Quartz India online has a report on “antinatalism” and “antinatalists” in India.* Reem Khokhar writes that she is 38, has been married for 13 years, and has no desire to have children. Her motto is “hum do, hamare do” (“we two, ours two”), basically two people who don’t intend to increase the human population. She writes, “My reasons are not unusual.” Then she enumerates, “parenthood is not for everyone; raising a child is a huge financial and emotional investment; the compromise and commitment required is enormous; and my husband and I find fulfillment in many other ways.” Finally, she gives what seems to be her primary reason:
“This is not a world into which I want to bring a child.”
The logical response to this is, “Then, what world?” Was Reem brought into a “better world”?
Okay, I get it. She is upset that there is a strain on water supplies, forests, and, to her thinking, atmosphere. So, to support her thesis that this world isn’t conducive to an expanding population, she cites a number of antinatalists, all of them pessimists. Understandable, of course. She is centering her argument on India, and says that “Cities like Delhi and Bengaluru will run out of water in two years.” All the antinatalists she quotes seem to have the same opinion, such as that of Zoe Jose, who says, “I believe I have no right to bring a child into this world when they have no choice in the matter and then force them with societal expectations and burdens…in an already overpopulated and polluted country like ours.” Zoe believes that “bringing a child into this world” will make matters worse. Wait! Did I hear Zoe correctly? Was there ever a child who had a “choice in the matter”? If I remember my own beginnings—and I don’t, of course—I just found myself here; I can’t remember planning anything, but I’m used to this place now.
The slums of Mumbai and other cities certainly make an argument for the antinatalist/pessimist’s position. Travelers to India often note the rampant poverty. So, are we doomed to a world predicted by movies likeSoylent Green ? Since no countries other than India and China have reached billion-plus populations, can non-Indians and non-Chinese understand the reasons that antinatalism has gained traction in those two countries? India is even on track to surpass China’s population. Mumbai already has the largest slum in the world.
Of course, human populations have always faced threats, so shouldn’t we consider how having some of us around in excess might ensure the survival of the species? Is there some failsafe system built into our genes to keep us going through thick and thin? Could the population explosions after devastating losses of human life be evidence that there’s an unconscious collective drive in the species to continue? Is that drive demonstrable by population increases that occurred after some of the most serious threats humans have faced? Think of the decades after World War I, a time when the Spanish flu (La Grippe) had taken between 20 and 40 million lives at the same time the war had taken an additional 17 million. And think post World War II after more than 50 million people died in less than a decade because of the war. Post-war populations increased. Is there some driving “natalism” that makes populations increase after the “world” shows itself to be hazardous to life? How bad are today’s “times” compared to the times of world wars and epidemics like the Black Death of the fourteenth century?
Yes, one could argue that a 1950s world of 3 billion people is different from a 2018 world of 7.5 billion. But is humanity just a pandemic or two and a nuclear war away from a decimated population struggling to survive? Even if there were just a few of us left, there’s no guarantee that human folly would not finish off those who remained—that story of Cain and Abel makes a point that is applicable today: People have harmed and killed other people without regard to some blissful, utopian future. And there’s no guarantee that either Reem or her husband will live another day, no guarantee that they will always find something rewarding or even interesting to do with their lives, and no guarantee that the bodies and brains of either will remain free from disease and disability.
We live by anecdotes, don’t we? We tint the shades of judgment by what we experience and what we believe to be the context of our lives. Reem Khokhar probably has plenty to eat and drink. However, she sees that many people don’t have what she has and assumes that her offspring would likely suffer the same as those who are impoverished in her country. But there were the problems of overcrowding, crime, disease, and all those bad things she envisions for her offspring when Reem found herself in “another” world. She survived; she seems to have prospered. Why assume that the future holds nothing but disaster? She’s around to predict on the basis of her anecdotal knowledge of her current world. Her parents might also have predicted an untenable existence for their offspring.
Maybe Reem’s antinatalism is just a product self-centeredness. Remember, she wrote that “parenthood is not for everyone; raising a child is a huge financial and emotional investment; the compromise and commitment required is enormous; and my husband and I find fulfillment in many other ways.” I guess for Reem and antinatalists the burden of continuing the species and of continuously attempting to better the human condition is not worth the effort.
