Split from how many kids do you want

Lifestyle Relationships
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Re: Split from how many kids do you want

edited: oops

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Re: Split from how many kids do you want

I am going to reply to Iconoclast: I think you are a doctor? I recall reading that somewhere. I am not making vacuous claims. I have worked with doctors, medical professors, and health researchers in a research role, attended their rounds (would you like proof? You will be surprised). I also know enough about research methodology, having both done it myself and studied it (shall I send you my transcript?), to know how to critique a study and evaluate it for its scientific soundness. I am referring to that.

Someone mentioned that my views are extreme. Of course they are, why should I handle them limply, take a blase attitude toward them, live them only part of the day. They are my extended body, they are myself externalized, shall I let them be amputated, shall I not care where they rest and who sees them and in what manner sees them? I care intensely about my life. With no god in my life, only I am responsible for it, only I direct its course. I cannot in all good sense not be invested in what I believe in and vapidly let the winds of this world take me where they may, or impute to me an essence (such as someone here accusing me of being cold and selfish) which I do not personify. It's basic self-respect. I cannot be an "agnostic" about whatever touches me. I cannot sew my mouth shut when my very self is called into question.

Someone mentioned 'big words'. I will say this again: language is the only way to communicate. Using token words to describe idiosyncratic emotions and beliefs turns them generic, it defeats the purpose, it is disrespectful to yourself. I am no Nabokov, but I admire him intensely, and others like Heaney who explore the full language which dictates their thoughts and the ways in which they may express themselves (as Nabokob and Heaney, as historically existing, not as authors, not as Russian and Irish men generic) and thus experience the world fully.

Sahar, there is a difference between socialist intelligentsia and Marxist anarchism. Anarchy is the death of every single institution and every single definition. Unlike true undiluted Marxism, there is no replacing with some new structure.

As for the others, most of what has been said is actually a miscomprehension about what I said. For me to respond to your arguments, which don't even understand the very tenets of Marxism and anarchy, would be to just repeat myself. You feel you speak to a wall, and I feel the same. It will not be a proper argument, it will descend into shouting at each other without hearing what the other said.

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Re: How may kids you want to have?

When we look back at history, we have a tendency to see it as uniform and linear. We don't realize that there is constant radical change. That, as Hegel said, there is a thesis, then an antithesis, then a synthesis. You are living in a synthesis. Because change occurs slowly, what is happening is that you are unable to delineate the thesis from the antithesis. Hegel said this would keep happening until a certain point. My views are working in the world actually; this is an antithesis. The point is not to make my views the thesis (to extend the Hegelian terminology and to bring in Marx, as a new - permanent - thesis is what he desired; I see communism as a new hegemony), nor to sustain this antithesis (as that would be to remain forever on the fringe and Sartre said that that would be the neutralization of it - he was speaking of the Jews though, I am just extending him), nor to establish a synthesis (as that implies a Rortian compromise that would not satisfy us). The point is to halt the perpetual motion, to break the order, and to have freedom through anarchy.

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E, please elaborate. I think i can avail myself of having an open mind and am actually interested in how you envision parenthood and childhood for your offspring. Please enlighten us as I am quite honestly confused about what you envision as to the ideal life of an infant and why you think traditional ways are so very wrong. I've been harsh in my comments I think but I'm also quite able to listen and HEAR when something can be done in a better way. And I think most of the posters here would like you to clarify.....please, we are all ears here now.

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reminds me of my freshman year in college :)

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shush mama, give your kids a damn botany book...i cant find a microscope for 2 yr olds though :(

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It saddens me to see a clearly intelligent and educated woman use her learning as you are doing in this thread -- to alienate and attack people, rather than to engage in conversation and civil debate.

My attack, if you want to call it that, was secondary. Why bother being saddened by it?

The initial questions in response to your posts seemed to me to express genuine curiosity and surprise, and I do not believe that you did not know that your comments would cause such reactions in many of the posters here. But you seem to focus on the fact that you are so different from the typical woman -- and certainly the typical poster -- rather than giving people a chance to engage in conversation. Why so quick to be defensive? You have a legitimate perspective, but it's one that many people don't understand. So share it without insulting others, please.

*I am not here to make others understand. I don't believe in prophethood and leading others to enlightenment (this is what making others understand means, you set yourself apart from them in some position of superiority, I know this is not what you literally mean but that is the implicit conclusion). *

Now, back to the topic at hand. I do think that we need to be aware of cultural studies when addressing this issue. Any theorist from Roland Barthes to Raymond Williams to Richard Hoggart addresses the idea that there is tension between culture and the individual, and that we are as much formed by the culture as we form it. So it would be incredible hubris to say that we are so enlightened that we have entirely removed ourselves from the influences of the culture surrounding us. In fact, by taking a position intentionally opposed to the status quo we are admitting that the status quo has a power over our identity.

