Fools in Old-Style Hats

 The New York Times ran a long-ish piece yesterday on America's proliferating (if you will) "pronatalism" movement. And in fairness, some of the policy ideas these votaries of procreation are pushing seem pretty innocuous. I buy the idea that there are many people in this country who would love to have more kids if they could, and simply face economic barriers to doing so. So I support some of the measures people are promoting to make it more possible for them to have the families they desire. 

There are one or two passages in the story, however, that sound a more ominous note. One is a line they quote that was tucked away in an executive memo from our new doofy Real World-starring Secretary of Transportation. I hadn't noticed it until the New York Times called attention to it yesterday, and one could be forgiven for missing it the first time through. But basically, the line directs executive agencies to funnel transportation resources specifically toward "high-birth-rate areas." 

Here's where we start to get a taste of a more punitive approach to people who don't have kids. Shades here of J.D. Vance's idea that the votes of non-parents should count for less in government. And this perhaps shouldn't surprise us. Whenever the Trump administration gets ahold of an idea—no matter how innocent it may seem at first—it will not be long before it starts to flash some fascist fangs. 

The administration that brought us DOGE will of course not approach this as a social policy issue requiring more welfare spending and other positive incentives. It will, sooner or later, decide that it prefers the stick to the carrot. In other words, it will conclude that the fastest and easiest way to get people to be parents is simply to make life as miserable as possible for all those who fail or refuse to reproduce. 

What are the childless to say in our defense? Well, we could say—with the ancient Greek general Epaminondas—that there are ways of serving society other than bearing biological offspring. I was reading the ancient biographer Cornelius Nepos (who compiled a number of lives of such figures from classical antiquity—on something of the model of Plutarch), and he records the following anecdotes about the Theban general (Rolfe trans.): 

Epaminondas never took a wife. Because of this he was criticised by Pelopidas, who had a son of evil reputation; for his friend said that the great Theban did a wrong to his country in not leaving children. Epaminondas replied: 'Take heed that you do not do her a greater wrong in leaving such a son as yours. And besides, I cannot lack offspring; for I leave as my daughter the Battle of Leuctra, which is certain, not merely to survive, but even to be immortal." 

That's a pretty good response, I gotta say. And similarly, I think everyone who battles fascism in our current political moment—whether they have children or not—will be able to say the same. They have certainly done more good for the future generations of our country than all the J.D. Vance and Sean Duffy types who are currently doing all in their power to help fascism prevail over our Constitution. They are the Pelopidas in this anecdote. 

Meanwhile, the Bible—which members of this administration claim to follow—actually says the same thing as Epaminondas about childless people: namely, that they can leave a legacy of service that is equal to or greater in the eyes of the Lord than bearing offspring. A passage in Isaiah speaks directly of foreign-born immigrants and childless people—perhaps the current administration's two most disfavored groups—and says, pace Vance, that God looks favorably upon them both: 

Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths [...] Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. (KJV)

These are the passages we might quote, then, when we are in a generous mood, and feel like justifying our own lifestyle choices in the name of religion or national service. But there may also be certain moods or hours of the day in which we don't feel particularly inclined to play this game—and prefer to deliver the Vances and Duffys of the world no more explanation than a simple middle finger. If they insist on dictating a lifestyle to us, we can do the same. 

After all, as the New York Times notes, there are plenty of Millennials and Zoomers who think that refusing to bear children is not just an acceptable choice, but a positive good: "[I]ncreasing numbers of young people do not want to burden the planet by having children of their own." I don't go that far. I'm not a complete eco-doomer. I think everyone should be free to make up their own minds about whether they want to have kids, so long as they are contributing to society in some positive form.

Everyone should strive to have a Battle of Leuctra of their own, that is to say: a legacy, however small, which they can point to as evidence that they contributed to the well-being of future generations. We should all play some part in the "generative process," as Erik Erikson would put it; it's just that for some of us, that contribution may not be literally fathering or mothering more children. I believe with the pronatalists, then, in the value of caring for future generations. 

But there is something about the pronatalists themselves that can lead to a momentary flicker of doubt on this question. One looks at the photos the Times links to of some of the most prominent "pronatalists" in the news. One couple—who have managed to combine the worst streams of New Atheism, tech fascism, eugenics, and rad trad conservatism in one improbable bundle—are depicted with their children wearing nineteenth-century pioneer garb, complete with prairie-style sun bonnet. 

And the words of Philip Larkin's great anti-natalist poem, "This Be The Verse," come back to mind: "fools in old-style hats[.]" And all at once—if only for a moment—one is persuaded of Larkin's point. Perhaps one begins to wonder whether it really is doing anyone any favors to bring them into such a world. Perhaps, as Heine once wrote (echoing a sentiment often expressed in the ancient world), in another anti-natalist poem—"best of all is never to have been born." 

Seeing these New Right creeps naming their children things like "Invictus" and "Americus," one begins to doubt the wisdom of perpetuating the human race in any form. "They fuck you up, your mum and dad," Larkin writes, "[...] But they were fucked up in their turn/ By fools in old-style hats and coats." And so, Larkin concludes, in a stirring anti-natalist admonition that only gains emotional power the more the administration and its fans try to suppress it: 

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.