Today The Thinking Housewife has a short post up about a pro-abortion campaign in the US. This campaign is based on the idea that abortion should be regarded as "a normal and necessary part of women's reproductive lives". The campaigners hope that by encouraging women to share their abortion stories that some of the stigma surrounding abortion will be removed.
So I went and read the stories. And some of them clearly fit into the dead stream category. There are people in our society who are now thinking along these lines:
“I got knocked up over spring break— as a 32-year old married graduate student. Having children was never something that my husband and I considered to be an option. The decision to terminate the pregnancy was easy...Every day since then, I am grateful that my birth control slip-up did not determine the path of my career or my life. No regrets.” -- Jess
She's 32 and married but is so determined to remain childless that she made the "easy" decision to have an abortion. She did not want a child to "determine the path of my career or my life" (she wanted to remain a self-determining individual).
It seems to be a common theme:
"I was married, but my husband and I were not eager to have children. At this point, we had been married for 16 years and our lives felt complete and were enjoyable just as they were. Neither of us had ever really entertained thoughts of children."
Heather is in the same boat:
"Never wanted children, but had healthy, heterosexual relationships...abortion was an easy decision for me -- I knew I didn't want children...I had been raised to believe that women are smart, moral creatures who have both the capacity and the responsibility to make such decisions...my second unplanned pregnancy at 38. Still clear that I didn't want to have a child and having made sure my (monogamous) partner understood that before we ever began sexual relations, I had my second abortion...It is unthinkable to me that millions of women are not able, or soon will be unable, to control their own lives, are not considered intelligent enough or moral enough to be entrusted with the work that is our birthright"
I'm not sure what Heather believes is the work that is her birthright (having casual unprotected sex with boyfriends?) but it doesn't appear to be motherhood.
These stories did not make me think that abortion is a normal and necessary part of women's reproductive lives. They made me think that some Western women have turned in a nihilistic or hedonistic way against the idea of having children. They are dead streamers.
Evolutionary biologist Geoffrey Miller has a similar theory about the bifurcation of society:
ReplyDelete"Heritable variation in personality might allow some lineages to resist the Great Temptation and last longer. Some individuals and families may start with an “irrational” Luddite abhorrence of entertainment technology, and they may evolve ever more self-control, conscientiousness and pragmatism. They will evolve a horror of virtual entertainment, psychoactive drugs and contraception. They will stress the values of hard work, delayed gratifica tion, child-rearing and environmental stewardship. They will combine the family values of the religious right with the sustainability values of the Greenpeace left. Their concerns about the Game of Life will baffle the political pollsters who only understand the rhetoric of status and power, individual and society, rights and duties, good and evil, us and them."
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/
There is a third group, that neither you nor he mentioned: the underclass. They are born to unmarried women, and they are growing apace in numbers.
I do not understand why any man would get married to a woman who is not interested in children. Marriage is a constraint on a man's polygamous nature. The only compensation for that constraint is the joy of children.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I can think of is if he is a grateful beta that wants to latch on to his "princess".
Oh, and Mark, I am not so sure of your bifurcation theory. The number of traditionalist households in Australia that I have come across is approximately zero. Such communities probably exist in the US though.
ReplyDeleteThe number of traditionalist households in Australia that I have come across is approximately zero.
ReplyDeleteBob, I'm not referring with the idea of live stream vs dead stream to people who identify self-consciously with traditionalism against modernism.
My suburb is a bit lefty liberal in its politics. But even so, an older stream of living culture is still present in how people choose to live. For instance, women are still family oriented and still act to keep their husbands engaged in their families. Children are nurtured and raised to become successful adults.
But I don't think we can take even that for granted anymore. There is an emerging dead stream in Western culture - the examples I gave are women who don't want children, or who have given up on the idea of familial kinship, or who are flippant about embarking on single motherhood.
The two streams just aren't compatible with each other. They are diverging parts of society.
Basil Ransom wrote...
ReplyDeleteThey will combine the family values of the religious right with the sustainability values of the Greenpeace left.
I agree with the rest of your comment but I don't think there's any common ground between believers in traditional values and the loonies of the environmental movement. Sustainability is a cover for hostility to western civilisation and everything it stands for. Greens are fundamentally anti-family and anti-Christian. They're another leftist hate group.
Mark Richardson wrote...
ReplyDeleteBut even so, an older stream of living culture is still present in how people choose to live.
