On Not Having Children

A friend of mine recently complained, again, about someone remarking on her and her husband’s decision not to have children. It wasn’t a kind remark which makes me wonder what business is it of anyone’s what people do with their lives. Oh, that’s right, Nietzsche’s Will to Power. And that’s just one of the reasons my wife and I have similarly decided not to have children.

People don’t ask me if I have children very often; it’s almost as if they know better. When people do ask if I have children and I say ‘no’ it seems I’m let off the hook because I’m a man. Judging by how often they talk about it, though, women are under much more pressure to have children as if it were some sacred duty. With the planet’s population approaching nine billion, I call bullshit. There are many reasons not to have children, the least of being overpopulation, which I’ll address shortly. Here are some other reasons why I don’t think it’s a good idea to have children:

-       1-I refuse to bring children into a world that is in the midst of social and political upheaval. True, this has always been the case historically. But it will continue to be true. Authoritative regimes are on the rise around the world. Even in the U.S. the evangelical right continues to labor to turn women back into property. Why would I risk bringing a daughter into a world where too many men don’t understand that raping a woman or a little girl is immoral on every account? Why would I risk a child’s safety in a world where they can be assaulted just for being different from their peers? It must be a nightmare to care for a child’s safety in today’s world.

-        2-I refuse to bring a child into an increasingly poisonous environment. Countries like China and Indonesia think almost nothing of trashing their environment. In the U.S. the GOP is practically going out of their way to destroy the environment. The oceans are full of plastic waste. And no one is doing anything about climate change. It’s practically child abuse to make a newborn face the future environment now.

-        3-Back to overpopulation. Frankly, children annoy me, as does anyone under the age of 18. There are too many people everywhere as it is and we don’t value life as much as we should because of it. The world population is approaching nine billion – I don’t think there’s any danger in humans going extinct. Unfortunately. There are too many people and it shows both in overcrowding and pollution. There’s practically nowhere you can go anymore to enjoy by yourself or not find trash there. Well, unless you’re rich, of course.

-        4-On a more personal note, I have things I want to do; I enjoy my free time. When people say this is selfish they’re saying I have an obligation to have children. Says who, society? The dictates of society are for the weak and the easily controlled. And wanting kids is just as selfish, so why is the kettle calling the pot black?

-        5-Children are blackholes of money. I already work hard enough for myself and my wife for us to enjoy what we have. I don’t want to work endless hours a week because my kids have to be fed, have to have health care, and get a decent education. I want to be able to go on vacation without it being a hassle or to be more kind, without it being a challenge.

-        6-Oh, but it’s different when it’s your child, Breeders argue. So, what, I got my genes into the next generation? Big whoop. There’s no evidence that my genes/my child will be any better than I am. Oh, but I can give them a better life than I had? No, I can’t, because the rest of you are fucking the place up. And I would expect my child to grow up working as hard as I have. I would have no intentions of coddling my child and giving them everything they ever wanted because they wouldn’t stop misbehaving or crying. (Oh, but we can’t spank anymore because liberals.) Any fool without contraception can have a child. I’m content to leave it to the people who really want them and not say anything if those people will leave us non-breeders alone.

-        7-Breeders seem to value the idea that having a child forces you to love someone unconditionally. I don’t believe in unconditional love; it’s a ridiculous concept. If my wife and I had the next Hitler, I’d try to kill the child myself. Isn’t a love for humanity more important than anyone’s desire for their own crying sack of projected neuroses? If you think there’s nothing your child could do to make you surrender your love for them, I’d say your potential to be a danger to the human race is high.

-        8-Pregnancy usually changes a mother’s body for the worse. It doesn’t have to, of course, but 99% of women who get pregnant never get their old body back which for us men was probably one of the top reasons we wanted to have sex with our partners in the first place. I like my wife’s body the way it is. So does she. (Though of course we both have to face aging. But why screw things up ahead of schedule?)

In my opinion, most people aren’t sound enough on any number of accounts to be having children. There should be some kind of a test or license to have babies, but, oh, we can’t say that because that would be fascist. We’re just not allowed to say who should or should not have children even though it’s clear many people are unqualified or aren’t in a position to care properly for them. But what do I know? I don’t have children. And that’s how I sleep at night.

