Snared in a Trap

[RaleC]

Consciousness being subjective and all - reality has a tendency to inflate with value that which reinforces our world-view. And this truly reads like despair as religion. Despair as dogma.

I gotta admit my reaction was Anti-natalist poems? /really?/ Why bother creating something that follows (however roughly in this case) the rigid rules for meter and rhyme just to say: Life Sucks. Dying is inevitable and scary. Don't live in dread. Death. Just do it.

I can agree with the sentiment that life is hard, but my interpretation of somebody seeking attention at this level, and by these methods, is that this guy just doesn't have the sack to do something about his misery (I mean the easy stuff like changing jobs, getting more exercise, eating less processed foods, drinking less alcohol which will all improve the symptoms of depression if not the cause) So he's instead turning it into a club. In my reading of history this has never been a good idea.

Besides - Larkin's Aubade makes this guy seem a little naive.

Aubade read by Philip Larkin - YouTube

Aubade read by Philip Larkin - YouTube

I say it every time but you guys are all brilliant as hell and really are the ones who oughta be breeding.

[sundog]

Quote Originally Posted by RaleC

I say it every time but you guys are all brilliant as hell and really are the ones who oughta be breeding.

Who of us "guys" could possibly take that as a compliment coming from you?

[gveranon]

I have no interest in arguing either for or against antinatalism. ("Well, You Needn't" -- Thelonious Monk.) I also have no interest in "clubs," which just tend to enstupidate things . . . but are people with similar interests never supposed to communicate about them?

Anyway, I would just like to point out that Larkin also wrote an antinatalist poem (he may have written more than one, but this is the one I remember).

This Be The Verse

They f* you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f*d up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can.
And don't have any kids yourself.

Here's another Larkin poem that possibly could be considered antinatalist, although I think it's better read as expressing a certain reflective mood than as advocating a philosophical position. Actually, both poems are probably better read that way. Still, it's odd to quote Larkin of all poets, very much including his great "Aubade," as support for a don't-despair-and-start-breeding argument.

Dockery and Son

‘Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn’t he?’ said the Dean. ‘His son’s here now.’
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. ‘And do
You keep in touch with—’ Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
‘Our version’ of ‘these incidents last night’?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In ’43, when I was twenty-one.
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn

High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much ... How little ... Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong

Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of ... No, that’s not the difference: rather, how

Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They’re more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we’ve got

And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son’s harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

[RaleC]

Quote Originally Posted by sundog

Quote Originally Posted by RaleC I say it every time but you guys are all brilliant as hell and really are the ones who oughta be breeding. Who of us "guys" could possibly take that as a compliment coming from you?

It was a blanket statement. Perhaps a non-gender exclusive "fellas" is more to your liking?

There are some incredible minds thinking outloud here and I'm in awe of that. I don't have to share every consensus consumer interest or opinion to be able to appreciate the intellect behind both. Thanks for the poem, it gave me a lot to think about.

[RaleC]

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

I think it's better read as expressing a certain reflective mood than as advocating a philosophical position. Actually, both poems are probably better read that way. Still, it's odd to quote Larkin of all poets, very much including his great "Aubade," as support for a don't-despair-and-start-breeding argument.

No argument. People will and should ultimately do what they think is right for themselves. Certainly too, they should if it has no negative impact on others and is ultimately a very just and considerate decision for their community. I just think it's grim that people so interested in learning, culture and reading especially are the ones choosing not to add to the burden on the already stretched resources of the planet &c. and breed. I agree. Doesn't make it less sad and ironic.

I saw a woman on the street in New Orleans recently with a tiny little kid trailing behind her. He was drinking a soda as big as himself and struggling to keep up with her as she played on her Iphone; her zebra-stripped taloned nails clacking away on facebook. She turns from texting, after just barely making it across the busy intersection, and yells "Finish your ####ing soda mother####er." It sucks these are the folks who are breeding and not even thinking about it.

