The picture was found at a typical anti-feminist website. It came to mind while reading this article in The Nation about the freaky “Quiverfull” people, who are only really different from the mainstream anti-choice movement in degree, not kind. Take your typical anti-choicer, make the subtext about male anxiety about the emasculating nature of contraception really obvious, add some homeschooling, and you’ve got the Quiverfulls. The article covers some of the basic ground, though erroneously implying that the anti-contraception stance of anti-choicers is some new thing, when it’s been part and parcel of the movement the whole time. It cannot be stated firmly enough, but organized opposition to abortion rights stems directly from the belief that women should not be able to limit the number of births they have, and the invocation of the sacredness of fetal life is a post hoc justification.
By the way, this article has the best anxiety-about-virility symbolism I’ve ever read coming from a religious wingnut.
Rachel Scott, who calls herself a “one-woman Quiverfull activist,” describes her conversion moment. One night after the birth of her fourth child–their third “oops” baby due to birth-control failures–when the prospect of tuition for four consumed husband Christopher and their pastor was urging vasectomy, Christopher saw a warrior angel in his dream. A “large, worrying warrior angel” with a flaming sword that he pointed at Christopher’s genitals, telling him, “Do not change God’s plan.”
Equating limiting your family size to coming at a man’s balls with a flaming sword. You couldn’t make it up if you wanted to.
But what was really great about this article is they show how blatantly racist the anti-choicers are.
Raising a large family, she replied, was itself her “battle station,” as deliberately political an act as canvassing for conservative candidates, not to mention part of a long-term plan to win the culture war “demographically.”
Population is a preoccupation for many Quiverfull believers, who trade statistics on the falling white birthrate in European countries like Germany and France. Every ethnic conflict becomes evidence for their worldview: Muslim riots in France, Latino immigration in California, Sharia law in Canada. The motivations aren’t always racist, but the subtext of “race suicide” is often there.
And that these justifications for anti-choice thought are echoed in the mainstream conservative movement.
Even as the movement seeks to mellow its image to mainstream its message, the revival dreams the Hesses had in the 1990s have become popular talking points in their own right through the work of social scientists like Phillip Longman, a demographer at the centrist New America Institute and the author of The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It, and the man Longman describes as his “dark shadow,” Allan Carlson. Though Carlson comes at natalism from the right and Longman, putatively the secular vanguard of the movement, works on the issue from the middle, their positions are sufficiently similar for Longman to have endorsed Carlson’s controversial pro-Quiverfull treatise, “The Natural Family: A Manifesto.”
David Neiwert is often writing about how far right wingnut ideas work their way into the mainstream, and I think this is a classic example of that process. On the far right, they are openly racist and want to ban contraception so that white women start having more children whether they like it or not. The general idea is that “good” white girls wait until marriage, but it’s okay if “bad” white girls have them out of wedlock, where they can be adopted by couples needing to puff up their “quiver” some. I tend to think that far right nuts don’t think that women of color use birth control, but weirdly enough, I don’t think they care so much because they figure that hyper-fecundity in white women will restore white supremacy so it doesn’t matter one way or another. These ideas work their way into the mainstream by presenting themselves as hand-wringing over sluttiness, concern about fetuses, and of course anxieties about feminism and immigration. After 9/11, the wingnut desire to dominate Muslims became a more mainstream idea.
Liberals make the whole thing worse by being obtuse about how the anti-choice movement has a lot more going on than some abstract “abortion is icky” thing. People don’t camp out at clinics or hang out at the hospital where a white woman of reproductive age in a vegetative state is about to have her feeding tube pulled without giving her parents grandchildren first unless they have a lot more going on than a sort of touch and go relationship with the definition of “human life”. They don’t have meltdowns in the Supreme Court building and have to be hauled away while lawyers and judges go over the finer points of the difference between this abortion and that, depending on which way the fetus’s feet are facing. They don’t get hysterical at the idea that there’s a fraction of a fraction of a chance that taking the pill could mean that a fertilized egg might be sloughed off that possibly wouldn’t have otherwise, but most likely would since a good half do. The levels of hysteria in the anti-choice movement are such that something else besides just concern about “life” is going on, and that article is a good description of the racist anxiety, gender anxiety, and sexual anxiety that’s underlying the whole movement.
151 Responses to “Reminder: The anti-choice movement is genocidal”
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The whole demographic-disaster, natalist wackiness always irritates me. “Make love not war” was our idea. Of course, the right wants to make love and war. Just like the Nazis they admire so much.
I’d call Histro’s comment above a flagrant Godwin’s Law violation, but the Quiver-pullers are so far gone in Racial-Hygeine-Land that comparisons to the Nazis aren’t just understandable but inevitable.
I think of my dear right-wing Christian friends and their adopted daughter…who is Asian, and multiply handicapped. They would weep to see this garbage.
Listen, you stupid fuck, do you spend a million dollar jackpot you haven’t won yet just because you bought a ticket that you just know is a winner? Do you run your car into a river just because you’re planning on buying a new one? Until God comes down from heaven bearing a brochure and a reciept from Magrathea, stop playing russian roulette with my planet, you selfish ignorant cow.
Oh my goodness…
I get so sick of this blaming women for men’s shameful behavior.
How can anyone think it makes sense to make women in to virtual children, completely dependent on their husbands due to constant pregnancy and childbearing, in the hope that more men will feel guilty and elect not to abandon their families? Why aren’t they concerned about what happens to the women and children whose men do abandon them anyway? I suppose, since they’re suggesting we return to 19th century views on birth control, they probably also think we should return to regarding divorced women as sluts and failures, and children of divorce as worthless bastards doomed to a life of poverty and crime. Now that will really stomp those bitches down! make those men feel socially obligated to their families!
Why is it OK to sacrifice women and children in the hopes of making men more godly?
OT but I really appreciate that dorkiness when i see it. Thanks, Kyso.
wow, that article is packed. a lot of interesting (and wacko) stuff in there. sometimes i wonder whether i really ought to believe the worst of all the people i know who say they are pro-life. but then one of them says something like “immigrants are having babies so fast that soon we’ll be outnumbered” — you know, no sig-heiling, just your average unacknowledged racism — and i realize that you don’t have to have the Fascism Handbook memorized to fall somewhere on that side philosophically, and to be swayed by arguments that play on those insecurities of yours.
anyway, did anybody notice that the evil “failed mother” career woman has demon eyes? she does.
Because ideological fanatics never put the interests of people above these of abstract moral systems, deities, or collectives. Everyone is supposed to serve Christianity; that means people who are destined to be lower ranked on the hierarchy - women, the poor, non-Americans, gays - should shut up about such trivialities as self-expression and equality.
argh! Why didn’t my del tag work?
:(
My comment was directed to Nothingmuch.
Nothingmuch: They undoubtedly will bring back the workhouses, too.
Among the other highlights of the Nation article is “centrist” Democratic pundit Philip Longman, writing in the DLC’s Blueprint magazine that Democrats should essentially spot the wingnuts their patriarchy in exchange for more centrist tax policies.
Eh, I’d say send ‘em all to Mars while we try to clean up this planet, but I don’t think Mars deserves it.
I’m going to write a “wingnut utopia” story, where they get everything they want, all the science-believers, gays, and self-respecting women leave and take it to its logical conclusion:
“sadly enough, the population of the United States died off to only a few million clustered in small hamlets when the last set of plagues ran through. To the inhabitants’ shocked surprise, bloodletting and praying to God did not protect them from bubonic plague, avian flu, and Ebola. The survivors of the once-proud USA now survive on subsistence farming. The rest of the world has been discussing how to repopulate the country and whether to move the remaining Americans into one small territory, where they can continue to live their lives as they wish.”
Among the first contemporary Protestants advancing the theory that contraception is anathema to Scripture was Charles Provan, an independent Pennsylvania printer, lay theologian and father to ten who was until recently deeply involved in the Holocaust revisionist movement. In 1989 Provan, whom both Pride and the Hesses name as an inspiration, published The Bible and Birth Control, which has been called the authoritative source for Protestants seeking scriptural guidance on contraception.
Nazis, plain and simple.
So. There will come a wave of people sweeping into areas they didn’t live before, having lots of kids to populate it all.
And all these quiverfull types are some native American cult? Or have we seen these conquests somewhere before? Hmmm?
There’s just so much wrongness in this article - too much to really comment on. But one thing struck me - why was the wife’s “conversion moment” a dream that her husband had. I mean, its pretty clear that hubby woke up one morning and said “oh, um, an angel appeared in a dream last night and told me that God didn’t want me to get that vasectomy” because he was too much of a coward to let a scalpel get close to his scrotum. Weenie.
And their pastor was saying “you know, maybe you guys shouldn’t be having these kids you can’t afford”. When you’re ignoring your religious adviser, you probably have some other agenda for making your “deep-felt religious decision” other than religion. The obvious one is that the hubby is too much of a wimp to get the snippage. Sweet zombie Jesus I can’t believe I have to share a country with these folks.
So, Longman is into Oswald Spengler?
Yes, BenA. We’re aware that any self-styled Democrat is probably worse than a Nazi and that by calling yourself a Democrat, you’re endorsing all the inanity.
What’s weird is that the notion that you are a Democrat because you call yourself one is why the Dems have moved so far to the center. They have Republican operatives offering political advice.
Wow, that career woman up there looks happy. Maybe that’s because she’s not married to an over-controlling racially-anxious asswipe.
Does that flaming sword pointed at Christopher’s best friend suggest to anyone else that maybe vasectomy was, in this particular case, god’s plan? Cut ‘em and burn ‘em! Sounds about right to me.
whoops. forgot to close the blockquote.
Longman is an eedjit. Humans happily existed for most of their history in egalitarian, hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies. Patriarchy came in with agriculture (as did the idea that women should have lots and lots of kids to help on the farm).
