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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   27976 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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It fully corrupts the parent/child relationship; every member of our society learns when they grow up that their mother once had the fully legitimized option to have them slaughtered, and depending on her social environment and character she may well have seriously considered it. It's a horror lurking in our collective unconscious which we willfully repress, in much the same way that we repress our own mortality by avoiding the thought of hospitals and old folks' homes, keeping them sterile, out of the way, antimemetic.

I'm not actually against abortion, but I have to say you're not wrong about this. I do remember being a kid (7-10 age range IIRC) and telling Mum "thanks for not aborting me", and her not being super-reassuring about it (I don't think she seriously considered it, but I'm damned sure that during my adolescence she often wished she had). It's a bit creepy.

I actually remember learning what abortion was in 5th grade and being so repulsed I lectured the teacher who was trying to convince us it was a good thing. (Says something about where I grew up that something like that could happen, thanks Quakers). Not even confusion, just an instant angry threat response: "this is an attack on us kids"

Years later I read that one PKDick story and remembered "oh yeah, this is exactly what it felt like in the moment. Did my beliefs change, or did I just lose that animating perspective?"

The angry threat response and instant friend/enemy distinction is probably the most stable (and valuable) part of my political identity, come to think of it.

Years later I read that one PKDick story

Which?

"The Pre-Persons"

Huh, I had no idea Dick was opposed to abortion.

Well, that's one reading.

What's yours?

I think I was mostly kidding. But, c.f. Peter Singer who's a widely-respected philosopher who argues (IIRC) that post-birth 'abortion' should be allowable up until two years of age on the basis of etc. From there it's not much of a leap to suggest that some people might read "The Pre-Persons" and yes-chad it.

Basically I just no longer hold the assumption that something being plainly horrific and satanic is enough for the great mass of people to recognize it as such. And so the conceit here is that sure, maybe the Dick story scans as obviously anti-abortion to us, but that's no reason to suppose it did for him. Grim humor really.

If you haven't already read it, I think you will enjoy this article: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/10/we-are-repaganizing

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