The Key to Being A Real Man

The hashtag #metoo trended across social media this past week in an attempt to make men understand how disgusting and rampant their sexual abuse of women is. This sparked an online conversation between a friend of mine and a male associate that went like this:

“Do you know how to hold these?”

Every female reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about. Someone who shall remain nameless IM’d me yesterday, asking what is “me too”. I explained to him that women were posting that to their FB pages if they had been sexually harassed or assaulted. He was skeptical that many women had “something like that” happen to them.

I asked: When you are walking around town by yourself, how do you hold your keys?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: Not a trick question. When you are walking around by yourself, how do you hold your keys?
Him: They are usually in my pocket.
Me: The next five women you see, ask them that question. They will know exactly what I’m talking about.

[I clarified that he needed to ask the next five women * he actually knows *, not just random women. Didn’t want him to creep anyone out. ]

Me: After they show you how to properly hold your keys, ask if they have ever been sexually harassed or assaulted.
Him: I’m NOT asking anyone that!
Me: Why not?
Him: Seems awfully personal.
Me: How do you expect to learn anything if you are not willing to have an uncomfortable conversation or two? Explain that you are trying to educate yourself on what women face in their lives. Explain that you don’t need details, you are just trying to understand the scope of how many women you know personally who have gone through something like that. It will be an uncomfortable conversation. And, yes, you’re right - maybe save that question only for women you REALLY know well. But if you don’t even believe that many women on FB have experienced these things, then you, sadly, are part of the problem. As women, we have all at some point in our lives experienced not being believed or listened to. That is specifically why some women don’t/won’t discuss it/come forward for YEARS. Some won’t ever talk about it. Every woman I have EVER met has experienced sexual harassment at the least. A staggering number of women I have ever met have experienced worse. It doesn’t matter what a woman looks like, her education, her economic status, her… anything. I have yet to meet a single woman who hasn’t experienced a moment of concern for her safety at some point in her life.
Him: I can’t even imagine.
Me: You’ve never had to.
Him: Well, men get harassed too.
Me [Oh for fuck’s sake. heeeere we go ]: And this is where we end the conversation because… No shit. No one is saying that. While it’s equally wrong, and should also be stopped, it happens in far less frequency than it happens to women. Hell, you don’t even need to know how to properly hold your keys.

Still Me: I’ve given you all the education I can stomach for now. Go educate yourself and get back to me. Go talk to your mom, your sister, your wife. Get back to me.

Men have enjoyed – and I use that word literally – a position of power over women for well over two thousand years now. While this statement doesn’t apply to every society on the face of the planet that ever was or exists now, it applies to enough societies to demonstrate the Patriarchy is real, that so many men have benefited from it and continue to do so (particularly religious zealots) that anyone who denies it is utterly clueless, like the man in the conversation above. The Patriarchy, as a societal concept, has even swept into U.S. government offices a score of men hellbent on controlling women, from denying them key elements of healthcare coverage especially as it relates to reproduction to ad hominin attacks against women like Senator Kamala Harris as being ‘hysterical’ when questioning a Trump cabinet appointee (men are never spoken of like this, not even Al Franken who clearly hates almost every Republicans) to ways of talking about women in a demeaning manner which has no bearing whatsoever on whether a man should be U.S. president or not. The whole point of the #metoo hashtag was to bring attention to this fact, that virtually every woman a man knows has experienced at least some sexual harassment, and that these same men – in being oblivious to it – are complicit to it. And this made me think; have I ever sexually harassed a women or treated a women as less than human because they were a woman?

The answer is, I don’t think so, at least not intentionally. I may have catcalled a woman in my youth, I’m not sure. If I did, I was wrong. Have I ever objectified a woman? Yes, and hopefully she was okay being objectified as I assume most Playboy centerfolds hopefully have. What I’ve certainly never done is badger a woman to date me or kowtow to my sexual advances. (Frankly, whenever a woman said ‘no’ from the start, I never pursued it further; I guess I’m either missing the ‘asshole’ gene or understand that a woman who isn’t interested at the moment isn’t likely to be interested later and I don’t have any right to assert my personal agenda on them – which I guess is what an asshole does.) I’ve certainly never approved of any legislation telling women what they can do with their bodies, and definitely not after what I may have done to their body, if you catch my drift. Jesus, can you imagine men being denied access to erectile dysfunction medicine? How fast do you think Congress would act? Faster than they would on gun control after 59 people were murdered and hundreds were injured in a mass shooting, that’s for sure.