Amanda, and commentors, rightfully point out the sexism, racism, etc. of the pro-life movement. I surmise that pro-life wingnuttery is behind the success of the race-baiting ads targeting Harold Ford in Tennessee. The thought of some pure white woman, womb-for-rent to future white citizens, wasting ova and uterine space on spawning biracial babies - oh noooo! Sin! Blasphemy! I do not think it’s a coincidence that interracial relationships have increased since the rise of the second wave of feminism, and women’s economic and social independence. Racism *has* always intertwined with sexism and vice versa. Women’s bodies in this mindset are objects to be controlled by men.
What really gets me about these, “breed to preserve western civilization” idiots is the following.
1) You know, I pretty much like western civilization and its products, progress, rationalism and liberalism. These people who want to “preserve western civilization” by breeding lots of kids, they don’t like western civilization, at fucking all. They simply like the toys of civilization.
Hence their hatred of tolerance, of social welfare programmes, of other people and other lifestyle choices and most especially their hatred of science and contempt for intellectualism.
2) I have little doubt that my own distinctive ethnic/cultural group (Afrikaners) will be gone in about 3-4 generations, but that is secondary to the survival of civilization.
3) One of the last things the world needs is a bunch more of Red State Americans. The world needs less people morons, not more.
One precision.
Sharia Law is not reckognized in Canada. Some Muslims tried to establish parallel Sharia tribunals for their community in Ontario. The lawmakers studied the question and rejected the idea at 100%.
Are you a Jew? Adam and/or Eve? Repopulating the earth after everyone died in a flood? No? Then God wasn’t talking to you.
…sorry.
It is ironic that the people who hate Darwin the most are the ones who have the highest reproductive fitness.
I think it is important to think about the fact that if conservatives/natalists have 4 kids per household and liberals have 0 or 1, that there may be political changes in the future due to exponential growth of the right and exponential shrinkage of the left.
NonyNony, I thought the same thing, then I realized the man’s anxiety+ his religious background could easily have bubbled up that nightmare from his subconscious. In either case, though, I rather wish the woman had had the wisdom to tell him that when angels appear in your sleep, it’s called a dream and is a manifestation of your own thoughts. And that he could either consult with a doctor to get his anxiety relieved, or she’d look into more medical options on her side. (With three accidents already, I wonder if she might be hyperfertile, which isn’t a very healthy thing.)
“Like all good buildings, the foundation needs to be strong. But the Bible says, ‘All men come.’
Am I going to hell that I really, really, really laughed at this part?
If I had 3 “oops” babies, I sure as hell would take a flaming sword to my husband’s balls.
You’ve got to be friggin’ joking. That picture isn’t a satire? It came from an actual, serious anti-contraceptive site?
Another question: I’m not a “pure” European. Does that mean I can opt out of having more kids because I don’t need to “save my race” having no particular race to save?
I think it is important to think about the fact that if conservatives/natalists have 4 kids per household and liberals have 0 or 1, that there may be political changes in the future due to exponential growth of the right and exponential shrinkage of the left.
Forunately, memes propogate via a more Lamarkian sort of evolution, that is, they can be changed in a living entity and those changes passed to the children. So, for example, the child of a “quiverful” family, perhaps unhappy because she has been told all her life that she is good for nothing but making babies and was neglected by her parents who had too many children to attend to them all properly, is exposed in adulthood to the idea that she has a perfectly good brain and a right to use it. She becomes a feminist and passes feminist ideals to her children. Because she probably only has one or two children, she has time to spend with each child and they grow up happier and therefore with beliefs that are stronger and more resistent to the calls of angels with flaming swords. Presto, new liberals, without the need to be baby factories.
What Dianne said. And you know, even if it doesn’t work that way, it’s not women’s job to make babies for the left and more than for the fatherland.
And so it goes. As a person living in Quebec, Canada, we have already seen this phenomena- it was called the “revanche des berceaux” or revenge of the cradle. The francophone politicos and the Catholic Church encouraged women to believe that their duty was to breed large families to overcome the oppression of the English. They did by having families of 10-20 children in a time before general public education, medicare or welfare. As these families grew so did the pressure on government to help them survive the huge costs of these families. By the sixties, huge government support programs began to be instituted just as the population curve began to level off. The next generation of women were not so keen on the idea after seeing what their mothers went through for the cause. Population numbers dwindled to below replacement. The kicker is some of the political fallout.
The big political payday was to be the first referendum to separate Quebec from Canada. A few weeks before, with the Yes in majority, a female Cabinet minister basically said that they could only fail if these older women voted like their husbands, comparing them to a subservient television character called Yvette. The next day a movement was born. I remember the day of the Yvette rally, being mobbed by hordes of small Quebecois women dragging their hulking sons through the subway system to rally, not against the cause but against a party that had discredited their sacrifice. How much of the No sides victory was good politics is left to others but I will believe to the last that it was because so may children voted in response to their mother’s rage and disappointment.
This is all to say that breeding for political reasons is not guarantor of success. Oh, and becareful what you say.
blah:
Consider two families, each with an identical household income. The “quiverful” one has 10 kids. The other has 2.
Which family is better able to afford college for the children? Which family is going to be able to live near an urban center, where home prices are higher but jobs are more plentiful? Which family is going to be able to afford vacations, sports equipment, etc.? Which one is going to be able to give more individual attention to their kids, especially the ones having trouble in school? And if one of the kids has a serious medical problem, which family will be able to pay the bills?
Popping out a steady stream of kids made sense a couple of hundred years ago, when (1) families worked their land, farm, or mill together, and (2) any given kid had a good chance of dying before the age of 21. But we’re not living in 1806. At least, SOME us aren’t…
Some Quiverfull families will do ok, but the rest will be submitting themselves to a life of barely getting by, and their kids WILL remember that when it comes time to make reproductive choices. It all evens out.
So let the Quiverfull breed like bunnies if they want. After all, our gay and lesbian brethren need to recruit too!
Seconding what Dianne said. Remember the much-vaunted “generation gap” of the 60’s? That happened because a lot of young people were very MUCH more liberal than their parents.
Likewise, cultures can change over time. To take one example: Norway and Sweden used to be populated by Vikings - patriarchal, warlike and slave-owning. Fast forward about a thousand years and what do you have? Peaceful, prosperous countries that consistently rank at the top of the scale for both quality of life and gender equality. This happened due to structural changes in their societies and economies, not because liberal Swedes and Norwegians frantically started pumping out kids in order to breed more little liberals.
So, Western Civilization has thrived and prospered due to women being able to control the number of children they had, leading to more efficient use of resources (better education, lower crime rates, more/better toys all around), to produce people who decided that it was somehow a bad thing to have children be wanted –and so began defunding contraceptive services wherever they could … most notably in the third world and developing nations, where they are needed most. Hence, those countries see a skyrocketing birthrate and horrible poverty, leading the next generation to come to America in search of a better life. Same people now suddenly start freaking out that we’re being “outnumbered” and rather than do what any sensible person would do: which would be to accept that lower birthrates were ultimately a good thing and maybe we should share the wealth, so to speak, they decide to drag all of our progress down the toilet to keep the scary brown people at bay. It really isn’t surprising to me at all that this is the sort of mental wattage that results in women’s husband telling her about a dream that anyone with a passing understanding of psychology would see for what it is, and taking it for gospel truth. It sort of reminds me of the South Park episode about the history of the Mormon Church: “Joseph Smith says he saw and angle, and now he’s a prophet! Why would he make something like that up?” (Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb!)
And, to parrott what has already been said: If the politics of the parents were guaranteed to be the politics of the children, Germany would not be any different than it was 60 years ago.
mr. memento, your post reminded me of recent studies indicating a relationship between fraternal birth order and male homosexuality. If you think about it, the Quiverfull crowd really is breeding queers. How cool is that?
Sirkowski -
Yeah, but it’s the very fact that those pinko commie queer-lovers up there in Canuckstan were considering allowing the non-Christian brownies to bring their satan-loving islamic practises into what should be a whites-only bastion shows how evil the development of non-womanly “career-women” really is. It’s all the women’s fault; Canuckstan just isn’t [grunt] Manly [/grunt] enough. I mean, they don’t bomb helpless countries or ANYTHING!
[/sarcasm]
I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
Anyway, what these fundies don’t get is that progressive liberalism isn’t the acceptance of everything, rather it is the lack of outright initial rejection of anything; ie thinking it through, THEN making a decision rationally. I guess the whole thinking thing is an anathema to these folks; considering the viewpoints of others than yourself. The fact that all their thinking is supposedly done for them by their fundamentalisms makes them think any expression of ACTUAL thinking is obviously evil (let alone if women start doing it too).
Now, as to these Quiver-full folks … I’m sorry (wait, no, actually, I’m not), but having small families of 1 to 2 child is the fucking MORAL thing to do. The planet cannot support the people we have now; IT CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE. Stop fucking up my planet you DICKS!! I do honestly consider a large family choice ethically questionable. I’m not going to stop anyone from doing so, but it’s not something I am going to celebrate in any way; that choice has horrendous consequences.
mr. memento - “Which family is better able to afford college for the children? Which family is going to be able to live near an urban center, where home prices are higher but jobs are more plentiful? Which family is going to be able to afford vacations, sports equipment, etc.? Which one is going to be able to give more individual attention to their kids, especially the ones having trouble in school? And if one of the kids has a serious medical problem, which family will be able to pay the bills?”
College? - They’re better off not being exposed to other people and other ways of thinking. College is nothing but a socialist propaganda camp…
“live near an urban center”? - The soil of the American Heartland is all any good American needs. Besides, “urban centers” are where brown people live. Ick!
“vacationsâ€?? - More exposure to other people and their ideas. Too dangerous! That time would be better spent reading the Bible, especially the parts about homos…
�sports equipment�? - All you need is a football from WalMart and some grass…
�individual attention�? - Kids need to know their place, and that’s all. Attention just makes them into libruls…
“trouble in school�? - If a kid give Mom trouble while being home-schooled, she just waits for Dad to come back from work and whip his ass to put the fear of God back…
�serious medical problem�? - The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. It is not for man to understand the mind of God…
Yes, BenA. We’re aware that any self-styled Democrat is probably worse than a Nazi and that by calling yourself a Democrat, you’re endorsing all the inanity.