I agree with you there. Derrida said something very similar. Ultimately the conclusion is that a revolution leading to anarchy is impossible, though I personally believe that language is one of the biggest roadblocks to this, rather that society. I think we are all capable of living a personal revolution (to some extent; here I am very anti-communinity) and at the very least, we should aim toward that as a realizable possibility.

You are right that there is a difference between man/woman and masculine/feminine. Each individual has both types of gender qualities, but in different degrees, regardless of sex. But that does not mean that a woman is not affected by her biological role or the role that society would lay out for her. It just means that she doesn't need to be defined by these.

NO. I never said there are differences between men and women. I believe in biology (it is a reality after all; but in terms of a Kinsey-ian sliding continuum) but not in gender (masculine/feminine). I dismiss gender entirely. I also completely dismiss sex because I deviate from Marx in being completely anti-materialistic. We should be pure minds (through our personal revolutions). Our bodies should exist only as a spatial locus for perception, which is necessary for the creation of art and for thought, but thought should not be dependent upon the body, though it derives from it in a very elemental way that is often unacknowledged. Maybe a theorist talks about this, I am not aware of one. Also, with complete freedom, there is no determination of thought, of needs, desires, personality, only of spatial locus.

I do think that the nuclear family structure has in many ways limited the options for many women, many of whom feel that they must first and foremost play the role of mother to their children, at times abandoning other interests/talents/aspirations/etc for this role. I think in many ways that is unfair for women. But there is no doubt that an individual needs the love that typically mothers provide, so it falls to the mother to play that role when children are born. We've evolved to be slaves to our progeny -- those that aren't enjoy their lives, but may not pass on anything to future generations.

*Since I don't believe in family, I don't agree with anything you have said here. I believe in love-relationships that can exist between many individuals of indeterminate (or of own choosing) gender but of many sexes. There is no mother then (since there is no woman, since biology has ceased to define you in anarchy). There is no father. All families are transient. Everything in the world is liquid. Freedom means that nothing is constant. *

The "intelligentsia" that you refer to have evolved as well. Having gone to some of the best schools in the country, I can tell you that the intellectual elite in academia does not live such cold life. The post-modern era has brought with it an awareness of our weaknesses as human beings, and the fact that despite our awareness of how much our needs and desires are formed by the culture around us or our genetic make up, these needs and desires still exist and we cannot ignore them. We are humans, not machines. It is the complexity in our mental, emotional, and physical states that makes us interesting. Maybe you feel it is a disgusting sign of ignorance and weakness that a woman would choose to have children; I feel that this is a woman who is not kidding herself. There are many reasons she wants the loving partner and the offspring, and there are many reasons why other women don't. But if that is what she wants, and there is no moral reason to fight that desire, and really no intelligent reason either, why fight it? How does that make her less sophisticated and intelligent? To call that woman a dying breed is to show little understanding of evolution or of cultural studies.

There are no "women". What I am trying to say presupposes many things. It is within a strand of postmodernism as well. Your description of postmodern is more apt for modernism as the age of anxiety. Since we do not agree on some basics, argument is futile on this point.

Okay, I've written enough for now. I look forward to the reply.
Sahar
[/quote]

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Re: Split from how many kids do you want

It is simple, with anarchy there is no determination of anything. You (the generic you) have female primary and secondary characteristics, but you are not a woman. You have no identity, because identity implies closure, the limiting of, the cutting off, the determination into. Since you are not a woman, you can never be a mother. Motherhood is dead.

Since I am a Marxist (I know this is a paradox since I said identity should be foreclosed but gloss over that for a minute), I believe that everything should be community oriented, including family, "workers of the world, unite!". Think of a kibbutz system (and not one of those 60s hideous communes). Nuclear family is dead. Automatically the children you have borne, through whatever means (you will stop thinking of one means as primary and superior), are raised by the community, you may not even recognize them (this will not matter; ownership and identity are problematic remember).

As to how I think a child should be raised. I think we should use a community system rather than a daycare system. Since motherhood is dead and so is nuclear family, of course you cannot turn to that anymore. Daycares are problematic too: they pull together mostly women (the assumption is that men are pedophilic with regard to children, though the reality is that women are the greatest murderers and abusers of children - this bias perpetuates the subjection of women) who are uneducated. If they were educated, they would not be wasting their time with diapers, which is a waste of a mind. So essentially children for eight hours are a day are cloistered with some of the most insipid members of our society. Since children are open containers, you do not want them to be around inanity. The daycare system also universalizes any instruction it may engage in: so all children, rather than being challenged, are taught in one manner. They are reduced into a mob. The attention is directed toward mollification and pacification, rather than any true instruction. Since the first three years of a child's life are important, all efforts toward culling genius should be maximized. This is not the nullification of love, in fact (if one is so inclined) one may see it as the explosion of love because you are raised by the community.