Men, again like the one in the conversation above, have had the luxury of ignoring the problem because they are typically not the victim. Most men are so blind to the problem they don’t even think any form of sexual harassment has happened to any women they know. Well, men, imagine another man viewing and treating your mother, wife, sister or daughter as being less than human simply because they lack male genitalia, because that’s exactly what’s happening. Human beings love to exert power over each other and the Patriarchy makes it so easy for men. Why shouldn’t men be oblivious to the plight of women when they benefit so greatly from it? Because that’s what monsters do. Wait, what? Don’t like being characterized as something less than human, guys? Interesting.

To be clear, the power men have over women is not based on respect, it is based on fear. Power based on fear takes no mental effort. It takes no improvement of the self. It is weak power. This kind of power is not long-lasting; the oppressed will almost certainly seek a way out of their predicament if they are able. But to be respected – that lasts a long time. A gun in the face only lasts as long as the gun – or Bible or Koran or whatever – is around.

Certainly, there are women who do not mind being oppressed (maybe not raped, but repressed, sure). These are people who share a very human trait to not think too hard, to want to get by without having to do too much in life, who are content to let the whims of fate control them presumably because being the master of your own destiny takes effort. Far be it from me to insist any slave rise up and rebel, but it takes a certain simplemindedness not to see how accepting the role laid out for you by other people reinforces the system that enslaved them in the first place. Oh well, let the men deal with it; everything seems fine after all. Yes, a woman – if that’s their thing – is free to pursue this avenue of thinking. But they are not free to foist it on others and that is what their complicity in the Patriarchy is doing.

If it isn’t clear yet, it goes like this: Women do not exist for the sexual gratification of men*; they are not toys. They do not exist solely to bear men children; they are not property. They are conscious living beings who have rich experiences just like men. To say anything to the contrary begs for the man to justify his righteousness and SORRY, a book of mythical spouting isn’t going to cut it. ‘Cause if that’s the excuse, I’m sure I can find some sacred scripture that allows me to violate another man with a plunger and be totally justified.

[*Scores of men love to use women for this. I gather, though, that they do not like it when a women uses them for pleasure – men generally hate the idea of a woman having pleasure on their own terms – and then moves along. I’ve been there but there was the fact that the woman and I had an understanding before our ‘involvement.’ That aside, it’s also fun to imagine here what a world in which men forced themselves on each other and then claimed the victim was asking for it would look like. Okay, maybe not, but that’s the world women live in.]

It’s time for men to take responsibility for the power they wield. It is less then human to treat women as less than human. There’s no more being oblivious to what women deal with on a daily basis, not in the Information Age. Men need to start treating sexism as terrorism; if you see something, say something. You can’t take a backseat to this anymore. Own what is happening, what HAS been happening – that’s what a real man does. If you can’t handle the responsibility, well, what are you, a girl?

Me? I personally do not care about anyone’s gender or gender identity as it relates to daily life. I don’t care about anyone’s skin color. When it comes to people, all I care about are two things: That they are not an asshole and if a job is place in front of them, can they get the job done. I hesitate to call myself a Feminist not because I’m for the equal treatment of women but because I’m a human being with no special status in the cosmos* – in other words, mostly like everyone else – and this makes me understand that everyone deserves a fair chance. We, as humans, all on equal footing, should be lifting each other up, not preying on each other. Preying on each other – not some imaginary breakdown in a subjective, divine moral code – is to blame for the world such as it is. So enough already. Enough.

[* Don’t even think it, guys. Your god does not favor you. It’s a lie you tell yourselves to justify your actions.]

The Case Against Women's Rights?

