to any future beings.
I believe these avowed antinatalists are acting in bad faith by refusing to kill themselves. Shit or get off the pot, know what I mean?
Life is certainly filled with tragedy but as Woody Allen complained about a restaurant with bad food, the portions are so small!
By the way, I came upon this topic via Chip Smith, a provocateur (and antinatalist) whose website wants to make you mad, or at least ruffle your feathers.
Sister Wolf: You write “and I agree that your existential pain would not be the best framework for fatherhood.”
I’d say it would provide the best framework for fatherhood. Existential pain is, in my opinion, of necessity and strikes everyone who reflects further than on what to have for dinner tonight. Hiding this collective and basal pain from our children, treating it as a taboo, is nothing other than an act of deceit. Giving a child a rosy cottonlined image of the world is to make its inevitable existentialist awakening and pain more dramatic and more damaging than it has to be. Had we all tried to understand our existentialist pain, had parents encouraged thought and discussion about our position in existence, the meaning or nonmeaning of it all rather than providing an illusion and desperately treating it all as one big happy garden party, neurotically ignoring the pain of it all (save perhaps the distant sufferings of Christ), the world would perhaps be a more peaceful, more healthy place. Less rosy perhaps, but more healthy. To contemplate one’s existence is not unhealthy, or abnormal. It is and should be treated as the most basic and most important contemplation we undertake, a need as basic as any other. What else is there to contemplate? If I had been so vain (Santa Clause forbid) that I thought of myself as having a right to procreate I would have tried to make sure my inevitably doomed children grow up under no illusions, even if it would mean they would probably blame me for having come into existence (I would have had to apologize). Fortunately I find existence so shit that I am going to spare any future being the experience. The best is of course not to create these insatiable and often pain-rendering needs for meaning in the first place. And yes, one day I will (although antinatalism does not require it, you fierce opponents out there!) put an end to my boring, though pretty comfortable, upper-middle class existence. I’m just going to contemplate it a little while longer.
One of the reasons I will do myself in is, as you might have guessed, my non-mastery of language (ironic, I know).
Back after four weeks!
“Let me ask you this, Mr. Porter. Is it possible to adhere to a philosophy that is not connected in a significant way to your own psychological make-up and/or childhood experience?
I await your thoughtful response.”
Ultimately I think it is possible – e.g. it might just be what everyone else believes. But if you mean adherence by choice, then I think psychological make-up must enter into it. Even if you adopted a philosophy bearing no obvious relationship to your own life experience, that choice would have to come from something in you.
Better late than never, Mitchell. I feel the same way. Thanks for answering!
Everyone knows life is bullshit. Anyone who denies this is fucking delusional. I don’t commit suicide because I like learning things and doing things. I also would like to see where the shit called “humans” will take this planet.
But seriously, everyday is a struggle for pretty much everyone, why should we put someone who has no choice in the matter through this situation?
There are a lot of people in the world, who actually commit suicide. Many more try (the estimates go up to 20 Million suicide-attempts per year). Still more people are living a self-destructive lifestyle.
Antinatalists may try to make the best of their “life-sentence”, but still don’t wish the same suffering for the unborn. I couldn’t exist without the aid of my daily medication. It takes so much to make living halfway tolerable, if only a few circumstances would be slightly worse, life would be utterly inacceptable. It is hard to imagine, how one could guarantee their offspring, that their life will be tolerable. Moreover, if someone commits suicide it is the end of years of suffering, and the suicide itself causes pain. The “bare bodkin” of Hamlet doesn’t exist, if it would, well…..
Your logic is encouraging suicide.
Depressed people are very aware of the apparent contradiction of action being inconsistent with ideation. They are often times repressed from following through with suicide only by the instinct of self preservation. This only adds to their frustration and suffering. As anyone who has tried to lose weight or overcome an addiction will attest, sometimes the reptilian brain stem overpowers the prefrontal cortex with unwanted directives. It’s like trying to hold your hand over a flame or pulling your own tooth. This doesn’t make you a hypocrite but rather, a victim of the human experience.
Once we are born, we are held prisoner here by our own unwanted instincts. It’s one more example of the cruelty of life and, paradoxically, one more reason to escape it.
Implying that antinatalists are some variation of hypocrite is tantamount to yelling “Jump!” to someone on the edge of a bridge.