On Larkin:

"Books are a load of crap." - Larkin

I read a lot of black humor in Larkin but Aubade is indeed just about the awful, prolonged, despair that exists as childhoods eager fantasies are ripped off like a bandaid. Larkin was someone who very much bought into the romantic idea of a poet, and was haunted by being a genius that had to work in a real job. Aren't we all? Check out his rolling eyes when Betjeman says how wonderful it must be to have a job.

Philip Larkin. Monitor :Down Cemetery Rd Pt1 - YouTube

Philip Larkin. Monitor :Down Cemetery Rd Pt1 - YouTube

Philip Larkin.Monitor: Down Cemetery Road pt2 - YouTube

Philip Larkin.Monitor: Down Cemetery Road pt2 - YouTube

Philip Larkin. Monitor: Down Cemetery Road . Part3 - YouTube

Philip Larkin. Monitor: Down Cemetery Road . Part3 - YouTube

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by RaleC

Check out his rolling eyes when Betjeman says how wonderful it must be to have a job.

Ha. I'd seen that video before but missed the split-second eye-roll. Actually, it looks like there was an edit just after the eye-roll; I wonder what was edited out?

For those who want to see this without watching from the beginning, it occurs shortly after 8:08 in the first video.

[sundog]

A wager no one would take - YouTube

A wager no one would take - YouTube

[RaleC]

I clicked the red door and got this:

Batman Chaccarron Maccarron - YouTube

Batman Chaccarron Maccarron - YouTube

But, did I win or lose?

In either case it has lead me to conclude that there may be more to this crappy shopping and warfare-themed theme park than the nerve-sparkling at the end of my baby-wand and the layers of trauma from directly coming into contact with the wrong end of firearms, watching friends and loved ones die like Poets at the Somme, and realizing that most every awesome time I've had was when bull#### reached critical mass in a group setting and wondrous weirdness kinda seemed true, in the face of age, disappointment, and inevitable death; and it has something to do with Batman... This is like stumbling on a sheet of the Gutenberg Bible in amongst Lil Abner strips.

In all serious though I really don't understand this guys point - and I'd really like to. It comes across like "This theme park doesn't guarantee lulz, so lets all drink the koolaid and leave these low-rent rides to the deer and the antelope." Look, I'm sure there's more to it than that, and I'd like to hear what it is. I'm not being insincere.

My two cents - skip if you want.

I used to volunteer with a guy with cerebral palsy and just spending time with him involving him in fixing the sink or the van (for example) made him beam like a kid at a cake. It's kinda neat to do something that makes somebody feel like that; and Just getting to love someone - anyone - for a little while is kinda great too, man. it's a small gem in a whole mountain of ####, but it's enough.

Reminds me of something a very talented buddy of mine (who went off to join the elite membership of the Anti-breathing club recently) said: "Survival is triumph enough" - maybe it is?

[Malone]

I think the idea is that it's a metaphor for reproduction. Most people would elect not to choose either door, thereby proving that the possibility of pleasure doesn't overide the fear of gaining pain. So if you'd choose to remain neutral, then you shouldn't reproduce, as in doing so you are pushing someone else through one of the doors without knowing what fate awaits them.

[RaleC]

Hey, just out of curiosity how many anti-natalists are there in this debate, over thirty and with a long-term partner? How many over fifty and with a long term partner that chose not to replicate due to all of the aforementioned reasons? I guess what I'm asking is how many people here does this effect right now in their lives, and presumably their partner, and not at some nebulous future time, or partner (and acquiescence) pending.

Also, my confusion is really coming from trying to follow the point of the argument, the choice to breed, while navigating all the more prevailing "life hurts" statements. Heh, I wonder how the following mutation fits into the argument. These people feel no pain and breed - probably as often as they're able to: A family that feels no pain Neurophilosophy

And finally, despite having a great deal of respect for Mr. Ligotti's fiction I find the counter argument to "by soap-boxing, but not choosing, non-existence - you prove your hypocrisy" with "You have a crass intellect" well parsed but ultimately spurious, it defers any kind of answer by making a straw-man of the asker's intellect. Socrates didn't pause with the hemlock in hand and say "I think you should go first."*
*Possibly in Woody Allen's version this occurred.

Is the pleasure to be had in reading worth the pain of knowledge?