With recent elections in the U.S. once again pulling out the rug from underneath abortion rights, with the low priority given to teaching young women math and science, with Hollywood actresses and musicians only as in-demand as their youth or hacked iPhones permit, with Gamergate exposing details of a female gamer’s private life, with pornography a multibillion dollar industry in the U.S. alone, with catcalls par-for-the-course on city streets, with monotheism’s long-standing tradition that treats woman across the globe like cattle, it seems as though being a woman is as tough as ever. Certainly one might be inclined to think that given the right to vote in democratic countries such as the U.S. that women would vote for candidates who espouse women’s rights, but many women – indoctrinated into a male worldview – can’t seem to stand the idea of too much freedom. The consequence is that they get dominated for it.

I’ve long tried to understand mankind’s continued attempts to subjugate or otherwise dominate women. For every person who thinks we are an evolving species – where ‘evolving’ means the species is growing smarter, wiser or more fair – there is every evidence to the contrary, especially if you are a woman. Could it be just a matter of perspective as news agencies are now more often reporting that which has always been taking place? Or, is the world really getting worse for women despite all the progress made in the arena of women’s rights since the turn of the century? Sure, everyone is running for the cure these days, but as everyone knows, if testicular cancer were as common as breast cancer, testicular cancer would have been cured by now. Why is being a woman such a curse? [Yes, I do say ‘curse’ being a male, though I do think I am more of an impartial observer than the next guy. There is also the fact that at least half of all the women I have ever known have said at some point in their lives that they would rather be a man.]

I’ve thought about this at less than great length, I admit. Nonetheless, I imagine what I am about to say is going to yank some chains. (Sorry, poor choice of words there.) Why does the worldwide male population (generally) treat the worldwide female population so poorly? I could think of only one single answer – it’s good for the species. Before I continue with that thought, let me say that I personally have little at stake in the human species; I have no children and have no plans to have children primarily due to my misanthropic tendencies. So when I say the subjugation or dominance of women is good for the species, that doesn’t mean I like it or that I think this is the way it should be. However, there is a reality to be faced here. From an evolutionary standpoint, I’m inclined to wonder if it makes sense for one gender to be under the thumb of the other gender. In this case, among Homo sapiens, it happens to be the case that men dominate women. Why? Reproductive advantage.

Men have taken an ‘is’ and turned it into an ‘ought.’ What I mean is that due to the physical differences between men and women (men have more muscle mass and invest less energy in creating a child) that men have become the dominate gender, and gladly so. Because men can overpower women, both figuratively and literally, they do. Because men can spread their genes farther and faster than women, they do. And what is the effect? More children, which is exactly what our genes want, to be passed on into the next generation. Remember, our genes don’t care how. It is biologically advantageous (in terms of reproduction) that men subjugate women. What would happen if the situation were reversed? Existing societies may clue us in.

If you think about societies in which woman are on more equal ground as men in terms of rights, women tend to have children later in life and fewer of them, or even not at all. The most industrial countries, which as a consequence tend to be more socially liberal, generally have lower birth rates than those that are not industrialized. (At the same time, many Third World nations have higher infant mortality rates but their higher birth rates see more children survive per mother than not.) Women understandably express an interest in freedom as the biological cost of having a child is high, especially in a world where it seems there is less and less involvement from fathers in raising children. The continued and focused degradation of women across the globe is a stand against women’s rights, as women’s rights infringe upon the rights supposed by males who believe they should have easy access to women for sex, that is, for reproductive purposes. But there is a mistake made by the global community of men; it’s their unconscious belief that their genes are any more important than a woman’s.

This belief is usually reinforced by religion but it is there even without it. I could be wrong, but I lean towards thinking men hold their belief due to the fact that they are more physically imposing than women; the differences between the physiques of the two genders is hard to ignore. That and recent experiments aside that are ready to combine the DNA of three people, the fact remains that traditionally, it takes a set of genes from both a male and female to make a child. Granted, if there isn’t anything biologically special about either parent, the offspring stands to be unremarkable as well. This is where the belief held by men that women should be subjugated falls apart.