Amanda, I appreciate that there are, in fact, people who say such things and that these views are ridiculous.
But neither The Nation piece, nor I, was suggesting any such thing. I do not believe, nor have ever believed, that the Democrats and the Republicans are identical, nor that all Democrats in any sense endorse the most idiotic or dangerous things endorsed by some Democrats.
But the article was suggesting, and I think it’s an important point, that there are elements within the Democratic Party who are happy to literally celebrate patriarchy and endorse an only slightly secularized version of “quiverfull” if it will get votes for their neoliberal economic views. And, moreover, Democrats of this sort are often labeled “centrists” in the media.
Share these concerns or reject them, Amanda, but please don’t misrepresent my views.
What a sad commentary on how some adults do not view children as human beings but ammunition for wars. War for religious domination, war for male domination, war for race domination and war for getthing their dead asses into heaven.
Hey, that’s what I keep telling to those Africans with 3 or more kids. Stop fucking up my planet — If you can’t feed the kids you have with resources in your own areas, I’m not quite getting why I have to accept them as immigrants and feed them, when overpopulation will fuck up my planet, and my people aren’t overbreeding.
Is that so wrong?
The “quiverfull” people and Neocons are idiots –limit immigration from dysfunctional third-world countries is a moral solution, but simply making women into baby-making machines without consent isn’t, nor is starting genocidal wars.
But I still wonder why desire to have morewhite babies is “genocidal”.
Hey, that’s what I keep telling to those Africans with 3 or more kids. Stop fucking up my planet — If you can’t feed the kids you have with resources in your own areas, I’m not quite getting why I have to accept them as immigrants and feed them, when overpopulation will fuck up my planet, and my people aren’t overbreeding.
Is that so wrong?
The “quiverfull” people and Neocons are idiots –limit immigration from dysfunctional third-world countries is a moral solution, but simply making women into baby-making machines without consent isn’t, nor is starting genocidal wars.
But I still wonder why desire to have more white babies is “genocidal”.
(oops, double post)
I’m going to be chuckling over that “flaming sword to the balls” line all day.
What also bothered me about that article is that raising an army of god was really just popping out babies. Women with umpteen children were wondering if they could still be “quiverfull” women once they became infertile or post-fertile! WTF?
But those of us who have had parents and grandparents in very very large families may understand a little of why they might feel that way. Older kids in large families are neglected and conscripted - boys work to support the family, girls provide childcare, and nobody much notices if they are not doing well physically or mentally. One boyfriend I had came from a large family where his sister nearly died of appendicitis because nobody bothered to notice she was sick and didn’t get up that day.
Tuomas, when we are willing to limit the flow of capital and resources from dysfunctional third world countries, I’ll be willing to limit the migration of people.
It is utterly unreasonable to take resources out of Africa, put the money in a few hands that put it in Swiss bank accounts, and then complain when those people who rightfully own but don’t control the resources and are exploited to exploit them and left with no way to raise their families seek better pastures.
Believe it or not, but I agree to an extent. Or that we ensure that the trade between the West and third-world countries is fair and non-exploitative. That multinational corporations aren’t allowed to practically use slave labor in third-world countries, for example.
I disagree with you on the order of things: I think limitating immigration is necessary at first because currently there is no motive for third-worlders to build a better society, to put up fair laws and fight corruption in their own countries.
(And the West needs to stop installing puppet regimes etc. I agree with y’all on that.)
Tangentially related thing overheard at Feministe:
I won’t deny that I am motivated also by culturalism or perhaps even racism (=desire to preserve my own culture, which I consider a legitimate desire for all people), but just pointing out that both the far-left solutions (=we shouldn’t limit immigration) and the fundy solutions are both IMHO unrealistic and unjust.
Tuomas - “I won’t deny that I am motivated also by culturalism or perhaps even racism (=desire to preserve my own culture, which I consider a legitimate desire for all people)”
Thanks, Tuomas, for making it easier to see who/what you really are. Makes it so much easier than when you dance around pretending to be something else…
You’re welcome. Of course, this confirms my suspicion that the reason most people who really need to see themselves as tolerant personally throw such a shitfit when someone suggests that something they have done may have been racist, or that they may be racist, is that the accusation is used to simply disregard opinions that the accuser doesn’t like.
“He’s a bad, unreasonable person, so evertyhing he says must be bad and unreasonable”. Which, of course, is the classic definition of Ad Hominem fallacy.
You should also notice the qualifier all people.
I don’t dance around pretending to be anything else that I am.
It is ironic that the people who hate Darwin the most are the ones who have the highest reproductive fitness.
That would be the case if their ideology was genetic. It isn’t; their people become our people. Religious fanaticism is decreasing and tolerance for gays is increasing in the younger generations.
Anyhow, I’m reminded of a related meme here, where the Maori were deemed to be a dying race around the turn of the 19th century, doomed to be bred out of existence. Instead, many of we became them.
Tuomas, I’m not really trying to break your balls, but it is important to understand that kind of thinking is just around the corner from a lot of evil, shameful stuff.
None of us is truly without sin when it comes to our bigotries, but if we’re ever going to live peacefully on this tiny planet, we’re going to have to work toward eliminating the crap this thread is refering to.
The drive to “preserve my own culture” lies behind virtually all of the racial/cultural problems in the world…
Whoops, sorry about letting the racist misogynist loose. Just ignore Tuomas, folks. He’s an interesting example of how these genocidal tendencies of anti-choicers are in the mainstream, but not worth much else.
The problem is Ms Kate is that those who are exploited, co-operate in their explotation.
Consider Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe has run that country into the ground, it has gone from a food exporting, working country to a country that would be starving without outside intervention. And yet Mugabe keeps on being elected, yes intimidation etc etc takes place, but time after time after time he is re-elected. Mugabe is cheered in neighbouring countries by the citizens of those countries. Of course one can blame propoganda, but even that blame can only be stretched so far.
Sadly the west often abandons its principles when dealing with africa, makes accomodations where none should be made, a sort of racist “they are only africans what do you expect?” type of thinking that I find particulary repulsive.
The most galling accomodation I see, is those made by people who wish to locate the blame for Africa’s problems outside Africa’s borders, yes outside events influence the local reality, but the events only become problems when the leaders (the majority of whom are elected btw) cannot deal with the events and they develop into problems.
Tuomos. I think you and I would agree that the Sudan is one of the most dysfunctional parts of the world right now. I would very much encourage you to watch Lost Boys of the Sudan, available on dvd. Let’s just say that I have met, and know intimately, many less well adjusted American young adults than these young men from the Sudan, raised in Kenyan refugee camps, whose entire familes, entire communities, in fact, were killed before their eyes. Assuming that coming from a dysfunctional system necessarily means bringing dysfunction into a new home is a grave logical error.
And when the Bush administration cuts birth control funding, and womens’ rights in the third world are so restricted that they cannot control their own reproductive rate, of course they’re going to have 10 kids. It’s not an issue of the women’s morality, but of the morality of the patriarchy in which they live, and of our own patriarchy, which is not helping these women to challenge their own.
I understand that it has sometimes led to horrible evil. Do you understand how no ideology is really free from that, including leftism?
Do you think Universal Healthcare, for example, will lead to Stalin’s gulags (I don’t)? Do you understand what a “slippery slope” is?
Possibly yes. Do you then support aggressive measures pushed towards third-worlders (for example, Muslims), indigenous people (for example, people of Oaxaca) to abandon their own culture, and stop seeking to preserve it?
Didn’t think so.
Can you elaborate that a little, and show me my “genocidal tendencies”?
Assumptions are one thing, and as are anecdotes ( I know many…). Statistics are another thing.
Also, the system you are referring to is obviously the society of Sudan, you know, made of Sudanese people, so I’m not quite seeing how it is a “grave logical error” to assume that the dysfunctional system (=culture) of Sudan would not be brought with the Sudanese, assuming they do not completely reject their own cultural values (which leftists of course, are not demanding them to do, even).
I don’t agree with the Bush administrations behaviour, and I don’t think the women in third-world countries are having 10 babies because all of them want to, thus I don’t blame their morality.
Some glaring logical errors:
1) Overpopulation in Africa isn’t restricted to the timespan Bush has been in office
2) The assumptions that Americans ought — by right — pay for birth control outside America. It would be pragmatic and wise if they did that, but it has little to do with what Bush ought to do.
Tuomas - “I understand that it has sometimes led to horrible evil. Do you understand how no ideology is really free from that, including leftism?�
Tuomas, no kidding. All ideologies have their dark corners, some larger than others. “leftism� (which, BTW, is one of the least meaningful terms in the world), however you difine it is not immune…
Tuomas - “Do you think Universal Healthcare, for example, will lead to Stalin’s gulags (I don’t)? Do you understand what a “slippery slope� is?�
I honestly have no idea what you are really trying to say here…
Tuomas - “Possibly yes. Do you then support aggressive measures pushed towards third-worlders (for example, Muslims), indigenous people (for example, people of Oaxaca) to abandon their own culture, and stop seeking to preserve it? Didn’t think so.�
You know, Tuomas, it’s really only the Western “Cultural Warriors� like the followers of Pat Buchanan, etc., who are obsessed with the fact that there are people in the world who don’t speak English, don’t eat hamburgers, don’t watch Fox News Channel, etc.
The rest of us are not only okay with allowing other people to live their lives as they see fit, we celebrate and enjoy our cultural differences. The world would be an incredibly boring place if we were all the same…
Okay, maybe UHC isn’t a good example. I’m simply noting that some people use a desire for some good thing (UHC, Worker’s Rights) and say: Yeah, but that’s socialist and will lead to Soviet Union etc.
Similarly, “I like my own culture” — that’s what the Nazis said.
Neoconservatives are obsessed with that in global scale, paleoconservatives in a national scale.
In other words, you are all for allowing all people to maintain their culture!
