i think that oppressed people should fight back against their oppression but we do not have the right to bring children into dire circumstances and conscript them into a fight they did not and could not consent to.
If a monster is beating down your door and you can’t defeat it on your own you shouldn’t push a kid into its jaws. The monster should stop, but it won’t. The other villages should come make the monster stop but they won’t. Feeding more children to the monster is not in line with any of our other morals.
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.
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.
then shouldn’t the whole global south be sterilized? This is a generic Malthusian position
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
refusing to conscript children isn’t “giving up”.
So you just think colonized colonized people should just collectively choose to end their own cultures and stop existing?
i think that oppressed people should fight back against their oppression but we do not have the right to bring children into dire circumstances and conscript them into a fight they did not and could not consent to.
If a monster is beating down your door and you can’t defeat it on your own you shouldn’t push a kid into its jaws. The monster should stop, but it won’t. The other villages should come make the monster stop but they won’t. Feeding more children to the monster is not in line with any of our other morals.
So if a genocide can’t be stopped in a generation give up?
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.
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.