I think there's more support for traditional values than appears on the surface. People have been intimidated into not publicly questioning the leftist orthodoxy but that doesn't mean they whole-heartedly accept it. Many people are afraid to say publicly that they oppose abortion, that homosexuality is unnatural, that multi-culturalism has been a failure, that promiscuity comes at a price, and that schools should concentrate on education rather than left-wing political indoctrination. But there are many many people out there who agree with us on most issues.
The dead stream are not reproducing (thankfully). The slightly more traditionally oriented live stream are having children and are quite traditional in their thinking. They pay lip service to progressive ideals but do not hold to them. I know this from conversations I have had with neighbours and workmates.
ReplyDeleteIn 20 years, the children of the dead stream who never were will not be able to vote or influence society with the poisonous ideals of their non-parents. When I look around the private Christian school my children attend, 3+ kids is the norm, with many four or five and one lady has 10. Choosing to be childless gifts the future to those of us who reproduce.
Thanks, dead streamers!
Luzu
"Luzu"
ReplyDeleteYou are on to something. I've read little (as in liberal media wont discuss this) about the apparent phenonmenom of Christian 'cults' in the US who have high birth rates. They are having more children than even Muslims are. They will eventually outnumber the liberals in America who have a falling birthrate. The future will be a confrontation between the minority groups and these traditional Christian communities with huge birthrates. That is if the liberals don't attempt to outlaw and destroy them with American federal power.
What's worse is the treatment of pregnancy in tv and movies as an illness. Being pregnant is referred to not as a joy or blessing but as a curse: something bad happened to you.
ReplyDeleteYou can't be a whore whose liberated sexuality can find nothing to take pride in beyond the amount of jizz you're bathed in nor another exchangeable office drone if you invest in your own future by creating a family.
Personally, I like that abortion is legal simply because I do not think that some humans should ever spawn little ones for numerous reasons. However, I hate it when people who are in a healthy relationship put their "careers" ahead of raising children. It seems like the career is the holy grail of women now, not raising healthy, intelligent children. It is truly sad.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what Marks position on the EDL is but Tommy Robinson was beat up in a co-ordinated attack by a car load of Muslims with knuckledusters.
ReplyDeleteOne line stood out about his description of the attack.
"He was out driving, when he saw a car similar to his wife’s, driven by a blond white girl. The other car flashed its lights so Tommy pulled over.
A group of Pakistani youths wearing knuckle dusters poured out. Tommy was knocked out pretty quickly, and they gave him a good kicking."
A blond white girl betrayed him.
Men are going to have to face facts that some women are our enemies they should be mocked and abhorred. They want to see us and our society destroyed.
We as men should prop up those women that defend and support us. Who do the right thing.
The others like this evil little ***** should be disowned from our civilsiation.
The dead stream are not reproducing (thankfully).
ReplyDeleteThat's why they were so determined to take control of the education system, which they've done. So they can then infect other people's kids with their poison.
Of course live streamers will increasingly be reluctant to allow their children to be destroyed by the public education system. That will undoubtedly increase the determination of politicians such as Gillard (who is of course childless) and Bob Brown (who is of course also childless) to enforce control of all education, not just the state system.
God forbid that the anglo race dies out and australia becoming an asian nation. That those liberal seek to spread their poisonous ideology so everyone can be as spiritually dead as they are.
ReplyDeleteJust to make real conservatives' Christmas that bit more miserable, the December 2012 QUADRANT - which under celebrated taxpayer-leeching hoax-victim Keith Windschuttle has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity - publishes the following pack of pro-growth and pro-big-business lies. (At least, I sincerely hope they're lies, because if the author intended them as a serious contribution to debate, then either he hasn't done a scrap of research or he should be sectioned for his own mental health):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/12/the-geo-political-case-for-a-big-australia
Happy Christmas Windschuttle. You never stopped being a pagan Caucasophobic Maoist, did you?
Women abandoning their men. Is analogous with women abandoning their children.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteThe dead stream are not reproducing (thankfully).
You suppose, it is genetical. That's OK. The problem is that some genetic traits which bring reproduction success to one sex may do the opposite for the second sex. Like women preffering working hard to having a large families (which have to be fed by a hard working, family oriented, men - who even according to biologists are not attractive to women).
So there will be a self perpetuating process. Or rather "advent" of low intelligence, low impulse control people.
Consider for example Dr. Helmuth Nyborg's work on IQ changes in Western societies.
