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Title: The Future Is A Scam Author: Anonymous Date: 04/2019 Language: en Topics: antinatalism, specieism Source: https://www.infokiosques.net/IMG/pdf/The-future-is-a-scam-pageparpage.pdf
This text is the result of a reflection and doesn’t aim to be
exhaustive. We are aware that the topic to which we come up is delicate
and that this text will probably trigger strong reactions. Nevertheless,
we think that it’s important to talk about it given the hegemony of the
pro-natalist thought and the consequences it generates. Our reflection
starts from an anarchist thought and so from a will to get over with a
world which is authoritarian, industrialized, speciesist, etc.
First publication in France, in April 2019
---
When we are writing these lines, the Earth has about 7.7 billion human
beings. At the Middle Ages there were less than 500 million. During the
19^(th) century, this number reached over a billion. The step of two
billion has been passed in the 20’s, the step of three billion has been
passed just before the 60’s. Around 1975, there were more than four
billion human individuals. Between 1985 and 1990, five billion human
beings trod on the Earth soil. Before the 2000’s, the stage of six
billion was passed and we have finally gone over the seven billion
during the first half of the 2010’s. For anyone who is not happy at the
idea of seeing this number increase again, the future promises to be
quite dark. The lowest estimations expect an increase until 2080 while
the highest ones expect a constant increase until at least 2100. For the
moment, the forecasts don’t go beyond this date. For us, as we will see
later on, the human being is overcrowded and this overpopulation
undeniably affects, both the environment and all the animals, including
ourselves. If this growth is indeed generally decreasing, it’s still a
growth, and in this respect, is problematic to us. In a time when there
were about seven times less human individuals, quite a few anarchists
was already asking themselves the questions that we ask ourselves today.
At the end of the 18^(th) century, an economist, Thomas Malthus already
thought about the issue of the birth rate. He theorized that the
increase of the available resources didn’t follow the growth of the
population and that there would be a moment when they would run out. To
avoid that, he recommended a birth control. However, his thought joins
with the morals of his time, advocating the delay of the age of marriage
and chastity before it. Besides, he proposed that the couples get the
strict number of children they were sure to be in capacity to support.
He also recommended stopping giving financial support to the poorest
people. His thought seems to be more turned against the latter and
doesn’t challenge the Family model. In itself, the Malthus’ thought
doesn’t really interest us given that its more turned towards the
Economics and social control than towards an emancipatory reflection.
Nevertheless, quite a few anarchists at the end of 19^(th) century have
started from this idea that an infinite growth of the population would
sooner or later end up to be in conflict with the fact that the
available resources are limited. This new thought is called
neo-Malthusianism and the anarchists who agreed with it,
neo-Malthusians. Despite being in minority, they have worked on adapting
Malthusianism to their emancipatory perspectives, especially affirming
that children who were born were destined for becoming either canon or
boss fodder. This adaptation also included individual solutions for
birth control thanks to the promotion of means of contraception and the
defense of abortion, position which was avant-garde at the time. It
should be noted that at this time, the contraception being almost
undeveloped, a great number of births weren’t wanted, many families
lived in poverty and weren’t able to support children and make them
autonomous and responsible individuals.
In France, neo-Malthusianism is initiated by Paul Robin in 1895,
inspired by the British neo-Malthusianism, influenced itself by
eugenics-based theories which began to emerge at this time. It’s
unfortunate that neo-Malthusianism has been suffused with eugenics.
Indeed, this current has since proved its scientific gaps. Furthermore,
he encouraged a coercive birth control which doesn’t suit us because in
our opinion, the decrease of the number of births has to be the result
of personal reflection and because the eugenics-based desire to
eradicate every “degeneration” was not only illusionary but also the
reflect of a will to create a unique model of human being legitimate to
live and to procreate. Nonetheless, all neo-Malthusians didn’t embrace
eugenics-based theories. One can read La Limitation des Naissances.
Moyens d’éviter les Grandes Familles from Emilie Lamotte, even if
solutions of contraception she advises are now outdated.