This is why (IMO) independent Nation-States ought to be allowed to maintain their cultures, and not all become similar in their fashionably diverse character. Global diversity is increased by a certain degree of monoculture in local level.
I do understand that there are nations that are, from the onset, more multiethnic and multicultural (such as the US), but I still don’t see why “I like my culture and want to preserve it” must somehow lead to “genocide” or showing it down other people’s throats.
(Speaking of leftism).
I would say the same thing about “far right wingnut” ideas, especially when they have “pushed themselves” to the mainstream.
Yes, Tuomas, statistically the US has been perhaps the most immigration friendly nation in the world for many generations, and statistically it also has one of the healthiest economies in the world, and a unique culture created by those many immigrants. What is underlying your argument is “my ancestors got in — time to lock out your ancestors”.
My great grandfather came over from Ireland in the late 1800’s. Ireland at that time was hardly a paradise — it was, in fact, an extremely dysfunctional society — and yet those Irish that emigrated to America, along with Italians, Germans, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese in the same era, proved to be very valuable additions to American culture. Is a dysfunctional Irish society morally superior to a dysfunctional Sudanese society because the Irish are white? You leave me with no alternative but to assume that your objections are not along cultural lines, but along lines of race, and not objections to immigration in general, but immigration of people with particular skin tones.
Tuomas, you’re making the fairly common layperson’s mistake of comparing cultures that really shouldn’t be compared.
It’s a fairly settled assumption within the social sciences that the way in which ethnicity, say, operates for whites is quite fundamentally different from how it operates for non-whites (that’s why we laugh our heads off at those “why can’t white people have a history month?”). The very positioning of ethnicities in terms of things like power, etc REQUIRE they we study and treat them as quite different things.
The same thing occurs when we talk about culture. Non-western cultures, when they speak about “maintaining and preserving” their culture, are speaking about resistance to cultural colonisation by western cultural effects and practises thanks to their lack of power on the world stage (or even just nationally) - and I’m not just talking economically here in reference to power either. Western nations do NOT have that as an issue in the slightest. It just simply does not occur. So when it IS talked about from the standpoint of western white culture the actual inevitable result is the imposition of it on others; ie specifically what I described above as what the non-western cultures are trying to resist.
Domestically, its even easier. There is now way in HELL white american culture is at risk here. Not even remotely. Not even due to ‘birth-rates’, as the definition of a majority in social science terms is NOT who has more than 50%, or even the largest single percentage, but rather which group has the power AND controls hegemony within a society. Hence, it doesn’t matter if whites drop beneath the 50% mark, they still will be the hegemonic majority, AND be able to dictate cultural trends, values and practices.
I also have to say I do adore listening to some people talk about ’saving’ white culture, when in reality their definition of constitutes ‘white’ is only a recent phenomenon.
Tuomas - I would say the same thing about “far right wingnut� ideas, especially when they have “pushed themselves� to the mainstream.
Not only is “far right wingnut” not a very meaningful term, it’s redundant…
As far as “far right wingnut” ideas having “’pushed themselves’ to the mainstream.â€?, what are you talking about?
Honestly, in this country at least (and most others that I am aware of), virtually any important, influential, or positive idea over the last 250-years has come from “the left�…
but having small families of 1 to 2 child is the fucking MORAL thing to do
No, Sarah, adopting children who need homes is the fucking MORAL thing to do. If the planet is, as you say, overwhelmed, then having ANY children at all is immoral–especially when there are plenty of children already born who could use loving homes.
To put it a little more bluntly, don’t try to justify your own desire to fill the planet by saying ‘Oh, but I’m only having one or two, so that’s all right’. That’s bourgeouis snobbery masquerading as self-congraluatory faux environmentalism.
That’s bourgeouis snobbery masquerading as self-congraluatory faux environmentalism.
And that’s really insulting given how much you know me, mythago. I mean, WTF?!
For your information I can’t fucking have children, so I don’t have JACK when it comes to desire, okay?
The reason I am willing to concede and say having 1 to 2 children is less morally suspect is because I’m being bloody pragmatic. Telling people to have none is just bloody stupid, because it is going to fail as a strategy in a colossal way.
Yes, I agree, the best thing to do is not have any and rather adopt, but a lot of people have a silly thing about passing on their genes that I simply don’t get, but have to acknowledge, so approaching things as “don’t add any more” is a far more achievable as a tactic.
I mean, seriously mythago, what the hell?
BTW, it would be typical that the White-O-centric people would be worried about “Aztlan” and “Eurabia” like tin the stupid picture…
By their estimation I’ve lived in “Aztlan” all my life, but my Hispanic overlords seem okay with me living here, and I like Mexican food so it’s all good…
The “Eurabia� thing is interesting too. I’m sure there are just millions of Arabs who want to invade and take over Europe…
It also has tremendous amounts of natural resources, can (and has) used its status as superpower to further it’s economic interests.
Funny you should mention the Japanese, as Japan is the second biggest economy in the world and is very anti-immigrant (has been so for long), and doesn’t have a military superpower status, and practically no natural resources.
Yet it somehow manages to do it without the tremendous contributions that large-scale immigration could provide.
How odd.
Well, they didn’t, for one thing (check your assumptions).
I don’t think the dysfunction is on the same scale, for one thing. Irelands was (IIRC) an economic recession for various reasons, Sudanese situation is ethnic genocide.
What, I thought race didn’t exist? Some cultures are closer to each other (and thus don’t clash as badly) than others.
Besides, if America has an unique culture that is the amalgam of all the cultures that have immigrated there, doesn’t adding more to the mix change and destroy it?
And besides, what is the whole nation of immigrants supposed to prove –that Americans have no moral right whatsoever to ever limit anyone immigratiing there?
I also think that the “look how our economy has grown” and concluding it must be because of immigrants is a suspect argument, to put it mildly.
I’m not talking about preserving “white culture”.
I’m talking about preserving American, German, English, Russian, Swedish, Finnish, Japanese, Moroccan, Liberian…
-cultures.
It is true that some of these cultures have more in common with each other than some others, thus you can make an argument for preserving “Western” or “European” cultures.
…And why I laugh my head off when people go off about social “sciences”.
This is completely absurd.
You are positing that no matter how many non-white (for example) immigrants come to majorily white cultures, no matter how many children they have compared to whites, Whites will ALWAYS remain as the hegemonic majority, even if they, in fact become a minority.
How in hell can you believe such thing?
Are whites some super-creatures who will maintain power no matter how few their number? Isn’t this, I beg your pardon, racist as hell?
I would suggest there are flaws in this social science you speak of…
The Irish situation was most certainly genocide, and deliberate, in this case by the British. It was not merely a “recession”. http://www.umbc.edu/history/CHE/InstPg/RitFamine/irish-famine-historiographical-issues.html
And quoted: “Clearly, during the years 1845 to 1850, the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnic and racial group commonly known as the Irish People…. Therefore, during the years 1845 to 1850 the British government knowingly pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland that constituted acts of genocide against the Irish people within the meaning of Article II (c) of the 1948 [Hague] Genocide Convention”
BTW, unless you are telling me that you 100% of Native American blood, and of a tribe that came in before the last great immigration wave (the Apaches, Navajos, and Inuit, approx 3000 years ago), you have immigrant ancestors. Get off your high horse.
The culture that the US has created is a culture that accepts and welcomes change. Continued immigration (preferably controlled immigration) can only enhance that. Your fear of the unknown tells of a fear of being less than that which will be introduced, not more than. It is the fear of someone who holds unearned power and is afraid that the sheer numbers of oppressed people who enter the culture will manage to recreate that culture into a more equitable system in which male and white do not necessarily mean powerful, in which meritocracy rules.
Are you afraid that well educated African and Indian and Asian children will earn the college spots you thought your children would get unearned due to your position, your power, and your background? If so, fix the US education system so that children in the US receive an education as good as that of children in third world countries (and yes, in third world countries, many children receive a much better education than US children).
The US has many cultures and subcultures, and while some are fading away, (the Appalachian and Ozark hill cultures come to mind), others are growing (Mestizo culture in the Southwest, for instance, and a newer, more self aware African American culture that reclaims its history). Those that still hold value to people will continue to be preserved, at least in songs and traditions, as my Irish culture has, though there are very few “Irish enclaves” left in the US. What you are facing is the prospect of being just one of many valid cultures, and not the dominant one. The rest of that have faced that all our lives. Too bad for you, but as your culture has neither moral nor cultural superiority to others, it doesn’t get to be the only culture or even the dominant one just because it’s convenient for you.
Indeed, the Irish were the victims there.
This is different from ethnic genocide in a civil war.
Can you understand why?
Again, check your assumptions.
You mean like givng 20 extra points to someone based on color of skin to get an equal representation of races so no fee-fees are hurt?
That kind of meritocracy? Eh?
Or alternatively, the kind where daddy pays you to college, despite the fact that you suck as a student?
(Yes, I oppose both)
Barf. I’m not afraid of well educated children of any color. It’s the uneducated, superstitious adults wiith criminal tendencies, who demand that I fix all their problems and hate my society (after voluntarily coming here) that I don’t like.
I also have degree in astrophysics, if you want something more traditionally scientific. But that wouldn’t be relevant in this case.
It’s almost universal that those that dismiss the social sciences then go on to claim things about society that simply don’t exist, as you seem to be keen on doing.
Because it’s not about belief, it’s about observing how things actually operate in society. A classic example of this is how we describe women as being a minority, when in reality then constitute 52% of the population, yet our society operates as a patriarchy.
Further, I didn’t say ALWAYS, I just explained that a loss in numbers does not equal a loss of power inherently, and moreover historically doesn’t do so in practise either. History is replete with examples of small numbers of one ethnicity holding way more power in a country overwhelmingly populated by another, South Africa is a classic example of such. This occurs not just in terms of economically, it can occur culturally, which is of obvious example here in the states.
I didn’t actually say that you were. I was talking about those wanting to save “white culture” like thoes in the article. Your own extrapolation to yourself is interesting though.
