The Missing Negative

I have started a conversation with @Peter Foreshaw Brookes on the subject of pro-natalism. We started in chat, and he gave me permission to move bits to a full post. Ergo.

Our first area of disagreement is one where he shares what I feel is a fatal flaw present in most of the pro-natal camp (and, I would argue, the homeschooling camp), namely: the missing negative.

Anti-Natalists

It seems to me that Anti-Natalists have a ‘big tent’. Not quite in the way that we think of it in political terms, but follow me here. Anti-natalists can say all of the following things and be admitted into their tent. Indeed, they can argue all of these things almost at the same time:

1. Being ‘child-free’ is good.

2. It’s Ok to have or not have children

3. Having children is bad.

So they have a complete moral argument: what is good, what is bad, and what is neutral. The neutral position contradicts the other two a bit, but it can be used like a switch-hitter.

Pro-natalists

Genesis 9:7

And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

Our side does not have such a good time. Our side only has two things:

1. Having children is good and

2. It’s Ok to have or not have children.

The ‘bad’ argument exists… but can never land. We are allowed to talk about… ad nauseam… the disaster that awaits our society unless our birth rate shoots upward. But we are never allowed, by self-imposed rules, to point at any particular individual and say, “It is bad you aren’t married, it is bad your wife isn’t having children, it is bad that you have so few children, birth control is bad, abortion is bad… etc.”

Adding in the Negative

Ezekiel14:6 

Therefore say unto the house of Israel,

Thus saith the Lord GOD;

Repent, and

turn yourselves from your idols; and

turn away your faces from all your abominations.

I believe that the Natalist side will never gain any real traction, traction meaning people actually changing their behaviours en masse, until we can respond to our opponents’ idea of ‘children are destroying the planet’ with ‘childlessness is cultural suicide’. When we can answer, “Don’t you know what causes that?” with “Yeah. Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

Cancer

Pro 30:15-17 

The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give.

There are three things that are never satisfied, yea,

four things say not, It is enough: 

The grave; and

the barren womb;

the earth that is not filled with water; and

the fire that saith not, It is enough. 

Imagine a doctor diagnosing cancer, a virulent condition that will destroy the entire body, and saying, “But we need to let each cell decide on its own what it will do. A cell which does not wish to be a healthy body cell will probably not do a very good job at it.” Knowing full well that cancer will kill the body, he wishes to propose a moral neutrality.

Anti-natalists, either in philosophy or practice, are like that cancer. The diagnosis is opposite, obviously. The anti-natalist is not in danger of growing without check to destroy the body. Instead, they are like water in gasoline: their inert behaviour will stop the entire mechanism of society from functioning.

It is a well-known fact that cultures are driven by what they see. A woman whose friends are getting divorced is much more likely to get divorced. A husband whose friends all have eight children is much less likely to consider four children ‘a lot’. So every unmarried man, every childless couple, every two-child couple… drives down, in the public mind, the ‘normal’ number of marriages and children.

Achan

Joshua 22:20 

Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and

wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? and

that man perished not alone in his iniquity.

The Scriptures clearly teach that sin needs to be rooted out of a people, or it will have devastating effects. Consider the story of Achan, where, because of his sin, his wife and his children were killed along with him. We find that harsh and unfair. But God presents this kind of thing as being needed for the salvation of a people.

Contradiction

Deuteronomy 13:14 

Then shalt thou enquire, and

make search, and

ask diligently; and, behold,

if it be truth, and the thing certain,

that such abomination is wrought among you;

One of the biggest problems that this missing negative has on the debate is that it forces the pro-natal side into a continual contradiction. “The lack of children is killing our society!” they trumpet, followed by, “But if you don’t want to have children, that’s totally OK.”

“The birth rate needs to increase to four, six, or even higher…” they say, or should if they were doing the math properly. But then, “But each family should choose the size they are comfortable with.”

Let us note that a total war and a volunteer army are contradictory. When your entire society is at risk, everyone sitting on the sidelines is contradictory to the effort needed.

Children: Future or Climate Killer?

Conclusion

Psalms 127:3-5 

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. 

The well-read and mathematically literate pro-natalist recognises that our society is facing an existential demographic crisis. Tinkering around the edges won’t help. Indeed, mathematically and culturally, some societies are already gone… You just haven’t seen it yet.

And yet the pro-natalist camp refuses to address this in their arguments and even in their own thinking. Few indeed are the pro-natalists who would call a deliberately childless couple traitors, still less the unmarried man or woman. And yet that is the actual implication of the numbers. Anti-natalists and ordinaries are killing our society far faster than an external enemy could. If they are not opposed and opposed clearly, we are dead.

Links

https://substack.com/@thepersistentruminator