It’s worrying to notice that these reflections existed in 19^(th)
century where there were “only” 1 billion human beings on Earth, and
that today when we are seven times more, no massive realization has
emerged.
Natalism: a deadly ideology
Have you ever evoked in the course of a conversation that you didn’t
want children? The replies to this affront are often the same: “You say
that now but you will see later”, “it’s natural to want children”,
“you’re selfish”, “you don’t like children”, “you will end your life
alone” etc. The replies are very often outraged, to want and to make
children is something obvious and the opposite is generally considered
like a deviance. Facing this obviousness, those who don’t want to make
children should have to justify themselves contrary to those who follow
the natural course of things. Incidentally, the possibility to not want
children is rarely evoked spontaneously; you don’t hear “If you have
children one day”, but rather “when you will have children”. When
somebody is pregnant, they are congratulated. To bear is generally
considered as beautiful, positive and normal. Conversely, the decision
not to have children is straightaway considered as negative. A life
without children is generally considered to be an incomplete life. It’s
almost a pre–requisite. The pro-natalist ideology explains this state of
affairs. Instilled by our education, it expresses itself more or less
insidiously. When we are children yet, we are taught the pro-natalist
ideology through play. Who didn’t play with dolls or “mommy and daddy”?
This conditioning makes obvious the fact of making children and doesn’t
let any space to the possibility of not having one. When we are children
yet, our future begins to be drawn in our place: we will participate to
the perpetuation of the human species.
To make children, it’s finally in some ways to want to immortalize
oneself by passing down our heritage. That heritage can be cultural.
Many parents project what they are or what they would have wanted to be
through their offspring. They want to pass down their values
(traditions, mores, etc.), their history, their passion in order for
these to last over time beyond their death. The child, instead of being
an individual in their own right with their desires and their
aspirations, is the receptacle of everything that their parents have
decided to put in, as well as pretty often the mean to perpetuate an
ideology. By the bye, we can find in some milieus (especially “Marxoïd”
ones), the idea that anti-natalism would be a bourgeois ideology and
that “proletarians” should precisely make children in order to ensure
the future of proletariat as a revolutionary class. But these children,
in addition to not necessarily consent to the role that one wanted to
attribute to them, often only join the ranks of deadly or working
armies, and armies of consumers. To make little proletarians who will
become great revolutionaries is a lure; they will likely rather become
soldiers of Capital.
That heritage can also be material. The parents thus seek to be able to
ensure the future of their offspring when they will be dead or retired.
This may be done thanks to life insurance, or any other form of saving
or by the will that one of the children will take the family business
over.
Finally, it can be genetic. One has to make the lineage remain, pass the
family name down. Thus, it’s nearly unthinkable to be the one who will
put an end to the descendants. One has also to make the species remain
because there would be an individual duty in the participation to the
perpetuation of the humanity. As for the possibility to adopt, it’s
pretty often dismissed on the pretext that bringing up an adopted child
is not the same as bringing up a child who comes from one’s womb,
because they don’t look like us, because there isn’t any “blood tie” and
because a not-adopted child symbolizes the conjunction of both parents
and thus the concrete and physical demonstration of their love.
Those three forms of heritage actively participate to social
reproduction. Thus, the possessing classes continue to possess, the
exploited classes continue to be exploited, the values are passed down
in an infinite cycle and globally the world ceaselessly continues to be
what it is. Worse, not only do the new generations tend to reproduce the
world in its current state, but the simple observation leads us to the
conclusion that they also tend to reinforce it, to settle it more. The
example of a quite few technological innovations seems eloquent to us.
For each major technological innovation, one can observe that sometimes
the old generations are wary and a little lost faced with novelty. They
have known the world before and they know they could live without it.
The new generations who were born at the very beginning of a
technological leap, or just after it, didn’t really live the transition.
