This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The implication seems to be that you should have children with as many different neurological disorders as possible rather than boring neurotypicals. Is that really your position?
No, that is not my position. Each child has their own joys and challenges. Some are more difficult than others. One of my children is "mildly" autistic and it is a very different and more challenging relationship than with my others. But we have also shared unique and memorable experiences. A couple months ago she made a mistake in a piano recital and looked at the audience with a one of the most genuine sheepish expressions I've ever seen and said "sorry". The audience chuckled in appreciative surprise. She then started over and played the piece perfectly. When we got back home she was inconsolable because she had "made a mistake and everyone had laughed at her".
We shouldn't seek out "odd" children (unless feeling called to adopt difficult children), but we should accept what life throws at us and find the joy in that life.
In that case, I hardly see why someone should have a down syndrome child instead of a normal one.
Acceptance of a situation is different from intentionally creating (or uncreating) the situation.
Taken to an extreme, if I there had been some screen that showed my autistic child would have been autistic I could have aborted her and immediately had a (higher shot at a) "normal" child. But just typing that sentence makes my blood boil.
I don't like that she is disabled, but I wouldn't trade her or our experiences for anything.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Not OP but that doesn't seem to follow in the slightest, no. The child is (obviously) denied a rich tapestry of experience and so is the parent. This doesn't imply that on the parent's side it's worthwhile to maximize for diversity of weird and unpleasant challenges. Only that if they do get a child with those differences, they're missing out on something by not experiencing the child and the relationship they'd have had with him or her.
As an inveterate baby-maker (on the male side) myself, my concern isn't for the burden on my wife and I. We'd rise to it well, I think. My concern is for the dampening effect it might have on the lives of my other children. I don't see murder as a reasonable solution, though; if I did, I can think of a lot of other people whose deaths would probably also improve my children's lives.
I thought of this. I knew multiple people growing up that had special needs siblings that made their own childhoods suck. Or they might not even have those other siblings if the drain on time, finances, and attention is too great. I read once, years ago, that women who have abortions go on to have more children than women who don't, with the idea being that it is a lot harder to get your 2.5 child happy ending marriage and picket fence once you are a single mom. I don't know if that fact is still true of millenials like it was for gen-z, but I could very well imagine that this trade off is actually 1 down syndrome child vs 2-3 without.
More options
Context Copy link
Does a Down syndrome child entail a richer tapestry of experiences for the parent than a neurotypical child? That's the tradeoff being made here.
This seems to assume that having a Down syndrome child precludes having another child afterward, which strikes me as odd.
A Down syndrome child is such a massive sink of resources that it DOES (if not absolutely preclude) make it much more difficult to have another child afterwards.
As for the "rich tapestry"... an afternoon being subject to torture is a richer tapestry of experience than taking a nap, but all things considered, I'd take the nap every time.
Waiting for a promotion opportunity can feel like torture too. How much easier might life be if your boss unfortunately, unexpectedly passed away when you're the obvious candidate to replace him? Or if that competitor who's making business hard just vanished one day, not to be heard from again? It'd probably be really good for your kids, too.
Yes, and as long as we're talking about enriching experiences, those who engage in corporate scheming and assassination are, in fact, living richer lives than those who just drudge on waiting until natural aging frees up a spot for them.
More options
Context Copy link
I can live a perfectly functional life even if I don’t get that promotion. The same is not true when it comes to raising a child with special needs.
Siblings of a Down syndrome child will also be affected. They receive less parental attention, are forced to grow up faster than their peers, and carry heavier emotional burdens for years. The costs are not trivial.
The analogy reads like backwards reasoning. You believe all abortion is murder, so you retroactively justify keeping the downs baby despite the trade-offs for the child and the rest of the family.
To me, the great downside of a child with down's syndrome is the worry that no one will take care of them if the parents die first. That they will end their life in misery, pain, neglect, and crying for their parents. Normal siblings can help guard against that scenario, but that's passing a heavy responsibility to someone else without their adult consent.
Important point! And I've seen such cases personally, where the parents had to feel "fortunate" if they outlive their disabled child. I'll never be happy about an abortion, but sometimes you only have bad choices.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Surely any business would welcome their competitor randomly exiting the market. This seems like an unambiguously great piece of luck for a business.
More options
Context Copy link
If you're not going to get a promotion unless you murder your boss, you are better off changing companies. Obviously there's no equivalent of that in the analogy... so you're not getting that promotion (or having that next child)
I don't find early-term abortion tantamount to murder, so the analogy really doesn't convince me.
More options
Context Copy link
If you want to argue that's it's immoral to abort a down syndrome baby, go ahead - but what you're doing is arguing that the parents are missing out, in fact impoverishing themselves, by not having a disabled child.
I'm not. I'm arguing that they're missing out, in fact impoverishing themselves, by not having and loving every child God gives them.
You're not making the case very well. In fact it appears that they are impoverishing themselves in every way other than "being good Christians" by piling on a perma-burden on themselves.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It obviously does, on the margin, since the options are:
Humans have a limited fertility window and most people are trying to hit some target number of kids. However, even if you are just trying to maximize the number of kids you have until you hit menopause, you're trading off a neurotypical kid for a down syndrome kid. Exception would be situations like "you're over 40 and you probably can't get pregnant again".
Not only have we shifted the goal posts to what I agree is a highly non-central situation at best, but even people who happen to be in that situation can't, in practice, know whether they are.
Seems just as plausible to me that if they're at the end of their child-bearing years they might abort what would have been their last (and in some cases only) child and not be able to conceive again.
Bird in the hand and all that.
Indeed. So let's focus on the modal case where people are overwhelmingly likely to conceive again after aborting a down syndrome baby.
This is my point, that outside the cases of highly geriatric pregnancies we're talking about trading off a down syndrome child for a neurotypical child.
We could also trade off dumb and ugly and sad children for better ones, I guess. It's not a slope I'd care to find myself on and I have zero faith in others to not keep sliding down it.
Okay. So you do concede that in most cases we're talking about trading off down syndrome children for neurotypical children. Let's return to my original question to you.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link