Brood Awakenings

http://www.current.tv/studio/media/2683042

wow! I never knew vegan children were so healthy.

What has irritated me about this series so far is the underlying tone that says, "if you must be so irresponsible as to have a child, here's how to mitigate your blunder." Children, new beings, are not an occasion for hand-wringing by environmentally minded parents and superciliousness on the part of the "conscientiously childless." They are to be celebrated unequivocally, even as we find ways to slow population growth and reduce the impact of each new person on the planet. To do any less is to court genuine misanthropy.

I am actually fairly startled by this essay, the posts about the irresponsibility of parents, and the talk of reproduction as an environmental issue. To talk about whether to have children or not in terms of environment and sacrifice invites reductio ad absurdum: we could really cut down our carbon emissions if we all stopped breathing, and if the human race suddenly went extinct, climate change would stop in its tracks! Not having children for the sake of the environment fails the test of universal applicability. If everyone who drives a car now rode a bicycle instead, the world would be better off. If everyone stopped having children, the species would die.

(The same goes, coincidentally, for the ridiculous
argument against immigration for the sake of the
environment: if you feel that way, then you should attempt to reverse the ill effects of immigration by leaving the country and encouraging mass emigration. The point is to reduce the strain on resources everywhere and reduce consumption here, not limit entry to the lands of plenty.)

We are organisms, we reproduce. That is what we do. In fact, it's the closest thing we have to a purpose on this Earth. Reproduction is a biological imperative on par with eating and breathing. And if environmentalism is not, at
its core, about reverence for and promotion of life in all its forms, then what is it about?

Let me be clear: overpopulation is a problem, and not everyone should have children. In fact, only those who really, really want them, and are temperamentally ready and willing to put in the work and make the sacrifices, should, and even they should limit the number of children they have and consider adoption first. I find no fault at all with childlessness; in fact, I think the childless are often unfairly judged and discriminated against, and, yes, I can conceive that they do perform a service to the environment. But in terms of the species, in terms of our deepest biological beings, reproduction is all, alpha and omega, and must be respected as such in those who do choose to have children. And the last thing we need at a time like this is for intelligent, compassionate people, like Kurmann, who want to have children to withhold their genes and their capacity to nurture and teach. What the future needs is more people like him and fewer people like, say, Sean Hannity (two children!).

I suppose this is the kind of thing that comes from years of vague rhetoric about saving "the Earth," or "the environment," or even "the biosphere": it obscures the obvious and confuses priorities. These things would continue to be, would adapt and change and continue to be "nature", even if we ravaged the earth and then died off suddenly. The "environment" is supremely indifferent to us; it works around us or dies, but doesn't really "see" us. It is to be cherished, respected, and nurturedâ€"perhaps even worshipedâ€"but it is not what is central. What environmentalism is ultimately seeking to save is the human race; it is an attempt to stop us from killing ourselves by making our habitation uninhabitable and to
make the world safe for future humans. If environmentalists aren't among the loudest in their championing and celebration of children (and, after all, without children, who cares what happens to the planet after we die? and who can claim to care about children if they don't care about the planet?), then it's no wonder the "family values" right has such an easy time caricaturing us as dour weirdos who get more sentimental about obscure, unpronounceable species than about humans and their families.

One Child Per Couple


...if there are self made Purgatories, then we all have to live in them.
--"This Side of Paradise", TOS