Just as a side note: Did anyone else notice that the stories seemed to focus on late-in-life pregnancies? (32 and 38 as quoted ages, "married 16 years" in the other). Maybe a little "it's perfectly safe to delay and delay and delay motherhood" propaganda thrown into the mix for free?
ReplyDeleteNot sure if the stories MR picked were representative, and not interested in looking, but it struck me as rather odd. I'd be surprised if the typical abortionette was a mid-30s, childless, career drone.
Don't forget the liberal men enabling the dead stream women (from the comments in the BBC link below):
ReplyDeleteI'm a young professional man and I love that women are liberated. I have never wanted a woman who would be a 'good little wife', have my dinner on the table when I come home and such. I want an intellectual equal, a life-partner, a free spirit who is with me through choice, not through fear of poverty or spinsterhood.
Also they'll do some pretty kinky stuff these days too.
<- The woman credited with creating the sexy single girl
"I have never wanted a woman who would be a 'good little wife'"
ReplyDeleteI do and i'm bloody thankful for it.
", have my dinner on the table when I come home and such."
My lefty father never thanked my mother for making dinner. Infact he often abused my mother over it(!). I've confronted my father over this. I'm totally different I thanked my mother and now girlfriend for making me dinner everytime and truly appreciate it. Especially after a hard days work.
Who is the bigger misogynist?
"I want an intellectual equal"
My girlfriend has a learning disability. I still love her completely and treat her as my equal in all conversation never once referring to her as stupid or thinking of her as such.
Again who is the bigger myogynist? Who is more accepting. Liberal men sound like arrogant, social Darwinist, Fascists.
the rest of what he says is dribble.
The must have detected a sea change in our culture. Perviously, they tirelessly worked to avoid the 'pro-abortion' moniker. They used to present this infanticide as a unfortunate choice madeout of desperation.
ReplyDeleteThe location of the campaign surprised me. Cleveland is the largest city in Ohio, and large cities do tend to be more liberal. Ohio, on the other hand, is in the Midwest, which is one of the more conservative regions in the US. San Francisco this is not. Ohio voted for GW Bush in '04.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in knowing where this campaign originates: is it really Cleveland-based or does it have roots elsewhere? Regardless, I think the election of Obama shows that the American heartland isn't what it used to be.
Perviously, they tirelessly worked to avoid the 'pro-abortion' moniker.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed recently that more and more feminists are seeing abortion as something to celebrate. It's almost as if you're not a real feminist until you've killed at least one baby, and then celebrated the event.
"I've noticed recently that more and more feminists are seeing abortion as something to celebrate. It's almost as if you're not a real feminist until you've killed at least one baby, and then celebrated the event."
ReplyDeletePrevious Anon here. My fathers mother was a die hard feminist. That tried to abort him. She then told this to him as a young man.
She was an activist and I'd say you are right its something feminists feel they have to do. Its only that this was nearly a century ago. So its not a recent thing. Progressives and feminists think they are pioneering new ways of thinking right now in the present. They have been going at it for decades.
I was unpleasantly surprised, upon moving to Cleveland for medical school, where I hoped to find a sweet conservative Midwestern girl whose life dream was to be a doctor's housewife, that Cleveland is just about the most liberal metropolitan area in the Midwest.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Hermes, that Cleveland is a relatively liberal place. I lived and worked just outside of the area for a little while a few years ago. I remember one day, I was listening to a Cleveland area shock jock interviewing callers who had had multiple abortions. It seemed that the DJ accepted that people have abortions. He was ridiculing people who had multiple abortions, which he called an abuse. It seemed like he saw abortion as an emergency out, like the local food pantry or soup kitchen. He was outraged that some of his callers were using it as their routine source of birth control.
ReplyDeleteAt the time I took it as a sign that even liberals in Cleveland understood that some regret/shame/wrong is inherent in an abortion. I guess that's why I was so surprised to see this ad come out of Cleveland.
As Liesel said though, the culture is moving ever farther leftward, and it may be that this campaign has correctly anticipated our culture's next step.
Thanks for the link, Mark.
I love these "why I'm glad I had an abortion " websites. They convey the best anti- abortion message ever. No woman I have ever known wanted to be identified w/ the pure selfishness exspoused by the women in these stories.
ReplyDeleteThere's a rather chilling example of the new feminist line on abortion in an interview with pro-abortion activist Merle Hoffman at salon.com. I've excerpted her more outrageous statements here
ReplyDeletehttp://anotherpoliticallyincorrectblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/abortion-is-so-empowering.html