There was once a small religious sect known as the Shakers. Originating in the eighteenth century, they led lives remarkable for their simplicity, gender-egalitarianism, and…celibacy. Since the dominant mode of cultural transmission for religion is from parents to children, the survival of their communities was problematic. They survived for some time by making converts and adopting orphans, but they are now nearly extinct: there are perhaps three Shakers left in the world.
Antinatalists face a Shaker problem. I do not know if it is insurmountable, but it real, at least if three generalizations obtain:
- The extent to which people are persuadable by antinatalist considerations varies from person to person. (Some people, for whatever reason, will think of life as some sort of precious gift.) Some people are incipiently pronatalist, others incipiently antinatlist.
- The extent to which people are incipiently pro- or anti-natalist is strongly influenced by their parents in various ways. This can happen both through genetics (people who inherit a genetic predisposition to optimism are likely at least ceteris paribus to be pro-natalist) and through transmission of values and belief systems (e.g. most religions, unlike Shakerism, are pro-natalist).
- Pro- or anti-natalism affects people’s propensity to procreate, with pro-natalists like to have children and anti-natalists likely to refrain from having children.
(1-3) seem highly plausible, and if they are then what happens? Anti-natalists have no (or few) children, while pro-natalists have many. Anti-natalists dwindle away like the Shakers, while the world fills up with people who are disinclined to listen to what anti-natalists have to say.
That’s bad for anti-natalism. The Shaker problem might be a good reason for anti-natalists should adopt children. Also for working much harder for anti-natalism.
6 Responses to “The Shaker problem for antinatalism”
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You might want to consider a crucial difference between Shakerism and Antinatalism: Shakerism is based in religious beliefs (or at least rationales derived from their interpretations of Christianity); most antinatalists are either agnostic or atheists, although a few Christian Antinatalists exist. Atheists historically had and continue to have fewer offspring than religious people, yet even in the USA, there are a growing number of atheists or other secularists (or at least apatheists). New ideas transmitted by culture, education, or greater worldly exposure can counteract a low birth rate. Ideas are not transmitted via DNA, after all.
Beyond this, while we antinatalists do indeed seek to spread the word (and yes, a few of us even to “evangelize”, though I prefer simply to increase public awareness through education and information, rather than evangelize per se), our ULTIMATE concern is for preventing harm that our own potential children. Also, we realize that the truth of a movement has nothing to do with majority acceptance, no more than religious beliefs (or lack thereof) do. Also, most of us have no illusions about our chances of widespread acceptance, yet we refuse to have children because it’s simply the right thing to do (or “not do” in this case)
You’re point about adoption is a conditional good one: adopting children simply to further your ideology is just plain unethical, IMO. First, they’re ultimately going to form their own opinions. Secondly, an antinatalist may be too tempted to make their love and appreciation of the child too dependent on them adopting the antinatalist viewpoint. Therefore, I would be very careful about reccommending this as a route antinatalists should take.
In the end, we know our chances of success are between slim and none but we can die peacefully with the knowledge that at least we won’t have our own children subjected to the arbitrary whims of this world and human nature, nor our descendants to the inevitable (and likely painful) extinction of humanity or any other daughter species we may have (due to the universe’s ultimate entropy, if nothing else – and very likely something else well before then).
Good points all, I think. I would note, though, that while ideas are certainly not transmitted through DNA there does indeed seem to be strong cultural transmission from parents to children. There’s no gene for Luthernism, for example (or at least, I would be very surprised if there were) but if we want to know the etiology of Luthernism, a large part of it would be that people were brought up as such.
I do agree it would be pretty shocking to adopt children primarily for the sake of advancing one’s ideology, whatever that happens to be: the well-being of the children, in so far as such a thing can be achieved in this dangerous world, obviously should be the prime consideration. But if antinatalists were to adopt children and pass on their views I don’t think that would be anything to ashamed of, and indeed, would be something to regard as a good consequence.
Isn’t it equally shocking to HAVE babies to advance one’s ideology? (Which is a not-nice way of putting one of the most commonly advanced reasons for reproduction, “passing on one’s values” or whatever.)
Epistemologically, this fact might make us extra-suspicious of ideologies that advocate reproduction.
Yes, we should be so suspicious.
I think the traditional schema of what a healthy adoption looks like (i.e., “I just want to have a family”) is founded too much on emulating breeding. The only reason adoption motivations get more scrutiny than breeding motivations is because adoption is a deviation from the status quo.
With those two things in mind (plus the obvious fact that the harms of breeding are completely ignored during discussions of adoption ethics), perhaps it would be useful to adjust our ideas about when it would be justifiable for an antinatalist to adopt. The fact that we can sit here fretting about our motivations is a pretty good indicator that we would make better caregivers than the vast majority of people who breed first and ask questions later (or never). Hell, if you don’t think beating your child is a good idea, that alone would make you a better parent than most people.
So maybe the desire to pass down one’s views is not that bad of a motivation to adopt (given the fact that children could do much worse with their biological parents and/or at for-profit group homes). If more people adopted or fostered, lots of other good consequences would follow. For instance, some foster parents are only in it for the money and basically do nothing but warehouse the kids. There are plenty of cases where children get away from abusive parents only to be revictimized at a foster home (either by their foster parents or other children). If you can do better than that, why not become a foster parent or adopt a foster child, even if your primary motivation is ideological? Just being there to take a kid in for a few nights while the breeder sorts out their shit/takes parenting classes would make a huge positive impact because said breeder might tone down the abuse after reunification so they don’t have to go to court and deal with child services again. Furthermore, the increased availability of foster/adoptive homes would likely lower the standards for what is considered child abuse and grounds for removal by Child Protective Services.
Just how high are the standards for child abuse right now, you may ask? In my state you can beat your children however much you want, with whatever object your heart desires, and as long as there is no mark when the investigation happens (or documentation of a past mark with proof that it was caused by intentional beating, which is an impossible standard to meet), it’s not child abuse. Quick note: some injuries are harder to see on dark skin, so minority children are especially disadvantaged in this respect; not to mention all the “cultural sensitivity” crap, which is basically a state-endorsed doctrine that brown people are too backwards to stop abusing their children, so it’s not even worth bothering with them.
Another thing you can do around this neck of woods is walk around telling everyone that you really want to off your kids, but if you agree to go to a couple of counseling sessions, you will never lose custody until you actually take active steps in the offing direction (by which point it will be too late, since children are not known for being able to defend themselves very well).
So unless there is reason to believe that one is likely to inflict some sort of lasting psychological trauma on the child if they don’t embrace antinatalism, perhaps antinatalists adopting a bunch of kids a win-win situation. Of course, I write this knowing that I’m not in any financial condition to do so and won’t be for the foreseeable future, which makes abstract hypothesizing all that much easier.
I think the idea of antinatalists, or any other people, adopting children for the sake of indoctrinating them with specific beliefs, is extremely evil. Adopting children as means to an end is no better than all the breeders who have children as means to an end.