The world in which they arrive thus becomes their norm. The new tools
that these people then have at their disposal seem much more essential
to them than to people who have lived this transition. The various
powers, taking advantage of the enthusiasm provoked by these novelties,
especially in the field of entertainment, can thus create more control
and surveillance while insuring a very minor resistance. For example, by
familiarizing people with the usage of facial recognition – which is now
available on many smartphones – it becomes harder to be reluctant to its
usage when they have to use it to enter in a building, particularly if
it hides behind good intentions. This reproduction and this
reinforcement not only materialize in technological innovations. The
example of governmental reforms also pertains to this phenomenon. A new
law is visible solely when it’s just a project and when it’s put to the
vote. The new generations that arrive once this law is voted and
implemented don’t see it anymore and are much less likely to oppose it.
Generation after generation, the world in which we live strengthens and
the direction it takes is being confirmed.
The family model is massively never challenged. Even in
capitalism-compatible LGBTI+ milieus, the natural order of things is to
find a partner, to get married, to make children and to contribute to
the reproduction of society as it is at a given moment. Thus, even if we
understand the struggles of some people who want be able to take
advantage of ART and surrogacy, we think it’s a pity that the debate on
these subjects is restricted in the boundaries of “for or against” and
don’t put into question procreation itself. The dominant thought pushes
individuals to reproduce the hetero model and to seek the integration
into society. With this in mind, as written in Bædan 1: Journal of Queer
Nihilism, the Child thus becomes the symbol of the future, of the hope
and implies sacrifices that are done in readiness for the next
generations.
At a national level, from campaigns in favor of birth rate to social
benefits, everything is done for the couples to make children. The child
is an economic driving force; publicists understand this very well. It’s
also a national pride; the birth rate is also a growth factor that
permits to compete the other countries. Thus, to bear is a duty towards
the nation and when one doesn’t have a child yet, one is more willingly
advised temporary means of contraception than definitive ones. In the
same vein, people who can bear are submitted to overmedicalization; from
puberty until menopause, they are thus advised a gynecological
examination yearly, in order to check that “everything works perfectly”,
that the person will be able, among others, to carry their reproductive
role out. It’s another field in which society arrogate a right to
examine.
People who refuse to embrace the pro-natalist ideology, and who
consequently refuse to make children, are often considered as selfish.
But, not wanting children is not more selfish than wanting children.
However, which is the most authoritarian between refusing to make exist
someone who doesn’t exist yet (and who will never suffer from not
existing), and imposing the existence to someone who will have no choice
but to exist?
One cannot help wondering whether birthing children is not more a
societal injunction than a personal desire.
In this respect, the objection has often been raised that making
children is a part of the natural order of things and that “the maternal
instinct pushes women to bear.” The female identity is intrinsically
linked to motherhood and it isn’t uncommon to hear from a person that
they have never felt more like a woman than after giving birth. Thus,
instead of seeking legitimacy getting out of the roles this identity
induces (making children, taking care of them and the household, etc.),
rejecting this identity is more relevant to us. And as this woman
identity only exists compared with man identity, we think that this
identity has also to be rejected.
“Claiming the female identity by rejecting motherhood, is to get upset
like a fly who thinks to be able to go through the walls of the jar
where they are caught. The female identity is consubstantial with
procreation. The term woman is in itself an injunction to motherhood.”
– Priscille Touraille
In addition, beyond not wanting children, another very taboo phenomenon
should also be considered: the regret of being a parent, and even more,
the regret of being a mother. If parenthood is an experience that many
people want to live, there are others for whom it’s not the case. When
parents have the courage to claim this regret, they often meet with
hostile reactions. This is all the more true regarding “women” who are
supposed to fulfill their role of mother and who are considered as
odious people. However, this regret doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of
love despite the absence of desire in the parental relationship. There
is a difference between love that one can feel for one’s children and
the oppressive responsibility regarding them over a lifetime. But even
if there is a lack of love, it is necessary to analyze the reasons that
lead to this state of affairs, without blaming those for whom it’s the
case. Given that motherhood is erected as a supreme virtue of woman
identity, it isn’t surprising that “women” are misjudged if they happen
to confess this regret, which pushes them to retain what they feel.
