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I want to follow up on the earlier discussion about anti-natalism and natalism. I find it interesting that some people see anti-natalism as being a leftist phenomenon. I feel that this is true if you limit your understanding of leftism to stereotypical Redditors. However, historically speaking, philosophical pessimism, deep skepticism about the value of life, and doubt about the value of reproduction as anything other than an animal instinct are, I think, far from left-oriented. If you think about some of the most famous people who have held such views, such as Arthur Schopenhauer, H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Michel Houellebecq... well, these are certainly not leftists by any common definition of leftist. And then there is Nietzsche who, even though in his writings he constantly insisted on the value of healthy virile life, did not leave any offspring even though, despite his various health problems, he probably would not have found it that hard to get married and have kids if he had really wanted to.
I do not think that being dubious of natalism is a right-wing phenomenon, but I also certainly do not think that it is inherently a left-wing phenomenon.
Ok but skepticism about the natural course of reproduction is almost the sine qua non of progressivism(and there are no non-progressive leftists today, or very few). Progressivism was all about eugenics, originally- and it continues to be about birth control and transhumanism.
This seems to tie into a deeper division in the west, that of a telos, whereby creatures(defined broadly as 'part of the material universe') have their purpose not set by themselves. The right in the west basically believes in this; continuing itself is a telos of human life. The left in the west broadly doesn't; the purpose of human life is to do whatever it wants. There's a theistic/nontheistic division but which comes first? My philosophical commitment to the idea of a telos comes from my theism but there are many whose theism was derived from their belief in telos. In turn this ties into the commitments to stability and continuity vs individualism and self growth.
Under a 'your purpose is to do what you want' framework obviously that can't be wrong, because it's subjective. Yes, most leftists would be skeptical of a young woman claiming she wants to take care of babies and bake, but that's what false consciousness is about- it's not wrong to want that, she's just wrong about what she wants. It's an epicycle, not a real course correction. Contrast a framework which believes in telos- if what you want is to 'advocate' then you are wrong for writing off just being normal. You 'make a difference in the world' by fulfilling your appointed task, which probably isn't something particularly notable.
There's far less charitable ways to phrase these things, obviously. But the core of conservatism is this idea that, yeah, you kinda just have to, circumstances beyond your control have spoken. See the trans debate- the core of the conservative objection is 'drop your pants in front of a mirror- you see a penis? Yeah, it means you have to be male. It doesn't matter if you're sure you'd rather be a girl. Sometimes you have to do the things you have to do.'. It's why normiecons don't get conspicuously upset about child support laws even when they suck for individual men 'supporting their kids is what dads do. Suck it up, it's your job.' or think that unwanted pregnancies don't justify an abortion 'yeah, moms put their child's needs before their own wants. Get over it, that's what you are now.'.
I support the dictatorship of the universe. No good comes from defying it. Progressives simply think it's unfair that being male means being male- after all, you didn't get to pick. That's why they're so obsessed with consent all the time.
I’ve always seen the left as very much about hedonistic urges. The idea being that freedom means freedom to do whatever you want, and that anyone or anything that restricts your ability to live out whatever hedonistic urges a person has.
Anti-natalist ideas fit perfectly well, as having a child introduces obligations, personal, financial, and emotional. A parent is simply not as free to act on hedonistic desires because the child needs things. You can’t just travel on a whim, as you need to arrange for how exactly you accommodate the little child. You can’t spend your last dime on yourself, you need to buy formula.
This is still a telos. It’s just not your telos.
The conservative telos tends to be duty. It’s told in lots of different ways I suppose, but the general idea is that you might have a technical right to do as you please, but it’s not always good to do so unless you deal with all the duties you have. If you don’t keep up your end things fall apart fairly quickly.
I see classical liberalism, or libertarianism, as being very much about better everything. It creates more wealth, allows you to live you to live a hedonistic lifestyle, and also creates the strongest families and communities, because voluntary association is the key to building those things. When you use force to compel people into situations they don't want to be in, that's what produces the low-trust, every-man-for-himself world that these communitarians say they're fighting. Rent control leads to hatred between landlords and tenants. Classrooms become chaotic when you force kids who don't want to be there to attend.* I saw the culmination of this on DSL recently, with someone arguing that once we get artificial wombs we should force women who want abortions to transfer the fetuses into them and bill them and father for the cost, the same way the state goes after men for child support:
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,13608.msg668940.html#msg668940
Just think about how low-trust and low-class that is. So when you hear things like "the conservative telos tends to be duty," it's all well and good when it's people voluntarily adopting a socially conservative lifestyle. When you force that on people you get this low-class low-trust Jerry Springer paternity lawsuit world. It is not going any place that you want to be.
*I understand there's a reason mandatory schooling exists, but we should acknowledge the downside.
So you’ve successfully argued that many people are not virtuous, in the sense of wanting to do good. But that is ultimately irrelevant for the framework, why is it better for people to do bad than it is for people to do good by force?
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It is true that forced duty can backfire and create resentment. In fact, I think my own repudiation of the progressive left's control of our institutions made me doubt all structure for a time due to me seeing how structure was weaponized against me. However, as my intuitions and experiences evolve, so does the realization that structure is necessary, and that to always err on the side of freedom over any structure removes all durability from society.
A "culture" that prizes individualism above all else will eventually treat its own moral frameworks and shared norms as arbitrary and/or oppressive. The meaning of words, morals, etc. are challenged and end up being replaced or evolve at a rate that doesn't allow the members within this "culture" to adapt to or internalize. The obvious strength of liberalism is the freedom it allows and pushes for, but the not-so-obvious weakness is that it offers no internal mechanism to preserve that freedom or the culture that allowed to exist in the first place. Over time, this pursuit of individuality erodes the foundations that made "free" expression possible, which results in the ultimate irony of Liberalism unintentionally serving as the driving force behind a new structured (and sometimes more oppressive) system replacing the old one.
I'm no advocate for a hyper-structured or authoritarian society. That being said, a society with no sense of shared purpose, no accepted moral vocabulary, no uniting telos, is one that drifts toward decadence. Liberalism, in its purest form, ends in fragmentation. Fragmented societies typically don't do well.
I feel very much the same. Hedonism is problematic because it means that the cultural, social, and economic commons get raided rather quickly as people choose to defect every single time they can get away with it. Such societies tend to end up being very low trust very quickly as people learn they can’t depend on others to keep themselves from overusing welfare systems, cheating the system, creating moral chaos, bribing people, etc. when you realize that you get screwed by people maximizing their hedonistic score at your expense.
I tend to favor the Confucian approach of seeing things in terms of relationships. If I owe something to you, in return it’s just expected that you likewise owe something to me. A parent owes a child safety and provision, so it just makes sense that the child ought to obey his parents.
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Perhaps I'm misreading you, but voluntary associations and state power aren't all there is. It's true that state power often tries to replace, or even actively attacks, voluntary associations. But it often acts the same way toward natural bonds which impose duty.
I'd argue that child support in 21st-century America is more often an effort to replace natural duty by state power than it is an effort to enforce that duty. But when the state does try to backstop natural (or even long-established social) institutions, it has the option to do so with a much lighter hand than when it tries to replace them.
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