If biology has taught us anything, it’s that life is the rule on Earth, not the exception. As this rule relates to human beings, realize that all the people on Earth – now almost 9 billion – are the offspring of whomever the first Homo sapiens were. Interestingly, for all the shaming of sex that societies around the world have engaged in over the past few thousand years, there’s still a whole lotta sex going around which is producing a whole lotta unremarkable people. (This is why I find it annoying when parents talk about the miracle of birth; I don’t think that which is common constitutes a miracle.) If you’ll notice, the only people who bat an eyelash when a passenger jet crashes, for instance, are the family and friends of the victims. This is mainly because the rest of us recognize that there really are enough people on the planet. Granted, recognizing this fact, whether consciously or unconsciously, doesn’t turn off our sex drive and for a good reason: If some catastrophe were to befall the entirety of the human race, there would no doubt be survivors and those survivors would need to procreate (or be driven to by our genes). It’s right about now you’re wondering what this has to do with the subjugation of women…

In order to survive catastrophes, it is not merely the drive to reproduce that can save the human population; the ingenuity of people is required as well. While men like to think of themselves as the leaders of the world, think for a moment if women had never been allowed to contribute to our understanding of the world:

·                  American molecular biologist Carol M. Greider. On Christmas Day 1984, she discovered an enzyme -- telomerase -- that maintains and builds up telomeres.

·                  Mary-Claire King, a geneticist at the University of Washington, discovered the gene that predisposes women to breast cancer.

·                  Marie Curie wins the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for her theory of radioactivity and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for finding the elements.

·                  Curie’s daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating man-made radioactive particles.

·                  Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, a French virologist, performed much of the fundamental work that led the discovery of HIV. Barre-Sinoussi’s work won her the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

·                  Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring drew from government reports and scientific studies to describe the destruction that pesticides were wreaking on our environment and our health. Carson was a trained marine biologist and zoologist.

·                  Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees was groundbreaking and offered a glimpse into our own evolutionary roots.

·                  Circa 370 CE, Hypatia of Alexandria was an early scientist who wrote on the physical world and astronomy. Naturally, she was murdered by a gang of Christians.

·                  For more important women of science, click here.

This really is the tip of the iceberg and we haven’t even begun to mention the contribution of women to the various arts. Men, in their collective assholishness, might argue that men would have made these discoveries anyway. Of course, women could just as easily argue that given the chance, women would have all of the discoveries that men have.

The need for women’s rights is important insofar as people of various perspectives are needed to solve problems and/or contribute to problem solving. Women should not be regulated to mere breeding stock because they have more to contribute to societies than their genes. Women’s rights, their equality under the law, is for the sake of humanity’s long-term survival and for the flourishing of culture (if we’re to care about that as well). We can already see where the shortsightedness of a male-ruled world has led us and where male-dominated societies such as the one ISIS has in mind would lead us. How much longer will we accept teetering on the edge just so men can have their orgasms?  

A New Paradigm for Philosophy?

“Man is a rational animal.” – Aristotle

“Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.” – Robert Heinlein

I recently read an article by Jamie Hale titled, “Are We Rational Animals?” To summarize the short article, Hale writes that there is growing evidence to support the idea that we are not the rational animals we think we are. This has been obvious to me for some time, but been on my mind a lot lately, especially after defending Abercrombie & Fitch’s Mike Jefferies in a blog a few months ago and the emotional vitriol against me that followed. Even in my last blog, I took so-called rational atheists to task for not being as rational as they pretend to be. And, if I take myself as an example, I’ll unabashedly tell you I can be as irrational as rational on any given day. Certainly, I don’t want to be irrational, beholden to the potentially negative effects of my capricious emotions, ever. It can’t be helped sometimes, though.

If it is true that we are not the rational animals we think we are, if we think and act more irrationally than rationally, why? Is our incredible capacity for reasoning not as incredible as we think we it is? We can tell ourselves that we indeed have an incredible capacity for reasoning, but is it rational to say so or are we rationalizing the assertion to inflate our egos? With these thoughts in the back of my rational mind, I re-read something that made me suspect that ever since Aristotle’s claim about man being a rational animal, we’ve all been going about philosophy the wrong way. That is, so few problems in philosophy have been solved due to the prevailing top-down approach, an approach that begins from the premise that man is indeed a rational animal and that any one person is egotistical enough to think they alone have figured something out. This approach is why no one can come up with a convincing argument for or against, say, abortion, that convinces everyone.