You can laugh and dismiss as much as you want, but this IS how society operates.
Barf. I’m not afraid of well educated children of any color. It’s the uneducated, superstitious adults wiith criminal tendencies, who demand that I fix all their problems and hate my society (after voluntarily coming here) that I don’t like.
Where are those? I’ve never met any. The people I have met with those tendencies tend to be white men…
Or because “minority status” opens the door to favoritism and positive discrimination.
Yes, it is always possible to have minority rule (in pure numbers, if you prefer). This doesn’t usually last, though.
You will ignore it when it happens, so you get the theory right.
You seem awfully familiar with this technique.
But this is where I sign off, you’re obviously not interested in educated discussion, you can have the last word if you want though, it’s not that important to me.
I think you are pre-emptively choosing that anyone who disagrees with the conclusions of soical science and it’s power dynamics analysis, is not interested in educated discussion. I simply disagree with it’s premises and think it is politiaclally motivated.
The comment about ignoring is that there are numerous examples of Westerners expected to abide by cultural or religious values of non-Westerners in the name of cultural sensitivity, coming into conflict with values such as Freedom of Speech and expression.
It is usually claimed that this does NOT in any way affect Western cultures. I disagree — it does affect us.
(pardon the typos) I’m off, too, at least for now.
Arrgh. the first paragraph of my last comment was a quote. Should have been in Italics
Actually, they’re very pro-immigrant. But not in an official “we give you citizenship” way. There are tons and tons of illegal immigrants that they turn a blind eye to because there are so many jobs that need performed that the Japanese just don’t want to do. Additionally, with their impending labor shortage, they are not exactly going to start tossing them out by the hundreds. Oh sure, they might deport you if you call too much attention to yourself (knew a girl who illegally immigrated there, had her apartment broken into and all her stuff stolen, and couldn’t go to the police for fear of deportation) or get in legal trouble, but if they really went on a campaign to bust illegal workers, they could easily find a few dozen at a time in a variety of locales.
But they don’t.
Doesn’t sound so terribly “anti-immigrant” to me … but what do I know, since I took useless “social science” classes at my Japanese university. Totally useless! OMIGOD.
Lol.
Well, I do think it is useless to carry on. G’bye.
I mean, seriously mythago, what the hell?
Well, Sarah, “what the hell?” is the nicest version of what I think when I hear people blather on about how it’s perfectly OK to breed a nice, suburban-sized family of one or two, but any more more makes Mother Gaia cry.
The reason I am willing to concede and say having 1 to 2 children is less morally suspect
Uh, that’s not what you said. What you actually said was “I’m sorry (wait, no, actually, I’m not), but having small families of 1 to 2 child is the fucking MORAL thing to do. The planet cannot support the people we have now; IT CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE. Stop fucking up my planet you DICKS!! I do honestly consider a large family choice ethically questionable.”
So I’m sorry (wait, no, actually, I’m not), but I’m going by your actual words. You didn’t say, well, at least people with one kid aren’t as bad for the planet as people with ten. You said that having two or less kids is “the fucking MORAL thing to do”–not the “fucking LESS morally suspect thing to do”. I’m wondering why, if the planet is full, it’s OK to add more at all.
Your “pragmatic” strategy is not a solution at all. It’s a way to assure people who ARE filling the planet that they’re doing just fine and needn’t think about their own choices, because at least they’re not like those godawful Quiverfulls. It sure doesn’t help children who need families.
I do apologize for assuming that you were motivated by having children of your own; in my experience, most people who push the “two is OK” nonsense are those who can’t reconcile their ideals (planet is too full) with their own selfish desire to breed, and so spin this elaborate fantasy that their actions really aren’t eco-hostile because at least they aren’t breeding like rabbits. (And why yes, there IS a lot of classism in that attitude.)
Because people DIE.
Yes, I know what I wrote, but if you look at the whole piece, what I am saying is that for people that have children, 1 to 2 children IS the moral thing to do. I wasn’t commenting on having children vs. not having children, rather the number of children.
It is a pragmatic solution, because all we do if we argue for having none at all is alienate people, regardless of if being the best solution.
And still, you’re being fucking rude.
Telling people to have none is just bloody stupid, because it is going to fail as a strategy in a colossal way.
Yes, I agree, the best thing to do is not have any and rather adopt, but a lot of people have a silly thing about passing on their genes that I simply don’t get.
And do you know why it would fail? I know some people, who due to medical problems had to adopt. Their children have development problems (in one family- both girls have them- they don’t go to school yet), do very poorly at school (in another family) (and i am not talking about one family/case here)and talking about nature versus nurture -will in many cases have not only appearance, but also character resembling this of their biological parents. Since educated middle/upper class women usually don’t give their children for adoption,you are left with children of:
parents with not too bright (to say the least) mental abilities (otherwise they would think before making those children and afterwards giving them away);
prostitutes (even if it isn’t their ‘proffession’- i talk about mentality here);
children with mental/physical problems or borth;
& last but not the least: which normal loving mother is going to give birth to the child & afterwards send him/her away to be raised by unknown people? (in the one family i know with 2 adopted children the father heavily drinks and the mother can’t divorce due to economic situation).personally, i would prefer to abort rather than giving my child to be raised by unknown, probably abusing or like in that case poor people, drinking father, problematic family. this not to say i would be perfect (for example: a single mother), but i would give the best i can to my children & know what happens with them.
of course, there are exceptions to every rule. there are some ‘normal’(can’t think of better word now) women giving children for adoption, but the vast majority aren’t decent & smart women trapped in this situation against their will & not due to lack of thinking.
Another thought: many people want to have children, its only natural biologically and mentally & they want to have their own children, yes. My mother f.e. once told me that she wouldn’t be able to adopt a child not of her own, my grandmother’s mother had more than 10 dead children before giving birth to my grandmother (she was the only child) & wasn’t thinking of adoption either, at least the fact is- she didn’t adopt.
To clarify: i don’t live in US, don’t refer to African Americans in my post at all (since in my country there aren’t any, so don’t tell me i am racist since i am not & all mentioned above adopted children are white ). i don’t have any children yet & am liberal pro-birth control white woman in her early 20s. those cases happened in Russia and Israel & i doubt the situation is radically different in America.
This is not intended to hurt feelings of any adopted children out there. I just have seen enough such children with various problems that’s all. If somebody wants to have children & can have them: why choose to adopt somebody with unknown character (which i believe exists from birth- babies have characters too, after all), with possible health/development problems (much more likely than in not adopted children).
to prevent overpopulation? don’t kid me. to prevent it we should give contraception to third world countries, let alone to Americans (when there are numerous fanatics trying to prevent it, as i see from blogs and ljs); to educate young people, so there would be fewer children for adoption by 16 year olds & to let people have this plan B (this 72 hour pill, which can be bought in Israel in pharmecy without doctor’s prescription- and yes, i checked it due to curiosity after beareawer’s (?- forgot the name) story).
I see–it’s OK to be fucking rude, just not to you.
what I am saying is that for people that have children, 1 to 2 children IS the moral thing to do
So if you’re doing a wrong thing in the first place, try not to do it too many times.
because all we do if we argue for having none at all
We could argue for people to consider the impact of having children, and that they should think carefully about whether that’s what they really want to do. We can give them many good reasons to think of adoption first. We can work against propaganda that tells women they’re nothing if they don’t breed, and that a good woman is a mommy who has the Right Family Size (preferably oldest son and youngest daughter). Oh, and we could do even more for the planet by attacking the real problem–rabid consumerism. It doesn’t help the Earth to have only one child if you buy him tons of plastic toys and drive him around in an SUV.
But when you say breeding hurts the planet but, uh, one or two more per person is A-OK, you’re not being pragmatic. Dishonest and shooting your own logic full of holes, yes. Effecting no real change, sure. Women in developed nations already have 1-2 kids on average, so you’re accomplishing *nothing* except to pat those women on the head for doing nothing special, and to encourage them to wallow in the classism they already had.
(I need to stop making claims that I’m leaving)
Mythago, I don’t think you have a case against Sarah’s comment here.
Mythago, the simple fact is that 1 or 2 per women would lead to declining or steady population growth rate (which I assume, is desirable, altough “we get work shortage” /scare quote).
It IS pragmatic.
Also, “what I am saying is that for people that have children, 1 to 2 children IS the moral thing to do” doesn’t include patting on the head about consumerism or classism. It also by definition addresses only people who have children.
And it does in no way, in itself, give approval to rabid consumerism, that simply is not relevant to topic which was “breeding” specifically.
Then there are those people who don’t believe that the planet is too full yet (I should note that whether the planet is too full or simply that unlimited growth can not be sustained does not bear any relevance to my further points)
, but is steadily filling up, and have problems with rapid population growth (because it is not sustainable) and recognize that like it or not, most people DO have a desire to have children of their own (genetically) and telling people to STOP all that completely is about as useful as telling the sun not to rise in the morning ever again.
It is about reconciling selfishness/self interest in oneself and others with refraining from being a completely selfish.
It’s also completely possible to combine adoption and having biological children (assuming one can). My father’s cousin and her husband have a daughter (now adult), and have raised at least 6 (I can’t remember exactly) adopted kids, mostly older ones from problem families who weren’t exactly high value in the adoption market (as in zero).
Tuomas has the right of it. We shouldn’t be pushing for “no breeding,” but for Zero Population Growth. It’s pragmatic because telling people not to breed is not going to work, but telling them not to breed too much might.
That said, I plan to never breed, and I plan to adopt. I also tell my more liberal friends that they should seriously consider to do the same. But to tell them that wanting to breed a baby of their own is wrong, how do you think that comes across, mythago?
I say the pragmatic approach is to, at all points strive towards Zero Population Growth and push adoption as an alternative. Stress birth control, and educate people about the dangers of overpopulation.
Given that everyone here can read and write in English, what culture are we preserving when Tuomas talks of our culture? The Picts? The Celts? The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes? The Romans? The Greeks, who influenced Roman culture? The French/Viking Norman Inavders? The colonial sorts?– and if so, Pilgrims, penal colony inmates, Irish, Scots, Dutch, German, pirates? The stuff we stole from other cultures?