Living with a child isn’t necessarily infernal, but it involves heavy
responsibilities, in addition to disrupting the habits of everyday life,
which, for us, should be more taken into account before making the
choice of bringing a child into the world (needless to say that one
should be in capacity to make that choice). How many devote less time
to, or have abandoned, their passion or their various daily activities
(creative, intellectual, entertaining ones, or just sleep) to be able to
take care of their child? Even if it’s very common to hear some parents
say that they are tired, upset, one can suppose it’s a lesser evil that
worth it. But it is a lesser evil that shouldn’t be ordered to those who
don’t want it. It should be noted that a “man” who is off because he is
unable to accept a child of who he is the biological father is for us
just an asshole. Do these moments of joy permit to ignore all that is
implied by making one or several children? Instead of inciting a
rational choice, the pro-natalist ideology keeps quiet about the
drawbacks of parenthood and naturalizes the desire of procreation. Thus,
the last is very often based on the contact with children in positive
contexts (when other people from the family, or friends have children,
or when you can see them playing in a park, for example), and it is then
the cuteness and all that a child can inspire of positive emotions that
get in the way. The costs that a child implies, the sleepless nights,
the tears, the almost obligation to settle more and more into society,
are very often invisible and thus (almost) not taken into account in the
choice of making a child.
Before even living with a child, one should be able to know if one will
be in capacity to assume them (economically, emotionally, sentimentally,
etc.). In a society that tends to reproduce itself ceaselessly, where
working constitutes the major part of our time, “women” are incited to
devote their life to God, to the father, to the partner, to the boss
rather than to themselves. When a child happens to join this everyday
life, it’s always less time for oneself. When one is used to see one’s
life to be robbed, one doesn’t get the time to think about what’s wrong,
because one is distracted by an everyday life which is imposed to us.
The few “women” who don’t want to be mothers might hear that “it’s
shameful regarding those who can’t have children”. It’s sort of the
variant of “it’s shameful not to vote while people have fought for it”,
or “it’s shameful not to finish your whole plateful while other people
starve to death”. We don’t really understand how bearing would give back
fertility to infertile persons, nor how there would be an historic duty
to respect, nor even how finishing a whole plateful could resolve
problems that are inherent to capitalism and nationalism, but these
three examples can show us that we are pushed to reproduce the world as
it is, instead of reinventing it as we individually want it to be. This
is nothing more than a servitude logic.
For us, making children is more a cultural phenomenon than a biological
obligation. Indeed, if we can’t live without breathing, sleeping,
drinking or eating, we can live without procreating. We then just decide
to not pass down our genes, our culture and our material goods.
Furthermore, “women” who refuse to make children are generally
considered as people who will end up being old and bitter. These
considerations advocate more for a societal injunction than for a
biological need. In the same way “men” who are vasectomized will be
considered as less male and so unfit to fulfill their role. Alongside
this, “women” who are sterilized are considered as useless because they
can’t fulfill their role. That is how people are generally dissuaded
from being sterilized, especially when they are considered as “women”.
The injunction to procreate precedes the injunction to sexuality, which
leads to despise not only non-heterosexual people, but also asexual
people. No matter if one is an asexual person or not, nobody is
legitimate to define the use of our genitals. Historically, the
religious, familial and patriarchal authority has contributed to
strengthen this injunction, be it by condemnation of autosexuality,[1]
genital mutilation, prohibition of sexual intercourse before wedding or
renunciation of the non-heterosexual members of the family simply
because they won’t ensure the lineage.
Against overpopulation, against the sadness of normality
What is the meaning behind the fact of inflicting to a child the world
as it currently is? In terms of exploitation alone, it’s to condemn them
to be either a persecutor, or a victim. Because they are considered as
inferior, violence – be it physical, psychological, or sexual – isn’t
rare, and sometimes leads to death. If it implies immediate impacts
(wounds, death, sexually transmitted infections etc.), it also shapes
the way the child, once adult, will sense the world, dragging with them
after-effects that will often reproduce the last as it is. Even though
solutions are implemented, they can only be insufficient given that
(almost) everything in this society tends to generate violence. Almost
none of the structuring factors of this world (authority, nation, work,
school, religion, patriarchy, etc.) will be in their interest.
