Kathe Kolwitz’ work is staggering, her biography uncompromising ‘Middle-class people held no appeal for me at all. Bourgeois life on the whole seemed to me pedantic.'
A mother too, a central tension of any brilliant woman’s life but moreso in the past.
Oh yeah, thanks for debunking and talking sense here
Great thorough essay, especially the data regarding declining teen birth rates (which I agree is a good thing). The most thought-provoking part for me was your mention of the South Korea data. Even though extensive education development is not “pro-family” as pronatalists would define, it IS pro-family. In place of absolute numbers of children is an emphasis on giving some combo of maximum resources, education, skills, and interpersonal time to one’s children. Such an approach has its faults, but it’s not anti-family per se. Culturally, different families in different cultures would approach that endowment mix as best as they see fit.
Or maybe the answer is to put it on Boomers to give of their money, housing, and free-childcare-time to allow their kids to give them more grandkids, I dunno. 🤷🏻♂️
“and that the government needs to “promote pro-family values” (read: extreme social conservatism) to counteract this noxious trend.”
No, just because conservatives point out a problem doesn’t mean that they want the government to make a new policy to fix it. Why can’t we talk about things without people freaking out that they’re going to be oppressed?
It’s interesting how you manage to interpret fathers working more hours so that their wives can work fewer hours as the man oppressing the woman. When a woman has a baby she usually prefers to not be separated from that baby. That is why mothers work fewer hours and men work more, while childless couples have the same working hours. Women want to marry men who are able and willing to support them so they can stay home with their children.
And yes, people should be free to do what they want to do. No one wants to force women to stop working, have less education, or be forced to have children or get married. But there is a lot of problems that come with low fertility. And if the individual doesn’t prioritize the needs of society, society will collapse and the individuals will be worse off.
"No, just because conservatives point out a problem doesn’t mean that they want the government to make a new policy to fix it. Why can’t we talk about things without people freaking out that they’re going to be oppressed?"
Plenty of people on the social left have memories; we're not all completely uncultured 20something zoomers whose knowledge of the world and the past is gleaned solely from TikTok. The right has been trying for forty years to turn back the clock on abortion, birth control, and to the extent that thought they could get away with it, women's rights and things like divorce. Look up "covenant marriage"; a concept that wouldn't be necessary if conservatives could adopt "live and let live" policies. Maybe you're choosing not to remember, or were not alive, but right-wingers have been assassinating doctors who perform abortions since the eighties. The coalition behind Trump is completely open about wanting to dismantle civil society if he is elected.
People "freak out" about this stuff because it is an open playbook of the right, and there is at least forty years of history of blatant lies and blatant strategizing for oppressive policy. You people cannot even support pro-natalist policies that are actually popular with a huge swathe of the populace, like extended family leave and worker protections, even keeping fertility medicine like IVF available, because your coalition is too full of people who are rabid misogynists and/or extremely greedy robber baron types who want a labor base that is plentiful so that it's easier to make workers compete against each other for poverty wages.
Yes, the right has been trying to overturn abortion. But who is trying to make birth control illegal? Do you mean they don’t want to force Catholics to pay for birth control if they don’t want to? That seems reasonable to me. No fault divorce was thrust onto people who never consented to it. What is the problem with allowing people to get covenant marriages if they wish? How is that not live and let live? Why can’t marriage contracts be like any other contract where each couple writes their own? When was the last time an abortionist was assassinated? And how many were that in total? What do you mean by “dismantle civil society”? Do you mean dismantle the welfare system? How is it live and let live to steal money from the working class and give it to people who don’t work? Conservatives believe in voluntary charity, not coercive government redistribution.