The English language has an incredibly large and diverse vocabulary, because it is NOT pure, but a hodge podge of influences. The American mainstream culture is a hodge podge. Our dearest traditions come from a mishmash of cultures being thrown together, and new ones are being formed all the time, such as Pacific Rim festivals on the west coast, which celebrate how utterly great food is when you mix Asian and American cuisine.
I do NOT want to not be able to dance to African and South American music. I do NOT want for Christmas Baklava to disappear. I do NOT want to not be able to drink fresh whisked green tea and then go to see a pipe and drum corps.
We are richer for diversity and those who don’t get that are pathetic, in a literal sense. Tuomas, have you ever recieved a May Day bouquet left anonymously on your door? (German) Watched the koi swim past your feet in a Japanese garden? Stepped into a belly dance circle? I don’t admire your desperate clinging to no culture but your own– whatever your own is. I pity you for a life left half-lived, afraid of the new, unknown, and joyous.
Oh, and keeping your own culture doesn’t mean being unable to interact with others. America deeply changed Japan– and yet Japan has it’s own vibrant culture and exports movies and art to America in a big, big way, because where the cultures have interacted, universal stories come out to the enjoyment of all.
It’s almost like I see a contradiction.
I agree completely with the second part. The first? Hah.
(I’m Finnish, btw.)
(added numbers)
1) No, mostly I’ve been !%#¤ drunk in May Day to not really remember much, drank mead in the days before it, (and eaten sugared doughnut)s, and gone to a picnic in the day following it to eat potato salad, herrings, and sausages.
2) No! Sounds fascinating! (seriously)
3) Yep, but I was really young. I quite liked Turkey.
I hope you won’t decide to deeply change any other place quite like that, thank you very much.
“Universal stories”?
Pearl Harbor (the movie) sucked.
I think there are many advantages in peaceful interaction, btw. But I don’t want every place in the Earth to become a similarly multicultural, that is, the same Turkish baths, Thai massage parlors, and kebab restaurants.
And McDonalds.
similarly multicultural place, I should say.
Oh, and about adoption– don’t let MARIYA scare you off. I know plenty of adoption families and even in cases where there were problems at the beginning (impaired development, etc), a good home will often allow a young child to catch up with peers. Certainly, the adoptees I’ve known see their adoptive parents as their *real* ones. There’s something reassuring about knowing your parents chose you. I suspect there’s a connection between MARIYA’s acquaintances being completely dysfunctional adoptive parents and the kids NOT turning out okay. It’s not their bad biology, it’s the fact the adopters can’t do the work of parenting.
Sarah in Chicago said:
Because it’s not about belief, it’s about observing how things actually operate in society. A classic example of this is how we describe women as being a minority, when in reality then constitute 52% of the population, yet our society operates as a patriarchy.
And then Tuomas said:
Or because “minority status� opens the door to favoritism and positive discrimination.
Which leads me to say:
Oh, yes. Women are all about equal pay for equal work, family leave, family planning rights, and the million and one other issues Amanda, Pam, et al. have brought up here because women want to be favored over men, and not because, oh, let’s see, they’ve been negatively discriminated against thoughout multitudes of cultures and multitudes of centuries.
If you’re not actually intending to be an arrogant arse, please rephrase that, because, wow, you’re coming off as one.
And yes, I’m a “real” scientist, not a social one, so I didn’t even use words like “hegemony” to confuse you as to what I was trying to say.
Why do you need to be defined as a minority (mathematically incorrect, obviously) status to fight for those?
Mariya, you are correct in that your comments were not racist. However, they were incredibly classist. Women put children up for adoption for many reasons, and often, yes, there are genetic predispositions for various mental and physical illnesses that don’t get disclosed…but surprise, surprise, “natural-born” children have these same genetic predispositions.
Assuming that only stupid, morally degenerate women women give up their children for abortion is quite possibly the most anti-feminist thing I have ever heard a woman say on this forum. Although it is a less common choice than it used to be when abortions were less readily available, it is still a common, intelligent, viable choice for a woman who is pregnant and does not or cannot raise a child.
One big pitfall to adoption is that sometimes the very process of separating the child from the birth parent, if there is a delay in getting the child to the adoptive parent, can prevent or impair attachment. This can cause a multitude of problems for both the child and the parent. None of these problems are insurmountable, and certainly not every adoptee has attachment issues, but it is something to take account of in the adoption process.
You are making the classic mistake of extrapolating your own views and the anecdotes of a few close friends and family into generalities. Adoption has been largely a successful human institution since before human history. To suggest, as you have, that it is a non-viable option in general rather than in your personal universe, is to draw a completely unwarranted conclusion without any basis in evidence.
1: I’d need to see a definition of american culture before I decided it needs to be protected. Good luck with that.
2: What would happen if there were NO MORE WHITE PEOPLE??!! What IF white people bred themseIes out fo existence? if it happened slowly enough, i can’t see it being that big a problem. America would fill up with immigrants, they would assimilate into american culture, and the constitution, liberalism, adn whatnot could easily survive unchanged. The only tragedy U foresee in the massive bankruptcy of sunblock manufacturers.
3: Monoculture does NOT lead to diveristy. There will be MORE different things in the world the more we integrate. My mother’s family is mexican. But we lvie in America. Italian pasta is popular in America, and my mother likes to bake homemade macaroni and cheese. Lately, she’s started adding pepperjack cheese with jalapeno peppers for a bit of zing.
Let me tell you, macaroni with hot peppers is GOOD. And if the mexicans stayed in mexico and the italians in Italy it would never have existed. So don’t try to tell me that diversity comes form separation. Isolaiton mummifies culture; integration makes new culture.
Malachi: I’d need to see a definition of american culture before I decided it needs to be protected. Good luck with that.
Equality, freedom of choice, division of church and state… you know, all the things those “defenders of American culture” wish to abolish.
What would happen if there were NO MORE WHITE PEOPLE??!!
The need for Vitamin D supplements in cold climates would go up.
I wish to say I meant I only agree with Tuomas on the ZPG thing. Everything else…whoa.
Mythago, people are animals.
Animals breed.
We have been blessed with the ability to control that to a certain extent, but many of our species (not all) are wired to want to do it at least once. One could easily argue that we otherwise would not be here.
If you don’t wish to do so, then don’t. But you will no more shut off breeding by moralizing and preaching than you will turn off gravity through sheer spiteful willpower. Notice the prevalence of vegans in general society as evidence of the value of your approach.
The existance of birth control and abortion are important, useful, and life changing. They are not a mandate from purity masters as severe as those quiverfulls in that there other thread
“I’d need to see a definition of american culture before I decided it needs to be protected. Good luck with that.”
Wouldn’t that be a little too narrow since we are made up of so many different groups????
I think you need to think about this as protecting western civilization since it’s not just about America but Europe as well…and I happen to think what western civilization offers the world is something valuable. From our technological advances to our ideas of democracy, to womens’ position in society, all is valuable enough I think to be worth fighting to sustain…
I don’t want to lose that to either Christian or Islamic fundamentalism…
“Women in developed nations already have 1-2 kids on average, so you’re accomplishing *nothing* except to pat those women on the head for doing nothing special, and to encourage them to wallow in the classism they already had.”
Mothers shouldn’t listen to this comment.
The person who wrote it has something negative to say about motherhood on every single site she goes on…make your own decisions about your family without listening to this propagandist…
“No, Sarah, adopting children who need homes is the fucking MORAL thing to do. If the planet is, as you say, overwhelmed, then having ANY children at all is immoral–especially when there are plenty of children already born who could use loving homes.”
This is not correct.
Actually the rate of children free for adoption anywhere in the west is quite low. That’s why people go abroad to adopt as every child in care is not ‘free for adoption’.
Also overseas adoption is expensive and not every country is okay with people from outside the country adopting their children.
Having one or two children is fine…actually overtime since deaths happen our overall population would slowly decrease (even with some limited legal immigration) with people having only one or two children…
That’s right what you said Sarah…
BTW, Sarah. Just about everything else you said I disagree with…but you were right about the morality of having smaller families.
Oh, I know NYMOM, but given your previous comments here at Pandagon, the fact that you disagree with me on everything else is actually a comforting and pleasing thought.
Isolaiton mummifies culture; integration makes new culture.
Take this comment and mix it with the “Revenge of the Cradle” comments about Quebecois separatism above.
When I was an undergrad, we had french students who couldn’t wait to get up to Quebec and hear “antique French” - french as it was spoken before the Revolution and Napoleon. Isolation? You bet.
All the cultural pressure toward giant families accomplished was to create a huge low wage workforce for the New England mills in the late 19th century - half of Quebec left to staff them. Mills in Lowell, Biddeford, Lawrence, Fall River, Manchester, Nashua, Bath … never mind what happened to the Dionne quintuplets.
Oh, and this, NYMOM:
is actually incorrect. What there ARE low numbers of are a) white children, and/or b) babies. There are loads of non-infant non-white (and, in addition, non-asian, but that’s an interesting side discussion) children out there for adoption, it’s just that people don’t adopt them here.
Despite my issues with mythago’s disgusting tone and lack of pragmatism, she is VERY right about the children out there wanting homes.
Ms Kate -
That’s really right, I had completely forgotten about that. What is particularly interesting about this is the language of the ‘Quiverfull’ women, speaking as their children in terms of being foot-soliders, or in other words, bred to be ground in the mills of religious wars (for this is how these people see the Iraq War) for those elites that would send them.
And these people are ‘pro-life’? *snort*
So, I get with the “good luck” comment, you think American culture can not be defined?
(Is it up to your approval anyway, other than as a singular voter?)
But wait, then you write:
And what would that “American culture” be that they would assimilate to?
Hatred of white people duly noted, btw (note to everyone: I’m not saying that whites are currently under some horrible threat, but I just find this sentiment interesting) . What if there were no more Blacks? Jews?
