ANTI-NATALISM

 (photo credit: Joel Travis Sage via CC/JTA)

Professor David Benatar has pricked the minds of Western academics. He has published two books which seek to explain his premise that human consciousness is an evolutionary mistake, which leads to lives of predominant misery. Anti-natalism refers to his opposition to intentionally inflicting this predominantly painful existence on new human life. It also extends to the intentional breeding of animals to be exploited and slaughtered to maintain human existence. 

There is an obvious catch in Benatar's philosophy. While I see where he is coming from, I also think his suggestion that human contraception will somehow matter in the vast Universe he sees as uncaring and cruel is based in a very human-centric mindset. It is hard to think outside the box of the human perception of reality. The compassion which seems to fuel his philosophy is intrinsically human. It is questionable whether an intrinsically human approach to overall existence and evolution really matters for anything, unless you buy into the belief that humans are the designated masters of a designed Universe.

If some being designed this universe and intentionally placed humans in charge of one of its most hospitable planets, I would have to say we are all screwed to infinity. 

I do not believe we are masters of this (possibly-one-of-many) universe. Most of us are not masters of our own bodies and minds. Here is where I fail to relate to Professor Benatar's position. He seems to present an Option B to our current Option A, called "reality". That Option B would be to simply stop procreating and breeding anything else for subsistence. Who exactly would be convinced to sign up for this? 

Human overpopulation and human sustainability are real concerns. This immediately makes it highly unlikely that the human species will awaken to its misery to the extent of self-extinction. If anything, there is a paradoxical effect whereby some decide to procreate more. But perhaps the value of Professor Benatar's observations lies in their simple acknowledgment that the quality of human life is not a governmental and social concern when compared to the quantity of human life. Yes, consciousness is a burden, often a painful one, but consciousness affords human beings the capacity to behave differently. And those different behaviors can lead to positive change.

I am reminded of the AIDS epidemic, as I write this. The first dozen years of that epidemic were a dark abyss of struggling for survival. During that period, many people committed suicide after receiving an HIV diagnosis. The cases I knew were suitably adorned in more palatable excuses for the person's depression, of course. Those who survive you write you into history or write you out of it. This probably accounts for the minimal media coverage of those suicides. 

When I received my formal HIV-positive blood result in 1988, despite knowing I had been infected several years earlier, I went to a friend's apartment on a high floor while he was at work. I opened a window. I contemplated jumping to the pavement. I thought of the implications and decided not to. Here I am 30 years later. Isn't that the survival lottery we all have hard-wired into our brains? I know rationally in retrospect that I'd have been mopped from the sidewalk, and life in midtown Manhattan would buzz along without a twitch. In other words, the implications that came to mind were my relatively sane mind's way of stopping me.

Sweeping philosophical statements about life can be profoundly applicable and totally impractical. Yet, they can cause an individual human being to think. Perhaps the value of anti-natalism is giving some intellectual credence to the notion that human life is neither sacred nor exceptional beyond its brain functions. Looking seriously at the propagation of miserable lives by thoughtless breeding of ourselves or other animals to eat is certainly not a bad thing. Placing human lives on the same playing field as other forms of life on the planet is as ancient as Jainism. The rise of anthropomorphic deities in human consciousness has obscured this basic reality. We are mortal life forms, as were the dinosaurs. 

I admire any human being who mentally challenges his/her genetic impulses to procreate. I have never experienced those impulses,  a fact I have taken as validation of the genetic basis of my own homosexuality. But I have had other impulses to contend with. I know how hard it is to engage the brain to make positive life choices when impulses steer it in the opposite direction. And I wholeheartedly acknowledge that the impulses to procreate for women who are so disposed naturally must be nearly overwhelming. Nearly. But I also know women in some of the most backward of circumstances have emerged from those circumstances by making the choice not to procreate. 

Professor Benatar and others who speak the truth of human suffering are seldom given a fair hearing. Perhaps their voices feel like that impulse I once had to throw myself out the window. As a species, we rally against these deep truths over and over again in order to survive, even if that very instinct may eventually diminish us as human beings. Our survival instinct is much more ancient than our experience of consciousness. Perhaps our species will evolve long enough for that to no longer be true. And perhaps then, as whatever species human beings become, looking back at the miseries of life as we know it will be a much easier exercise.