What lies have conservatives been telling for 40 years? What oppressive policies? The problem with extended family leave is that it’s not voluntary. It’s coercive redistribution from single income families to two income families. A woman who doesn’t have a job at all will miss out. And family leave doesn’t increase birth rates anywhere it’s been tried. That’s not live and let live. Let people negotiate their employment contract on an individual basis, not the government forcing the same thing on everyone. We have a ton of worker protections, what more could you want? The problem with IVF is that it creates embryos that are rarely all used, they are often destroyed or left frozen for decades. There are serious moral questions with IVF especially when a donor egg is used and/or a surrogate is used. But I’m not aware of anywhere that it’s actually been made illegal. The court in that one state ruled that the IVF clinic is financially liable for not protecting the embryos that were destroyed, ruling that they are children, giving the clinic the same liability concerns as any daycare center. And the southern Baptist convention decided they were opposed to IVF but didn’t even vote to cut ties with people that practice it or churches that promote it. You understand the difference between a church having a rule and a law, right? That bit about greedy robber barons is laughably cartoonish. Who is it that’s flooding the labor market with illegal immigrants to depress wages?
I'm trying to figure out why you call yourself "moral," because I don't see evidence of any goodness in these beliefs. I take issue with your sort claiming the mantle of morality.
You have a problem with contraception being available to all. Why is that?
No fault divorce makes it easier to end a bad marriage. If one party is trying to get away, let them. What is the point of trying to force someone to stay in a marriage they really don't want to be in anymore?
You think assistance programs are "stealing."
You think poor people just don't want to work.
I want the worker protections more civilized countries in Europe have. That's what I want!
You want to prevent infertile parents from being able to use IVF. That's heartless and cruel.
You think we have a flood of undocumented aliens out to get our jobs, but let me remind you the GOP is the one that UTTERLY REFUSED to fix immigration. It's a mess because Trump wants it to be a mess. We could greatly improve immigration right now if we would simply open a guest worker program. That way, we'd know who is here, they'd be safer, we'd get the ag work and such we want, and they'd get jobs. We don't have this because the GOP is largely immoral -- while actually thinking they're the moral party! It's so laughable but also so tragic.
I didn’t say I had a problem with birth control being available. I said it was reasonable to not force people to pay for birth control. Do you understand the difference?
I didn’t say I was against no-fault divorce. I said that people who want a covenant marriage should be allowed to do that. And I think you’re confusing divorce and separation. And if you can legally dissolve the marriage contract for any reason there’s no point to the contract. If that’s how business contracts worked no one would use them.
Taxation is stealing under the threat of men with guns coming and confiscating your property and possibly throwing you in prison. Everything paid for with coercive taxation is a result of stealing. Some poor people do just not want to work especially when they can make money not working. It’s very common and I know a lot of people who do it, who keep their work hours low enough to not lose their government benefits that’s worth a lot of money. I don’t blame them, I blame the system. Charity that is funded voluntarily is much better. Do you understand the difference?
Those worker protections that Europeans have also reduce wages. Europeans are poor compared to American standards. If you want to negotiate a better contract with your employer I encourage you to do so.
I don’t want to government to force people to not use IVF but I think there’s good reason to have a moral issue with it. You should look into the many problems in the industry.
You should look into that immigration bill and why Republicans said they didn’t vote for it. It was not a fix, it would make things worse. It would I be preferable to give more work visas and to stop the undocumented immigration, but Democrats are insisting on amnesty and giving free healthcare education and housing for everyone in the entire world who can get here.
I’m not going to defend everything every Republican has done. I’m a libertarian.
Republicans have 100% signed onto the ideology that selfishness is good. Giving up something you have to help society as a whole has been demonized by Republicans for decades.
Yet conservatives give far more to charity than liberals. Ayn Rand’s selfishness being good should more accurately be described as self-interest. But she was an atheist, I don’t really like her, personally speaking. But most conservatives are Christians who believe in sacrificing for others. Ayn Rand hated that about Christians.
Kathe Kolwitz’ work is staggering, her biography uncompromising ‘Middle-class people held no appeal for me at all. Bourgeois life on the whole seemed to me pedantic.'
A mother too, a central tension of any brilliant woman’s life but moreso in the past.
Oh yeah, thanks for debunking and talking sense here
Great read. Thank you!