Or is that “different”?
I’m going to tell you something that will be a profound shock to you: I have made pasta with curry (for example, which would combine something from both Italian and Indian cuisine, which is a French word) and plenty of other creative, “multicultural” foods.
And you know what? That didn’t even require the actual presence of Italians or Indians in the neighborhood!
OMG!
The ‘Happy Post-Election Weekend’ Blog Review…
Shakespeare’s Sister: American families are stressed out beyond belief, so if a Democratic Congress manages to accomplish only the relief of some of that pressure, they’ll have done good by the public. Pandagon: Amanda points to a Nation article abou…
For crying out loud, Tuomas. You are the absolute master of missing the point. There was no “hatred of white people” in the post you responded to, only an acknowledgement that whiteness is not necessary to civilization or culture.
She points out that American culture is difficult to define, and you respond sarcastically in such a way as to lead a reader to believe that only white culture is American culture, and then admit to borrowing foods and traditions from other cultures, without even having the courtesy of crediting those other cultures. In fact, you specifically deny that exposure to those other cultures was necessary for you to steal from them.
What a jerk.
I stand corrected, that is not “hate” it is indifference. I would still like to know if it would, in anyones opinion, acceptable and moral to make similar statements about any other ethnic group.
Well, sure, if the “reader” has already decided what to believe. It was pointing out an inconsistency between part 1 and part 2.
To me, it seemed like she was saying that, in effect, there is no American culture (white or non-white), but that immigrants would assimilate to it.
This is a lie.
I credited both Italian and Indian cultures for pasta and curry, respectively.
What, I need approval from Luigi and Vishvamitra to boil pasta and make curry now, or I’m “stealing” from their culture?
No, I said it wasn’t necessary have an Italian or an Indian in the neighborhood.
Now, obviously some exposure was necessary, otherwise I wouldn’t know about it, right?.
Jerk cubed:
“What, I need approval from Luigi and Vishvamitra to boil pasta and make curry now, or I’m “stealingâ€? from their culture?”
Yes, actually. The term is cultural appropriation, and you are clearly guilty of it.
You are, yet again, demonstrating the lengths to which white supremists will go to validate their beliefs.
“Oh, I know NYMOM, but given your previous comments here at Pandagon, the fact that you disagree with me on everything else is actually a comforting and pleasing thought.”
Good.
“There are loads of non-infant non-white (and, in addition, non-asian, but that’s an interesting side discussion) children out there for adoption, it’s just that people don’t adopt them here.”
Well even that’s not true really…but to shut you down, I won’t bother refuting it…
Suffice to say, your initial assertion was correct.
NYMOM. Today, in Jackson County, Missouri, the DFS website offers 151 children, almost entirely over the age of 3, non-white, special needs, or all three, available for adoption. Having worked inside the system, I can tell you that most of these children will languish in foster care for years, probably never being adopted, while middle class white famiilies import infants from all over the world (mostly either white or Asian) to meet their dreams of the “perfect family”.
In 2005, 22,728 visas for adoptive children from foreign countries were issued in the US, according to the US Department of State’s website. The top five countries were Mainland China, Russia, Guatamala, S. Korea, and the Ukraine. Last year’s statistics from the US Department of Health and Human Services show that 114,000 children were awaiting adoption from the foster care system, and 51,000 got adopted from that system. Clearly there is no dearth of children in need of adoption in the US…they just don’t fit the model of cute, white (or “good” minority) infant.
Feel free to attempt to refute.
Is this real or humor?
I’m not trying to be snarky in asking this, I’d just like a clarification.
Real. You borrow from other cultures, while continually claiming your own culture’s moral and cultural superiority, without even the historical perspective to understand how misguided your idea of where various facets of US culture come from. And you’re a jackass about it. Using derogatory stereotypical names for people of the ethnic persuasion from whom you’re borrowing hardly demonstrates your respect and appreciation for their culture and those items from their culture you use.
Odanu, I seriously wonder if you have read anything I have written here and are instead putting me into some classic mold of “white supremacist” and “cultural warrior”, and then refuting arguments they make. Yet you claim that I am the one misunderstanding things
I have not claimed that and I reject such idea. I personally happen to like my own culture best. I acknowledge that there are other cultures.
From quite many sources. as I have wrote:
I’m here for debate and exchange of viewpoints, and discussion of underlying moral principles that surround the concept of multiculturalism, immigration and culture in general. I have asked you to check your assumptions and I will now tell you that I am not an US citizen, but a citizen of Finland, 3/4th Karelian ancestry and 1/4 Savonian.
I don’t think my culture as “mummified”, nor do I think it is impossible to interact with other cultures even without living in a (very) multicultural nation.
I admit that I have a curmudgeonly personality which rattles some cages.
I think you’re too hard trying to see something derogatory everywhere. There is nothing inherently “derogatory” in either name. Vishvamitra I found after some googling and finding a list of Indian names (hmm, I could have gotten a girl name, too), chose it because it means “a sage” (thus, such person ought to know).
Do you really think people cook and eat food to demonstrate their respect and appreciation for a culture?
I have not put you into the mold of a white supremist here, you have. Your words, throughout this thread, have continually stated that you believe white culture to be both superior and under attack. You continually fail to recognize the difference between the cessation of the ability to exercise privilege, and oppression.
Frankly, though, I’m tired of this. My weekend has not been nearly as restful as I needed it to be, and I”m done with this argument.
I think you are “radically redefining” the meaning of my words once more in your mind.
Have a nice sunday.
141,000 children being available for adoption throughout the US is not a large amount of children in the adoption pool, considering the size of our population…
So I repeat there are not a lot of children languishing for adoption in the US…
Additionally many countries do not allow foreigners to adopt their children. So China, Russia, Korea, Guatamala, etc., are countries that do, which is why middle class white families go there to adopt. I am sure many might go to other places but don’t because it’s not allowed by the countries of the childrens’ origin…your implication that white people do not wish to adopt other children is a smear job against us as well as an outright lie.
Actually most places even in the US wish ethinic/ religious matchups in adoptions of children. They don’t just adopt children out to anyone who want them…so just like you are trying to do to this Tuomas poster now, you are playing the race card with these comments about adoption…
Frankly, I find it offensive.
Whenever I read about these sort of people, I can’t help but wonder if I was missing some sort of “White Pride” gene at birth. Because really, I could give two shits if the white race disappeared from the planet through breeding. I don’t equate “white race” with “my culture”, first and foremost because it’s completely asinine to equate “race” with “culture”. Second, that assumes that I automatically share culture with every white person in this country, and I’ve watched enough NASCAR and listened to enough shitty maudlin country music to know that just ain’t true. Finally, this idea that culture is something to be preserved at all costs doesn’t take into account the fact that some cultures just aren’t worth saving. For instance, if your culture demands that other people be turned into virtual slaves in order to perpetuate the tropes of said culture, then I’d say that that culture is not worth saving.
By the way, I’m whiter than Wonder Bread. Scotch-Irish descent, blonde hair, light eyes, fair skin - the whole shebang. (I once had a high school history teacher tell me that I was a Nazi’s dream come true.) And yet I still can’t find the energy to get worked up over the supposed decline of the white race.
caitlin, considering that the culture I was born in has been made up over a few millenia by a mixture of celts, germans, gauls, slavs, romans, semites and mongols (mostly beating themseves or each other over the heads for numreous reasons, chalk me up on the apathy side of the issue.
And I’ll gladly let anyone who wants to share my documented ancestral proclivity for eating too much garlic, if they let me share their pasta. Pasta is so much better with garlic.
Here is a graph of countries birth rates versus % agreement with the statement “A man’s job is to make money; a woman’s job is to take care of the family and home”. Countries that highly agree with that statement have very low birth rates.
Well, some smartaleck (in a good way) thought about ancestry (we all have two parents, and they have two, etc. You get the picture.) Now think about the 6 billion folks alive today, and it quickly becomes very clear that we share lots of ancestors in common not so long ago: (http://cbs2chicago.com/nationalhealth/health_story_182210516.html)
And as for cultural preservation, well, China preserved an Iraqi pottery tradition. Turns out that beautiful blue on white pottery was an improvement on an Iraqi invention: How’s that for cultural fusion? http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/past.htm
So I kinda think this cultural preservation stuff is truly batty. We’ve been exchanging DNA and painting techniques for millennia. Sure preserve the ideals of the US (free speech, democracy), but even those have room for improvement. I myself am quite fond of not having to own property or be male to vote.
What an interesting discussion to have stumbled across. Thank you for taking the time to create and post such articulate and passionate comments and arguments. However, I find disheartening that some clearly well-educated posters are subjecting Tuomas, who I disagree with almost completely, to ad-hominem attacks. Calling one’s debating opponent a “jerk” or a “jackass” not only lessons one’s own ethos, but, I suspect, gives a self-admitted curmudgeon a sense of superiority.(Am I right, Tuomas? I know I feel self-righteous when those I disagree with–basically, the entire U.S. conservative right–resort to name-calling, demonization, etc.)Which is understandable, as fallacious arguments often coincides with a lack of sufficient skills at marshalling evidence and strong chains of reasoning and ad-hominem attacks in particular are, well, just shrill and rude.
(Besides, if Tuomas wasn’t oh-so politely and oftentimes wittily asserting–and asserting and asserting some more–his disagreeable ideas, so many thought-provoking comments would not have been made.)
Please, consider the idea that refusing to let your arguments be lessoned by incivility is to assert yourself powerfully. Restraint indicates strength. And rudeness is a sign of weakness that gives away some of your power to your opponent. Considering all that is at stake, can we afford to indulge ourselves?
I personally don’t think they are the same either — but also that they are often intertwined in a way that people of similar ethnic background share the same culture due to geography etc.
This is why cultural appropriation is usually extended to such things as:
Clearly one can see the racial aspect at play there, altough the term refers to culture.