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Sahar, the more I think about it, the more I feel you are incorrect about Barthes. I just spent the past three months reading him in a course on the philosophy of literature. His structuralism was very influenced by Saussurean linguistics. Saussure, from what I remember (this was very long ago), does not suppose as much the primacy of society but that language cannot be changed by individuals (I may be totally corrupting what he said, there is more to it but I do not feel like digging out my notes as I despised Saussure and his dry lecturing). Barthes in "Authors and Writers" specifically says that language neutralizes at the moment of thought, prior to even writing. So it is not society that makes impotent anything subversive but rather language. And this is a problem, specifically with regard to the differentiation of he/she in language.

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you didnt look hard enough…they have em at toys r us :cb:

2nd Quarter-Final: India v Australia at Ahmedabad, Thurs March 24
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Re: Split from how many kids do you want

I don't really want to get into useless argumentation.

All pediatricians are in agreement that kids who are not loved, touched, carried and nurtured are poorer in health, mental capabilities and have more emotional problems than the ones who are. Pediatricians simply abhor absent parents. The available scientific data consistently shows loved kids develop into positive and productive adults.

And as yu are entitled o your opinion, so am i.

I beleive that people should not have an inherent right to breed. Some are unfit to be parents. At the same time i recognze that the idea of community putting a restriction on who shud breed and who should not is liable to be abused.

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forget the research and studies conducted by doctors and/or scholars...anyone (like us mere common folk) can tell that parents who have given the cold shoulder had a direct impact on their kids....just take a look at all (or majority) of mass murders, rapists, pedos etc......they have been abused in some way, shape or form...be it mentally, physically and/or emotionally.

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Re: Split from how many kids do you want

I've really been trying to keep an open mind but really I cant see any justification for or benefit to the type of life that E envisions for her offspring. Sorry E, it wont cut it in todays world.

Although you've really kind of avoided the issue here, E. You never clarified your vision of the perfect childhood. We've been hearing your lofty ideas and ideals relating to your marxist views but exactly how that fits in to the day-to-day "operations" of parenthood...you left that part out.

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I alluded to this in my comments on Hegel. We forget there is constant change happening, a perpetual motion and mutual corruption of the thesis and antithesis. We incorrectly speak of the "real word" and how my views don't fit into the real word, the assumption is that the real world is a stationary thing. We forget that we created the world as it is today. Marx called this blindness reification: it is like the market. We created the market yet now we speak of the market determining us. There is something very disturbing about it. The other assumption is that we ourselves are not willing to drive the antithesis, for whatever reason (I have my hypotheses; religion is one of the reasons). This is a reactionary attitude, it is slavish.

You may stick to your "real world" and be dictated by the antithesis that others spearhead, I don't wish to live that same passivity.

Also: the community provides the care and love. If you want to retain the terminology, the community are the "parents". We ought to have children through shifting partners, surrogacy, and rear them through wet nurses. Parenting through these mechanisms precludes a mother and father. Will I do this if I decide to have a child? Yes. I will give the child to community; there are others like me so it will not be unfeasible.

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I think this “discussion” is over. This is not the proper medium for what I believe in and the sort of people I sought. I was under the assumption that this forum was representative of all Pakistanis, but it is comprised of a nearly homogeneous mass that astounds me with its reactionary attitude, its passivity, its dependence on the religious, its inability to be critical, its utter blindness. Muslims are a people meant for slavery, by God, by others. It seems that even among those who have wrested themselves from the addiction of Islam, remnants of the attitude requisite for believing in it still remain e.g. the fatalistic and naive acceptance of what is. It is like stepping into a past era. I did not realize such views still existed. A Napoleon is required in your Egypt.

I suspect our negative appraisals of each other are mutual. I am out of here.


Anne-Louis Girodet. Revolt of Cairo. 1810. An apt image of your state.

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:cheer::cheer::cheer:

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up , they have no bloody holidays. :smiley:

The easiest way to get a reputation is to go outside the fold, shout around for a few years as a violent atheist or a dangerous radical, and then crawl back to the shelter

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*LOL *
**
LB astagfar kaisi batain ker rahey hain …main tu sahreef sa nana muna ka bacha hoon…:phati:…
*By the way… Havnt seen your posts lately…not even in the religion section? *
Everything alrite…?

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The idea of community parenting if at all accepted and practiced more commonly in the present world, is not going to happen in my or your lifetime.

I do not know what is your problem with Islam, but, even the christians and athiests have concluded that nuclear family is what works best for bringing up healthy individuals.

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You better edit your post mate, MODS are probably gonna be after you. You don’t have any right to talk sense because it may offend Existentialist. So what if she is offending 99.9% of muslims and Pakistanis???

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Its kind of funny yet also sad how you have your head in the clouds E. Fine to have your head in the clouds but you have to keep your feet on the ground too. You'll have a pretty rude awakening one day if you present an infant to "the community" to raise and expect the community to accept with open arms. The only thing I can picture is social services and state-run facilities or foster homes. thats the "feet on the ground" part, thats the reality of what you'd want for your offspring?