Great thorough essay, especially the data regarding declining teen birth rates (which I agree is a good thing). The most thought-provoking part for me was your mention of the South Korea data. Even though extensive education development is not “pro-family” as pronatalists would define, it IS pro-family. In place of absolute numbers of children is an emphasis on giving some combo of maximum resources, education, skills, and interpersonal time to one’s children. Such an approach has its faults, but it’s not anti-family per se. Culturally, different families in different cultures would approach that endowment mix as best as they see fit.
Or maybe the answer is to put it on Boomers to give of their money, housing, and free-childcare-time to allow their kids to give them more grandkids, I dunno. 🤷🏻♂️
1. What if 'prioritizing family and marriage' means the husband staying at home with the kids? How many Trump supporters go along with that?
2. Noah Smith commenting on fertility hurts my brain. Can we get another source for comment?
3. As a husband whose wife makes a lot more than me, I am pretty satisfied. I need to dig into that data, or else I am a unicorn.
Tickets to MoMA are $30!!! 🤨
Hmmm, about the article's title... by definition, if they "breed" they can't be "cels"
“and that the government needs to “promote pro-family values” (read: extreme social conservatism) to counteract this noxious trend.”
No, just because conservatives point out a problem doesn’t mean that they want the government to make a new policy to fix it. Why can’t we talk about things without people freaking out that they’re going to be oppressed?
It’s interesting how you manage to interpret fathers working more hours so that their wives can work fewer hours as the man oppressing the woman. When a woman has a baby she usually prefers to not be separated from that baby. That is why mothers work fewer hours and men work more, while childless couples have the same working hours. Women want to marry men who are able and willing to support them so they can stay home with their children.
And yes, people should be free to do what they want to do. No one wants to force women to stop working, have less education, or be forced to have children or get married. But there is a lot of problems that come with low fertility. And if the individual doesn’t prioritize the needs of society, society will collapse and the individuals will be worse off.
"No, just because conservatives point out a problem doesn’t mean that they want the government to make a new policy to fix it. Why can’t we talk about things without people freaking out that they’re going to be oppressed?"
Plenty of people on the social left have memories; we're not all completely uncultured 20something zoomers whose knowledge of the world and the past is gleaned solely from TikTok. The right has been trying for forty years to turn back the clock on abortion, birth control, and to the extent that thought they could get away with it, women's rights and things like divorce. Look up "covenant marriage"; a concept that wouldn't be necessary if conservatives could adopt "live and let live" policies. Maybe you're choosing not to remember, or were not alive, but right-wingers have been assassinating doctors who perform abortions since the eighties. The coalition behind Trump is completely open about wanting to dismantle civil society if he is elected.
People "freak out" about this stuff because it is an open playbook of the right, and there is at least forty years of history of blatant lies and blatant strategizing for oppressive policy. You people cannot even support pro-natalist policies that are actually popular with a huge swathe of the populace, like extended family leave and worker protections, even keeping fertility medicine like IVF available, because your coalition is too full of people who are rabid misogynists and/or extremely greedy robber baron types who want a labor base that is plentiful so that it's easier to make workers compete against each other for poverty wages.
"Moral Government" my fat ass.
Yes, the right has been trying to overturn abortion. But who is trying to make birth control illegal? Do you mean they don’t want to force Catholics to pay for birth control if they don’t want to? That seems reasonable to me. No fault divorce was thrust onto people who never consented to it. What is the problem with allowing people to get covenant marriages if they wish? How is that not live and let live? Why can’t marriage contracts be like any other contract where each couple writes their own? When was the last time an abortionist was assassinated? And how many were that in total? What do you mean by “dismantle civil society”? Do you mean dismantle the welfare system? How is it live and let live to steal money from the working class and give it to people who don’t work? Conservatives believe in voluntary charity, not coercive government redistribution.