Oh sure, but that’s more of a matter of geographical coincidence than inherency. For example, there is nothing inherent to black skin that says one is going to be into hip-hop, jazz or the blues. Sure, there is a definite correlation, but that’s because we’ve made it so. Those in power have said, You have black skin, therefore you don’t get education, housing or decent jobs. They’ve said, You’re Jewish, therefore you have to go live in that ghetto. And then as a result, the culture from those groups tended to evolve around those circumstances.
I guess the simplest way for me to put it is that culture is what people DO, and race is what people ARE. (Ethnicity is a whole ‘nother ball of wax, as people can be of the same race but of different ethnicities, and vice versa.) My culture is not “whiteness”, nor is it “Scotch-Irish”. My culture is I guess what you would call young secular progressive college-educated techie/”hipster” American, which is cultural space that can be occupied by many others regardless of ethnicity or race. The fact that there might be a greater proportion of white people in my cultural space than other races has more to do with social forces at play, such as discrimination, racism and xenophobia, than anything inherent to that particular race.
To me, culture transcends race. Even cultural appropriation, as troubling as it often is, can be read as an expression of white people trying to identify with someone other than people who look exactly like them. And not all people of a given race are a part of one culture.
(And of course, all of this assumes that race is anything but a social construct.)
[…] Pandagon Blog - anti choice movement is genocidal […]
I Name the Patriarchs, Part I: The Truth About “Full Quiver” Families…
Today I came across two articles about the “Full Quiver Movement,” so-called, one in Newsweek and one, originally in The Nation, in AlterNet.
……
“So I repeat there are not a lot of children languishing for adoption in the US…”
Yeah, there aren’t a lot of kids waiting to be adopted here in this country. That’s why Europeans and Canadians are adopting African American kids…
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/11/60minutes/main673597.shtml
and
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1027/p11s01-lifp.html
And that says it all right there, folks.
(Emphases and insert mine)
Am I the only one who thinks of the Lebensborn when reading of this? The Lebensborn was Heinrich Himmler’s solution to Germany’s low birth rate. They too wanted to outbreed those they considered undesirable by producing a multitude of ‘pure’ followers
I was just reading some of those articles on Canadians and Europeans adopting african-americans last night, as I knew I had read something about that phenom a couple months back, and something on tv referenced it, which sent me looking.
Pretty much OT, but the Freakanomics book has some interesting things to say about how/why adopted children tend to do poorly on basic standards of achievement, at least for a while. That’s the book that created such a stir by correlating the unexpected crime drop of the early ’90s on the legalization of abortion.
And telling people “no children at all” is totally not going to work, too many eons of evolution pushing us to propogate our genes, only the most enlightened/self-aware person is going to be able to completely supress that urge. Speaking to the evolutionarily viable (based on my understanding of why there are different coupling mechanisms in different species, which is from the completely armchair amateur perspective) option of controlling the number of offsping so as to increase the amount of resources that can be given to them (from an entirely evolutionary perspective, I’m talking resources from a woman’s body in creating the thing, and the family’s ability to give a proper amount of attention to the kid, not spoiling them rotten) is logical, and doesn’t conflict with our genes.
Question: When do any of the quiverfull folks discuss race?
[…] The feminist blogosphere is having a whip-round criticizing the Quiverfull movement, a radical Protestant sect that encourages its members to have as many children as possible in order to populate the Earth with white conservative Christians. Lindsay writes about Blessed Arrows, one organization related to the movement that specializes in reversal of sterilization, and that considers women to be mere vessels of God. [Link] Deni had a tubal ligation when she gave birth to Sera. When Sera as about 9 yo Deni had an ectopic pregnancy… she almost died from this. Needless to say this was very upsetting to Rick… so much so that he (out of fear) had a vasectomy (to make sure it would never happen again!). […]
[…] This is nothing but natalism disguised as social and economic policy. Natalism like that espoused by the Quiverfull people, and David Brooks, and Pat Robertson, and on and on. […]
Deep Thought: When it applies to racial purity etc. ad nauseam.
Question: You did read Amanda’s post…right? And look closely at that graphic?
“Deep” Thought—the movement was founded in part by a Holocaust denier. Interesting that a genocidal movement would defend prior genocide.
Rhi,
OK - find me a quiverfull site that discusses racial purity, then.
JackGoff,
She references an “anti-feminist site”. Is it a quiverfull anti-feminist site? I would like a linky-dink, please.
Amanda,
And, of course, having an elitist, racist, genocidal person involved in any way, whatsoever, means that the entire idea is soooooo flawed as to taint anyone involved, right? Just like how the involvement of all those nasty eugenicists in the early days of birth control and abortion activism perpetually tainted….
Hmmm. That doesn’t make any sense, now, does it? I mean, just because people so heavily into eugenics that they wented to forcibly sterilize minorities and the poor doesn’t mean that Planned Parenthood is evil…
Right?
[please go to Wikipedia and look up Lothrop Stoddard - ardent anti-immigrant activist, staunch racially-motivated eugenicist, and author of the book “The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy”. Oh, and also co-founder with Sanger of the American Birth Control League, which eventually became Planned Parenthood]
See, the little ‘Guilt by Association’ game, if we use the same guideline you are using, paint *you* as genocidal just as easily, doesn’t it? After all some of the earliest advocates of leaglizing birth control and abortion weren’t Holocaust deniers, they were Holocaust *advocates*.
So please provide a link to a quiverfull page where they advocate large families in order to wipe out the ‘Rising Tide of Color’ so I can confirm that your allegations are accurate.
Amanda:
Great post. I’m especially intrigued by the graphic at the top. What the hell “anti-feminist” site ran that? I’ve seen nearly identical graphics at White Revolution and Stormfront.
Incidentally, Deep Thought is not such a deep thinker.
The reality is gthat there’s a powerful continuum connecting white supremacists and the anti-choicers, especially since the former have been raving about the decline of white reproduction for the better part of a century — Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant being good early examples.
The suggestion that “hard” eugenicists like Stoddard were deeply involved with early feminists (whose involvement with eugenics was of the “soft” variety) is a conflation that isn’t borne out by the historical record. Nearly all “hard” (or “negative”) eugenicists advocated birth control primarily as a means of controlling the reproduction rate of nonwhites, including sterilization and other forms of coercion. “Soft” (or “positive”) eugenicists found this notion abhorrent and argued against it at every turn; for them, birth control was a means for women to gain control of their bodies. (Margaret Sanger, who I assume he’s referencing, was something of a mixed bag, someone who fell into both categories.)
In any event, the anti-feminist right today, especially the fundamentalist “Quiverfull” types, are very closely tied into the far-right continuum, especially through the whole home-schooling scene. By way of example, one of the largest suppliers of “Christian” home-schooling materials is my old friend Doug Wilson, who also touts the theory that slavery was a benign institution.
Of course, most of these believers are very coy about their beliefs on race because they know that they would be called racist and demonized, so instead they talk about fighting back on demographics — though it’s important to note that this view of demographics is basically an us-vs-them thing: white unbelievers (especially atheists, who we all know have abortions recreationially) are cast into the same “them” category as blacks and Latinos and homosexuals.
As the issue of personal fertility becomes intertwined with notions of preserving white Christian culture, this continuuum broadens and deepens. It isn’t hard to see this coalescence — just read Pat Buchanan’s latest book, or read Paul Weyrich’s many rants on the subject or wander over to the VDare and American Renaissance and see how they hold forth. If you can’t see it, you’re just not looking.
David Neiwert,
Pretty coy yourself, since a single link to a quiverfull site advocating any of this would speak more than your posting. While speaking in vague terms about a “powerful continuum” connecting racial supremacists with “anti-choicers” you actually point out… a powerful continuum connecting racial supremacists with early advocates of birth control and abortion.
Again - guilt by association is easy - and cheap. Let’s see some quiverfull quotes directly.
*chirp chirp*
Saying What They Mean…
One of the maddening things about the creationists is that they are rarely forthright about their agenda. Euphimisms like “teach the controversy” and “fairness” abound….
I have to say that after reading this article, and the handful of replies I am very sad. I would be considered one of your “wingnuts”(whatever that is.) I am college educated(magna cum laude-not that it means anything) and fairly well read. To have any children is a blessing. To have many is to be blessed even more. My children spent today playing “star wars”, train tracks, games, and puzzles. I joined in with them as I could. I also home-school. I realize I have just made an enemy with probably every one on this site. I dont mean to. What I am trying to say is that I have never and I mean never encountered anyone who believes as I do that is racist. Most of my friends are bi-racial couples, as am I. Too many times I hear that the “right wing” believes only stories about a fringe “left wing” group. Well guess what, that is what I see here. I am sure there are ‘Christians’ out there who are racist, women haters, etc. That is far from the norm. BTW, I happen to live in a large metro area(New York), am in contact with many 6+ children families daily. They are pretty normal and do not see working women as evil.
plee,
May I point out something? Even if you and your friends felt that the *is* something wrong with people who have 2 or less kids, even to the point of feeling that it was ‘evil’ - that would not make any of you ‘genocidal’, would it?
Deep Thought,
I do not know what you mean by *is*. I do not believe that by having as many kids as one can in order to repopulate some minority numbers, i.e. conservative Christians. I also do not see that as a mandate in the Bible. The Bible talks about children as a blessing and not a curse. I do not see people with 2 or less kids as evil. People have many reasons for the size of their families. My concern here is that the misconceptions that are constantly being put forth. I cannot address misconceptions about left leaning liberals as that is not my experience. However, I can say with certainty, not all people with large families are genocidal racists. I have no wish to do away with any people group and neither does anyone I know.
Plee,
Sorry, my lousy spelling sunk me. I, too, have a large family (and growing) and know many people with large families. Many of us in my local group are mixed race ourselves or in mixed couples. This meme that large families are racist or genocidal is so ludicrous that I can’t believe that it exists. However, even if you, me, and every one in the quiverfull movement *were* racists (and, BTW, we’re not) that would not make us, or the having of large families, genocidal. That was my attempted point.
[…] Where else have I heard this sword imagery before? […]