So, I was reading The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick in which he begins taking about the early days of genetic theory and some innovative remarks Richard Dawkins made about genes at the time (which can be found in Dawkin’s book, The Selfish Gene). Dawkins basically said that we do not use our genes; our genes use us. Genes are essentially programmed to get themselves (or the genes in its group) into the next generation and it doesn’t matter how; genes aren’t conscious of what they’re doing, they are just trying to replicate. Dawkins said that if you consider this, it begins to explain many types of behavior that we observe. It explains tribalism, violence, rape, and even self-sacrifice. It explains why we tend to honor the unspoken Social Contract and trust people without any grounds for doing so. It explains why I, someone with no desire to have children, wants to contribute something lasting (an idea perhaps) to the human race. I really do try to ignore this feeling, but I am nonetheless compelled by something other than reason. The mission of genes explains why we – all of us – are more irrational than rational.

Left to nature alone with no nurturing to tame it, the mission of genes readily sees population growth go unchecked. When genes are allowed to run rampant, the effect in the animal kingdom is seen when an animal overpopulates its environment and exceeds the land’s capacity to sustain them. To take an example we as humans can identify with, we used to be haunted (now we’re just jaded) by pictures of starving children in Third World countries where there isn’t enough food being grown locally to feed them while there is little or no education to curb population growth. Starving children are considered a problem and the underlying cause is genes running amuck – it’s an irrational situation. Solving the problem hasn’t worked in the traditional ways; politics tend to obstruct aid for…irrational reasons, I’m sure. Meanwhile philosophers tell us what we should do and then don’t act on their convictions. My point is, in doing philosophy, no one (that I know of) is considering our genes as the actual starting point for solving such a problem. If it is the purpose of our genes to get themselves into the next generation and we are simply the vehicles to get genes where they are going, might this be a place from which to start doing philosophy? One reason to even do philosophy is to tame our genes so that we don’t have to see something like children starving. (We also do philosophy that leads to science, which makes products that placates our genes’ need for certain comforts.)

Let’s return to the issue of abortion and begin from the premise that our genes are trying to get into the next generation and we are compelled by our nature to get them there. On the face of it, considering the needs of our genes alone, abortion should not be permissible. Now other factors in the argument for or against abortion can be considered. Should anyone but a pregnant woman have a say in what happens to her potential baby? That may depend on the needs of the group or society that is otherwise going to support her baby, whether through her job, family support, or some other way, what have you. (Of course, how large a group or society should be to have any say, if they have any say, is open to debate; based upon the needs of our genes, of course.) What about a woman that becomes pregnant due to a rape; should she be made to carry a fetus to term? That may depend upon how far into the future a group or society wants a gene prone to such violence to propagate*. See how now we can ask which genes should and should not be allowed to propagate. If we allow all genes to go forward, anything becomes permissible and no philosophy or argument for or against something like abortion will ever do for everyone. Or we can select for some traits in an attempt to subvert others and construct some guidelines for what should be done (taking into account any number of auxiliary circumstances) when a woman becomes pregnant. I’m not saying an issue like abortion isn’t complex, but we cannot debate such an issue if our starting point is whatever position you’ve already taken on the issue. That’s the top-down approach which in any given group or society ultimately kowtows to mob mentality. Mob mentality should never do for a species that considers itself rational.

(* This is assuming there is a genetic explanation or component to rape. I’m sure that on occasion something as horrible as rape it is due to a prevailing culture, but I believe cultures are ultimately the expressions of genes. Culture have to be since without people, there are no cultures.)

We can't do anything to curb being irrational until we admit how irrational we are and why. It's sort of like admitting you're an alcoholic before you can stop yourself. Recognizing what role genes play in our lives - sorry, the other way 'round - can be as much a starting place for philosophy as any other, so why not try it out since all the other starting points have pretty much failed?

 

Since this idea is new to me (and probably even weirder to you) I haven’t yet taken the time to consider to just what extent approaching philosophy in this manner is useful, if at all. If it fails, it fails. No biggie. But, like rational atheists who think a world run by people like themselves would be better than it is now simply because they couldn’t do any worse than the people who have traditionally run the world, I don’t see how this possible new approach to philosophy could do worse than how Western philosophy has played out so far. Not that it’s been all bad…