In a context where our life is robbed, being responsible of a child (or
several) takes a little more freedom away from us. Besides, a child
needs attention and patience. But in precarious economic conditions
and/or after a tough working day, it becomes complicated to satisfy
their expectations. How many people leave it to others (relatives,
nanny…) to be here for their child? Education, that is supposed to
construct the child, is entrusted to an institution, and rob them and
their parents of this important part of their life. We are thus in a
totally incredible situation where a child has to learn an enormous
quantity of knowledge that they didn’t choose and that, for a large
part, favors statist ideology and prepares them to the marvelous world
of work. On this subject, another text from Emilie Lamotte, entitled
L’Education rationnelle de l’enfance, seems today still interesting to
us to read. But beyond this, we don’t want to be responsible of the
education that we would give to them.
We refuse to impose to them our way of life because it couldn’t permit
them to live by and for themselves. We either don’t want to be
disappointed by what they could become through their personal
construction.
In addition, we don’t want that our genitals cause suffering (if only
that of giving birth). We rather want that they enable to us to feel
pleasure, and only pleasure, alone or with several consenting persons.
The will to procreate, finally, can lead one to live the sexual
intercourse as a mechanic task that is as bad as a post on an assembly
line. When, after the birth, the couple doesn’t last and break up, the
parents are very often forced to continue to see each other. The child
then becomes like cement that one doesn’t want anymore.
The reasons we’ve talked about so far emanate from a personal feeling.
Nevertheless, procreating doesn’t only involve people who procreate but
also the other human and non-human individuals. Thus the reasons that
push us to not want children also come from an analysis of the world in
which we live and of the role of the human being in it.
Each human existence has consequences on our environment, and as we
expressed it before, we consider the human being as being overpopulated.
But the human genius has achieved to more or less eradicate the
phenomena that enable, when there is overpopulation, to retrieve a state
of balance (epidemics, starvation, etc.). That makes the human being,
given how many we currently are, nothing less than a danger for the
other living beings. It could be retort to us that the problem lies in
our occidental ways of life that are suffused with consumerism and
outrageous waste. To this, we reply that our ways of life are indeed a
part of the problem, but working on the certainly unlikely assumption
that we would stop to live as we currently live, given how many we are,
a simpler and more modest life would have harmful consequences on the
rest of living beings anyway.
An anti-natalist struggle seems coherent with an antispeciesist struggle
to us. Indeed, if the number of vegetarian and vegan people is
constantly increasing, the consumption of products of animal origin and
activities needing animal exploitation isn’t decreasing. It can be
explained by demographic increase.
This demographic growth also accentuates all sorts of pollution
problems. We might have well a simpler way of life, we would continue to
pour here and there our various waste. To quote just one example, it
seems difficult to us to imagine a humanity that would do without drugs.
But, a part of these drugs that we consume are expelled from our body
with urine and, whether wastewater is treated or not, they inevitably
finish their course into rivers. This is true for human beings, but it
should be reminded that the various animals raised for the good pleasure
(gustatory, but also recreational) of a large part of human beings also
fall sick and are even, ironically, preventively given antibiotics, that
also end up into rivers. These antibiotics make the bacteria they come
into contact with more resistant, and so make these drugs less
efficient, even ineffective.
A growth of the human population means an increased need of space. But,
the latter is limited, and we occupy it with many other living beings.
This limitation is strengthened by the fact that many areas are not
livable (deserts, areas contaminated by excesses of the human activity
such as Chernobyl, Fukushima and their surroundings, etc.). To spread,
humanity then has to colonize the living spaces of other living beings.
It has been seen especially locally in recent years with projects that
needed the destruction of wetlands, spaces that are full of life par
excellence. In the same vein, an overpopulated humanity, even if it has
a simpler way of live has to feed. This need in food requires areas that
are dedicated to make it grow (we prefer to ignore breeding here, that
just worsens the problem). When these areas are created, entire animal
populations are moved, even eradicated. Let’s not talk about the
ceaseless expansion of cities, areas dedicated to entertainment
(beaches, winter sports resorts, watersports centers, holiday villages,
etc.), business parks and others. In addition to move or threaten the
life of entire animal populations, this colonization, but also
activities that are apparently as harmless as wilderness excursions
(especially photography enthusiasts who go to forest without taking
precautions), as well as the noise generated by human activity disturb
non-human reproduction.
