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Title: Antinatalism as revolution Author: Anonymous Date: 03/13/2009 Language: en Topics: anarcho-communism, antinatalism, ethics Source: http://archives-2001-2012.cmaq.net/fr/node/32288.html Notes: [Translation from Greek] Original at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=999931
Why should we, the proletarians, have children if they are taken by the
capitalists to be killed metaphorically in work and by the militarists
to be killed in reality as soldiers?
Antinatalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism) is a philosophy
with a centuries-long history that is against the birth of new foetuses
in the human society for ethical and philosophical reasons.
Antinatalists believe that the existence in life will necessarily cause
a person to live negative experiences, and use two philosophical
positions to support the idea that the birth of new humans is a bad
thing:
1. The philosophy of Hedonism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism)
that says that the meaning of life is happiness.
2. The position that since the meaning of life is happiness, we shall
not make other people unhappy.
Having in mind the above positions, and knowing that the existence in
life necessarily causes a person to live experiences that are not
satisfactory, antinatalists say that we ought to avoid procreation
because by procreating we force our children to live negative
experiences.
In this analysis, which has an anarchocommunist viewpoint, we will try
to laconically express the position that the proletarian
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat) has an ethical responsibility
to avoid procreation, for two reasons: firstly, because by procreating
the children will be tortured in capitalism, and secondly because in
that way new workers are created for the capitalists as well as and new
soldiers for the militarists. Our aim is to attempt to answer the
question: does antinatalism help the revolution? Is it, in essence, a
revolutionary philosophy?
We begin with the axiom that the perfect and most satisfactory society
is that built upon the ideals of anarchocommunism
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism), a society that is in
agreement with the basic propositions of Kropotkin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kropotkin)
Since our society today is not anarchocommunist, the proletarian lives a
life full of negative experiences: debt, hunger, imprisonment, and
fighting the wars of the elite.
When the proletarian procreates, their children will almost certainly
will become proletarians themselves and will have the same negative
experiences as their parents. Therefore with the act of procreation the
proletarian forces their children to live a life without satisfaction
and full of sorrow. This, however, based on the positions of
antinatalism, is something unethical. It is not right to force others to
feel sadness.
Moreover, the proletarian if they are a conscious revolutionary has an
ethical obligation to not assist the current capitalist system to
preserve itself. The existence of new proletarians helps the
self-preservation of capitalism, since they become new consumers, new
workers, and new soldiers. In short, the birth of new children by
proletarians is an act that further promotes capitalism.
In accordance with the above positions, therefore, the proletarian
should not create new children, because in that way they force them to
live a life in sadness and at the same time they surrender the children
to the capitalists who are known to have no mercy and will use them for
the continuing preservation of their unjust system (capitalism could not
exist without a lot of proletarians).
Therefore we provided a possible answer to the question about the
revolutionary properties of antinatalism, supporting the view that
antinatalism is a revolutionary philosophy because it refuses to supply
new proletarians to the capitalist machine, and we see that a possible
act of resistance by the proletariat against the capitalist barbarism is
the refusal to bring new proletarians in life.
Addendum:
It is not against the antinatalist philosophy to adopt children that
already exist.
If we accept that unborn foetuses can feel suffering and pain, which is
a source of unhappiness, then it would be difficult to accept abortion
from an antinatalist perpective, since antinatalism is built upon the
view that we should not force others to feel unhappiness. Contraception
would probably be a great solution for sexually active antinatalists.
We do not claim that we have a complete or "correct" answer to the issue
of the desirability of child-bearing by proletarians. We simply provide
an answer to this issue from a viewpoint that mixes antinatalism with
anarchocommunism (but is also compatible with the broad manifestations
of class struggle).