* https://qz.com/1342957/many-indians-are-deciding-not-to-bring-children-into-this-overpopulated-unkind-world/?yptr=yahoo
“This is not a world into which I want to bring a child.”
The logical response to this is, “Then, what world?” Was Reem brought into a “better world”?
Okay, I get it. She is upset that there is a strain on water supplies, forests, and, to her thinking, atmosphere. So, to support her thesis that this world isn’t conducive to an expanding population, she cites a number of antinatalists, all of them pessimists. Understandable, of course. She is centering her argument on India, and says that “Cities like Delhi and Bengaluru will run out of water in two years.” All the antinatalists she quotes seem to have the same opinion, such as that of Zoe Jose, who says, “I believe I have no right to bring a child into this world when they have no choice in the matter and then force them with societal expectations and burdens…in an already overpopulated and polluted country like ours.” Zoe believes that “bringing a child into this world” will make matters worse. Wait! Did I hear Zoe correctly? Was there ever a child who had a “choice in the matter”? If I remember my own beginnings—and I don’t, of course—I just found myself here; I can’t remember planning anything, but I’m used to this place now.
The slums of Mumbai and other cities certainly make an argument for the antinatalist/pessimist’s position. Travelers to India often note the rampant poverty. So, are we doomed to a world predicted by movies likeSoylent Green ? Since no countries other than India and China have reached billion-plus populations, can non-Indians and non-Chinese understand the reasons that antinatalism has gained traction in those two countries? India is even on track to surpass China’s population. Mumbai already has the largest slum in the world.
Of course, human populations have always faced threats, so shouldn’t we consider how having some of us around in excess might ensure the survival of the species? Is there some failsafe system built into our genes to keep us going through thick and thin? Could the population explosions after devastating losses of human life be evidence that there’s an unconscious collective drive in the species to continue? Is that drive demonstrable by population increases that occurred after some of the most serious threats humans have faced? Think of the decades after World War I, a time when the Spanish flu (La Grippe) had taken between 20 and 40 million lives at the same time the war had taken an additional 17 million. And think post World War II after more than 50 million people died in less than a decade because of the war. Post-war populations increased. Is there some driving “natalism” that makes populations increase after the “world” shows itself to be hazardous to life? How bad are today’s “times” compared to the times of world wars and epidemics like the Black Death of the fourteenth century?
Yes, one could argue that a 1950s world of 3 billion people is different from a 2018 world of 7.5 billion. But is humanity just a pandemic or two and a nuclear war away from a decimated population struggling to survive? Even if there were just a few of us left, there’s no guarantee that human folly would not finish off those who remained—that story of Cain and Abel makes a point that is applicable today: People have harmed and killed other people without regard to some blissful, utopian future. And there’s no guarantee that either Reem or her husband will live another day, no guarantee that they will always find something rewarding or even interesting to do with their lives, and no guarantee that the bodies and brains of either will remain free from disease and disability.
We live by anecdotes, don’t we? We tint the shades of judgment by what we experience and what we believe to be the context of our lives. Reem Khokhar probably has plenty to eat and drink. However, she sees that many people don’t have what she has and assumes that her offspring would likely suffer the same as those who are impoverished in her country. But there were the problems of overcrowding, crime, disease, and all those bad things she envisions for her offspring when Reem found herself in “another” world. She survived; she seems to have prospered. Why assume that the future holds nothing but disaster? She’s around to predict on the basis of her anecdotal knowledge of her current world. Her parents might also have predicted an untenable existence for their offspring.
Maybe Reem’s antinatalism is just a product self-centeredness. Remember, she wrote that “parenthood is not for everyone; raising a child is a huge financial and emotional investment; the compromise and commitment required is enormous; and my husband and I find fulfillment in many other ways.” I guess for Reem and antinatalists the burden of continuing the species and of continuously attempting to better the human condition is not worth the effort.
* https://qz.com/1342957/many-indians-are-deciding-not-to-bring-children-into-this-overpopulated-unkind-world/?yptr=yahoo
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