this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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why are you so set on defending the conscription of children?
I’m not defending conscription of children. I’m defending colonized people’s right to continue having children as both an act of resistance and a way to further your own culture rather than giving up to the genociders. Your argument implies Palestinians and First Nations people are morally wrong for having children as they are actively genocided.
what right does someone have to make someone else's life their act of resistance? how is that not literally conscription?
The problem here is that you are using a individualist idealist perspective. We Marxists do not follow moralistic lines of reasoning. Morals are arbitrary and idealistic while we live in a material world. Marx didn’t say taking surplus value was immoral, he knew no matter what he thought that socialism was inevitable because of objective material class struggle. You are using the morals of a sad westerner with no apparent culture, influenced by individualistic thought to condemn oppressed peoples who care about the their own culture that is under attack.
If it is immoral to have children that will live poorly then shouldn’t the whole global south be sterilized? This is a generic Malthusian position, but instead of being racist or thinking humans are themselves totally bad, you just think having children who will suffer is immoral. Shouldn’t this lead to the entire proletariat committing collective suicide, no, rich people aren’t happy other, maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce either. How about humanity just commits collective suicide because life inevitably includes some sort of suffering no matter the material conditions? Are you going to condemn the prey animals for having kids that will be eaten, next? Maybe the universe should just be dead considering every living being suffers.
I doubt you’d take your argument to that extreme so let’s examine why. Essential in the Malthusian view is the illusion that humanity and nature are separate. Many think people should stop having kids or simply die because they “care about the environment.” However, we are a part of nature. Pure unchanging nature is a myth. We emerged from nature and remain natural beings. We are no different in essence than something like a rabbit. We should seek balance with it as a part of it.
I hope you understand the absurdity of your argument now.
no and i have never suggested such a thing. There is plenty to go around if it were distributed equitably and i don't dispute that. Local scarcity might be an immediate cause of suffering but there are plenty of way to suffer incredibly that don't go away even in the lap of luxury.
what is so valuable about the idea of us that some nebulous group is worth the suffering of billions? If you mean mass suicide, no, ending a life is quite different from not beginning one and is quite difficult to weigh the dramatically increased suffering of a botch against the relatively known quantity of continuing to live despite the intractable misery. If you're hyperbolizing a dwindling population as "suicide" i'm not sure what the problem is, the last few folks might get bored but they definitely don't have the right to force others to suffer for their benefit.
i don't think there's much evidence for the suggestion that non-human animals make that sort of complex moral analysis or have any sort of metacognitive introspection. Survival "strategies" come in a huge variety and while there are some species who refuse to breed in captivity but I don't think that stress response is done with any moral calculus. I'm sure there are 2nd generation animals in terrible zoo conditions that would prefer to have never been born, if they were in fact capable of having any preference on the matter.
I don't really know what a "dead universe" is or how you're valuing something about the mere existence of living beings so much that it is worth causing literally all of the suffering that ever happens.
i don't know where this "not be allowed" is coming from, there's no possible legitimate authority that could enforce that and there's certainly no ethical way to criminalize having children. It's unethical and/or harmful to do all sorts of relatively mundane things like drink to excess, be rude to wage workers, cheat on a closed partnership, cut in line etc and yet these things are rarely made illegal and it doesn't go well when states try to.
i don't understand what's so valuable about a group identity that it excuses conscription and nobody has even tried to address that. It's a choice for the living to fight oppression, and i think fighting is the right choice, but forcing someone into a war against their will is a terrible thing to do. we recognize that when it's conscription of young men, we even recognize it in science fiction with critical takes on clone armies, why is it any different for making new living beings the old fashioned way?
We should make life as equitable as possible for the people condemned to it but you don't need to force more people to live and suffer to build communism.
You didn’t get my point about moralism did you.