What lies have conservatives been telling for 40 years? What oppressive policies? The problem with extended family leave is that it’s not voluntary. It’s coercive redistribution from single income families to two income families. A woman who doesn’t have a job at all will miss out. And family leave doesn’t increase birth rates anywhere it’s been tried. That’s not live and let live. Let people negotiate their employment contract on an individual basis, not the government forcing the same thing on everyone. We have a ton of worker protections, what more could you want? The problem with IVF is that it creates embryos that are rarely all used, they are often destroyed or left frozen for decades. There are serious moral questions with IVF especially when a donor egg is used and/or a surrogate is used. But I’m not aware of anywhere that it’s actually been made illegal. The court in that one state ruled that the IVF clinic is financially liable for not protecting the embryos that were destroyed, ruling that they are children, giving the clinic the same liability concerns as any daycare center. And the southern Baptist convention decided they were opposed to IVF but didn’t even vote to cut ties with people that practice it or churches that promote it. You understand the difference between a church having a rule and a law, right? That bit about greedy robber barons is laughably cartoonish. Who is it that’s flooding the labor market with illegal immigrants to depress wages?
I'm trying to figure out why you call yourself "moral," because I don't see evidence of any goodness in these beliefs. I take issue with your sort claiming the mantle of morality.
Can you be more specific? What did I say that you think is immoral?
Gosh, where to start?
You have a problem with contraception being available to all. Why is that?
No fault divorce makes it easier to end a bad marriage. If one party is trying to get away, let them. What is the point of trying to force someone to stay in a marriage they really don't want to be in anymore?
You think assistance programs are "stealing."
You think poor people just don't want to work.
I want the worker protections more civilized countries in Europe have. That's what I want!
You want to prevent infertile parents from being able to use IVF. That's heartless and cruel.
You think we have a flood of undocumented aliens out to get our jobs, but let me remind you the GOP is the one that UTTERLY REFUSED to fix immigration. It's a mess because Trump wants it to be a mess. We could greatly improve immigration right now if we would simply open a guest worker program. That way, we'd know who is here, they'd be safer, we'd get the ag work and such we want, and they'd get jobs. We don't have this because the GOP is largely immoral -- while actually thinking they're the moral party! It's so laughable but also so tragic.
I didn’t say I had a problem with birth control being available. I said it was reasonable to not force people to pay for birth control. Do you understand the difference?
I didn’t say I was against no-fault divorce. I said that people who want a covenant marriage should be allowed to do that. And I think you’re confusing divorce and separation. And if you can legally dissolve the marriage contract for any reason there’s no point to the contract. If that’s how business contracts worked no one would use them.
Taxation is stealing under the threat of men with guns coming and confiscating your property and possibly throwing you in prison. Everything paid for with coercive taxation is a result of stealing. Some poor people do just not want to work especially when they can make money not working. It’s very common and I know a lot of people who do it, who keep their work hours low enough to not lose their government benefits that’s worth a lot of money. I don’t blame them, I blame the system. Charity that is funded voluntarily is much better. Do you understand the difference?
Those worker protections that Europeans have also reduce wages. Europeans are poor compared to American standards. If you want to negotiate a better contract with your employer I encourage you to do so.
I don’t want to government to force people to not use IVF but I think there’s good reason to have a moral issue with it. You should look into the many problems in the industry.
You should look into that immigration bill and why Republicans said they didn’t vote for it. It was not a fix, it would make things worse. It would I be preferable to give more work visas and to stop the undocumented immigration, but Democrats are insisting on amnesty and giving free healthcare education and housing for everyone in the entire world who can get here.
I’m not going to defend everything every Republican has done. I’m a libertarian.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-republicans-block-bill-protect-americans-access-contraception-rcna155448
Did you read the article?
"if the individual doesn’t prioritize the needs of society, society will collapse and the individuals will be worse off"
I'd like this message directed to the Republican party of the past 50 years.
You think Republicans aren’t prioritizing the needs of society? You mean taxes? Society is different from the government.
Republicans have 100% signed onto the ideology that selfishness is good. Giving up something you have to help society as a whole has been demonized by Republicans for decades.
Yet conservatives give far more to charity than liberals. Ayn Rand’s selfishness being good should more accurately be described as self-interest. But she was an atheist, I don’t really like her, personally speaking. But most conservatives are Christians who believe in sacrificing for others. Ayn Rand hated that about Christians.
Conservatives give to their CHURCHES. I don’t think making people like Joel Osteen richer is helping anybody. I choose other causes.
Republicans are systematically destroying us all.