• porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    Sorry, are you suggesting that people subjected to genocide have a responsibility to produce new child soldiers for the cause? It’s by no means “easy” for anyone to look at the material conditions of their environment and decide that they don’t want to personally subject new people to those conditions.

    Birth rates declining as education, income, medical care, and women’s equality increase are well documented sociological phenomena across history. There’s no need to reduce the phenomena to idealist anecdotes centering around the political affiliation of individual people you’ve encountered online.

    • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      No I’m saying nations under genocidal conditions are going to have kids because they want their society to continue, it’s nothing about soldiers and I really don’t like that you would reduce the will to survive genocide as “creating soldiers”. Should Palestinians give up children not knowing if they’ll be bombed tomorrow? Do you shame, pity them for having more kids? Why should they let Israel succeed in killing the idea of Palestinians?

      Reproductive labor is necessary labor for society to function. People having less kids because they can focus resources towards fewer children, those conditions only exist for the Imperialist and bourgeois strata. For most of the world having many kids is necessary for the survival of the community.

      • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t urge Palestinians to avoid having children, nor would I encourage them to try to outbreed their captivity. It’s none of my business. It should be exclusively their business. I’ll tell you if I lived in Palestine, there’s no way in hell I’d personally bring a child into those conditions no matter what anybody else thought about it.

        My point is that whether or not to reproduce is a deeply personal choice that shouldn’t be viewed as a social responsibility or a political act.

        The idea that individuals (by which people always really mean women) have a political responsibility to reproduce and expand their culture is reactionary shit. The only population whose breeding habits I have a political opinion about is white settlers, because I’m a white settler. I’m not having kids, because white genocide is unironically good, Euro-American settler culture is a blight on the world, and our extinction as an artificial racial category is a prerequisite for global decolonization.

      • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I’m saying nations under genocidal conditions are going to have kids because they want their society to continue, i

        and those kids grow up where, under what conditions? My childhood wasn’t nearly as shitty as what palestinians are made to endure and decades on I would still have rather been an abortion. it is out of compassion for their suffering that i suggest having kids in dire circumstances is immoral because of what you’re knowingly forcing someone to live through.

        Do you shame, pity them for having more kids?

        i feel bad for the people who have to live that life. i feel bad for parents who didn’t have the right to choose. i endorse the destruction of the oppressor state and the (trial if you have enough stability to have them) execution of the perpetrators of apartheid and genocide.

        Why should they let Israel succeed in killing the idea of Palestinians?

        why is the idea of some cultural group worth the suffering of my children? Oppressed people have a morally righteous fight against our oppressors, but condemning another person to live under that oppression is not righteous.

        people are people and if i can choose not to condemn someone to a life of suffering why should I value a group identity over my child’s quality of life? I wouldn’t subject a child to life here and we even have running water.

        no hedonistic pleasures or satisfaction from achievement could make my torture worthwhile, how the fuck is it OK to subject someone to far worse than what i’ve had?

        • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          This is clearly the words of someone who has no community or culture to cling to, one born nation-less and with a position to lose. For me contributing to my community in what’s necessary of me benefits everyone and all children. For colonized peoples there is a collective worth protecting as it protects ourselves as individuals.

          It’s honestly sounding like you have internalized individualism. Like I said it’s fine to not want children and to not have them, but know that people having children is necessary for your survival, and you have a role to play in the survival of their children.

          Everyone has a role to play as we are social beings. Our society as structured alienates us from the benefits of socialized production but these conditions are definite and mutable. Have some revolutionary optimism.

          • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            I’ll put it bluntly because there’s a lot of assumptions that are easy to make when you’re talking in English on a primarily American platform, and maybe there’s some misunderstanding about the conditions people in this conversation are actually living in:

            If you’re a white American, you have no culture or nation worth reproducing or clinging to. If you’re a white American and you believe that you, your children, and your fellow enlightened settler whites will usher in a revolution in the United States of America in your lifetime: that’s not revolutionary optimism, it’s delusional cosplay. The only revolutionary role that a white settler can play on colonized land is to betray his fellow settlers and work toward the destruction of their empire. Communism will be built on the grave of this empire by those who come after.

            • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              I’ve written in my comments that my people are colonized and subject to genocide, I’m not a white settler, I’m Black. I understand the outlook that settlers have a false nation unworthy of upholding, I agree, but I do not think they need to be stripped of living their lives as human beings in the manner they choose as long as it fits the framework of Decolonization.

              I comment on my predictions and expectations of settlers a lot, this time I’m on the optimistic side that we’d hope for more settlers to be deeply concerned about the future generations. It’s fucked up for settlers to come here, trash the place, and when it comes time to clean up they’d rather die out than join the multi generational effort to fix this place. We don’t plan for their help but it would be a quicker process with more hands. 🤷🏽‍♀️

              Decolonization also means restoring the humanity of the colonizers.

              Albeit not peacefully 😏

              • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                My apologies then, for approaching your comments without the appropriate context in mind. I don’t mean to suggest that I think settlers have no responsibility to the future (I haven’t killed myself after all). I hope to do everything I can to leave a better world for other people’s kids than my parents left for me. Without getting too deep into personal detail, my parents come from generations of white American evangelicals. My parents’ decision to have kids was not a net positive for the world or for their kids. If I ever unexpectedly find myself with the means to provide a decent life for someone beyond my own immediate survival, I’ll consider adopting.

          • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            It’s honestly sounding like you have internalized individualism. Like I said it’s fine to not want children and to not have them, but know that people having children is necessary for your survival, and you have a role to play in the survival of their children.

            if other people putting children in harm’s way is necessary for my survival then i would prefer not to survive and for the cycle of suffering to end with me. there’s no social unit worth damning generations of children to lifetimes of suffering and bitter struggle.

            Have some revolutionary optimism.

            fight now and maybe having a kid later won’t be equivalent to putting them through hell, but in the meantime we have no moral standing for conscription.

            • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.mlM
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              1 year ago

              So you just think colonized colonized people should just collectively choose to end their own cultures and stop existing?

              • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                i think that oppressed people should fight back against their oppression but we do not have the right to bring children into dire circumstances and conscript them into a fight they did not and could not consent to.

                If a monster is beating down your door and you can’t defeat it on your own you shouldn’t push a kid into its jaws. The monster should stop, but it won’t. The other villages should come make the monster stop but they won’t. Feeding more children to the monster is not in line with any of our other morals.