Besides creating areas that are only dedicated to single-crop farming,
the food production for a constantly increasing population needs
nowadays and all the more in the coming years, if this increase remains,
an over-exploitation of the soil by the means of pesticides, fertilizers
and GMOs and so a still increased dependence to industry. This
over-exploitation is inherent to the capitalist world in which we live
because we have to produce always more and faster. And this industry
linked to GMOs, fertilizers and pesticides always needs more human, but
also non-human (animal testing), exploitation. If we want one day to be
able to do without this industry, or significantly reduce it, we don’t
see how this would be possible given the number we currently are.
The need of human exploitation also logically increases with the growth
of the population. A humanity with simpler ways of life but which hasn’t
thought it right to having demographically decreased, continues to have
basic needs. We’ve just seen it with over-exploitation of the soil for
food production, but it also needs to be at the minimum transformed, and
distributed. In addition to food, there are other basic needs to be
satisfied that also require always more exploitation: housing
construction, medicine (production of drugs, scientific research, etc.),
production of the minimum in order to get an appropriate simpler way of
life, production of the tools and extraction of raw material needed to
the production/construction of the examples given above, etc.
As we’ve thus seen, human activity has an impact on its environment, and
the more humans there are, the more human activity there is and the more
global impact is important and harmful; and the more humans there are,
the more the needs of exploitation are important, and this exploitation
is both human and non-human. This growth of population requires a social
and hierarchical organization always more complex that instills always
more into the life of each individual, as well as into inter-individual
relations, always more taking the perspective of a horizontal world
without any authority away. We think, even if we have almost no hope
anymore that it could ever happen, that one of the sine qua non
conditions of a world where anarchy would reign is a drastic reduction
of the human population to such an extent that the city as a social
structure would have no reason to exist anymore.
For us, such a reduction of the population couldn’t be made by the
massive death of human individuals, this is why the only solution that
we envisage is the reduction of the number of births, bellow the growth
threshold. We are against laws, so contrary to (false) solutions that
may have been implemented by some states, for us this solution mustn’t
be coercive, it mustn’t be the result of any restriction whatsoever, but
the result of an individual reflection going through the analysis of the
current situation, of what it might become in the future and of what
each one can individually do (or rather not do) to realize the refusal
to participate to the human hegemony over the Earth.
We encourage the use of effective means of contraception (which excludes
the false means of contraception such as “withdrawal method”), including
the definitive ones, and the access to abortion (without the mean
techniques of manipulation used by some doctors and relatives in order
to dissuade people who want to abort). We also encourage a vision of
sexuality as being firstly a way of feeling pleasure alone or with
others rather than a reproductive means, and by extension every
non-reproductive sexual practice. This sexuality hasn’t to be obligatory
and has to be consented and desired.
The dominant idea of our approach is to get every form of authority over
and opposes among others this speciesist, patriarchal and racist world.
Work, Nation, School, Religion, Society, etc. all exist in the name of
the Child, and all require the child to remain. The future, as we
currently imagine it, seems quite bleak to us. Be it as promised by a
frantic capitalism or by blissful revolutionaries, for us, it rather
relates to a huge scam. This vision can certainly seem pessimistic, yet
it’s not a matter of waiting things to happen without doing anything.
When one is drowning, nothing stops one from struggling; and even if
there is not much hope, at least one will have done one’s best. Who
knows, sometimes it can save one. We refuse to participate positively to
this world putting in it new human beings, and that way to participate
to its future.
[1] We prefer the term of autosexuality, which reminds that it’s also a
form of sexuality that is legitimate to exist in itself, but also to be
integrated into every sexual intercourse between several people without
being qualified as “foreplay”.