I was simply extending your logic to its logical conclusion. Sure you didn’t say you supported real policy to sterilize people but you did condemn people for having children, thus suggesting it would be preferable had they not had children and sterilization is a way to make that happen. You are trying to make a difference between having children during wartime and having children that suffer as is inherent to the human condition, but who are you to make that distinction. You are a moral relativist, some suffering is worse than other suffering and actions can have different moral implications depending on circumstance. Where is the threshold between suffering being too bad to reproduce and not? What would you say to someone who considers all suffering equally bad or all child having to be equally bad, let alone thinking there is a moral imperative to reproduce when under genocidal attack? This is the problem with moralistic thinking, it’s all subjective and not based in material reality. How do you know Palestinians would regret being born? I’m sure a lot of them find meaning in keeping their culture alive and fighting for what is right. It’s not conscription because they don’t have to fight, they may choose to fight for what’s right tho. You don’t know if the child you have will regret being born or not. Why let the possible negative stop you from doing something? If we do that we’ll never do anything.
By “collective suicide” I do not mean necessarily everyone actually kill’s themselves, I mean everyone chooses for their group to stop existing by not reproducing. If you’re not going to make more people to live to produce communism then you’re never going to have communism. I don’t mean one should impose their ideology on to their kids, but struggles don’t end in a generation. People aren’t going to stop having kids whatever you want.
Once again, you are coming from a western individualist perspective without recognizing it. It’s different for the people you are condemning. Their morals are not the morals your specific context gave you.
Your response does not adequately address the questions I pose in the previous comment at all. All you’re saying is “I didn’t say what my statement’s logical conclusion that you are criticizing was.” Please reread it.
are you so relativist when it comes to child abuse? there are cultures where it's normal to pierce the ears of infants, or worse. If we cannot say that violating the bodily autonomy of a child is bad then what the fuck are you even doing?
this is conscription
i have no illusion about that and we should pursue the best possible world for those of us with the misfortune of being condemned to live in it.
obviously I don't agree with your "logical conclusion". i'm sure there are debatelord terms for the specific way of making shit up that you committed but I'll just reiterate that there are loads of "wrong" things where trying to use the state to enforce morality would incur a greater harm. It being legal to cheat on a partner isn't an endorsement of cheating or a denial of the harm caused, but there's no way morality police wouldn't be worse. The most we could or should do about natal conscription is cultivate mores against it.
You still don’t get my point about moralistic arguments. You are still using idealist reasoning, and others using similar reasoning might come to different conclusions. You’re imposing your own assumptions on others in a different context. Marxists are supposed to be materialists not idealists. We do not debate in the realm of morals.
i find it very difficult to believe that someone with queer in their name would be a staunch moral relativist.
what's the non-idealist argument against harming another person for no reason? you've almost certainly read more marx than i have.
Pointing out the dominant moral paradigm does not make me have no opinions. My opinion on this issue comes first from the facts that patriarchy is justified with idealist logic, while if you do much beyond surface level analysis it’s clear there are not true binaryness in sex or ascribed gender characteristics and historically there have been different gender systems, and that gender oppression is materially tied with class oppression, and secondarily because I believe that oppression is bad thanks to many material affects on my consciousness I do not fully understand.
Morality and emotions are historically constructed, so idk exactly, but as empathetic beings we generally don’t like to see people hurt. One Randian semi-materialist argument that comes to mind is that one wouldn’t hurt people randomly because that will generally have negative social implications for thonself, and harm them in the long run.
Hurting someone for no reason is very different from birthing someone who might suffer if that’s what you’re pointing to. If anything the average psychological pain might be less than an alienated westerner like you, considering the benefits of solidarity and documented improvements in mental health during war.
I’m flattered, though I’ve only read like two OG Marx works. I’ve read more Engels and Mao along with listening to RevLeft and people on here.
So you are still sticking with saying Palestinians should not be allowed to reproduce. You are calling for submission to genocide. If no Palestinians had children there would be no Palestine fighting today.