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sophiaserpentiaA while ago i wrote about an idea i had, that perhaps economic necessity shaped the moral code of the Tanakh (aka the Old Testament) -- that pastoral societies have a need for maximum reproductive output from each person... hence mandatory marriage, polygamy, prohibitions on homosexuality and masturbation, and so on. I was quite proud of this theory; if i do say so myself, it's brilliant.
I also now think it's wrong.
At the time that i came up with this theory, i was not inclined to consider the likelihood that the people who devised these laws and wrote these texts had an agenda and were participants in a factional struggle for control of their society. This is because whoever opposed them no longer speaks to us across the millenia; the opposing voices in this debate were not recorded for posterity.
This is why i am now a proponent of what i've been calling (for lack of a better term i'm aware of) "embedded theology": because when you deliberately overlook the political agenda behind "spiritual" texts, when you don't examine religion through the lens of human power dynamics, you miss too much, and much of the real historical significance of a piece of "scripture" is obscured.
What makes me inclined to re-examine my previous hypothesis was a series of realizations about the militaristic and authoritarian imperialism of the modern USA. And what's going on now is not in any way new or unique, because it resembles too closely what happened in the last century.
It began in the early 20th Century with efforts to prevent 'undesirables' from having children -- eugenics boards, forced sterilization, etc. The Nazis took many of their ideas about sterilization from eugenics measures which were already being enacted in the US and Canada and elsewhere. (And actually, American proposals to euthanize people with disabilities helped inspire the Final Solution.) Alongside with eugenics, women of "desireable" races were encouraged or pushed towards having as many children as possible.
I cite this historical stuff not for hyperbole, but because i think most Americans are not aware of how deeply embedded these barbaric principles and practices are in our recent history, and to illustrate how potentially damaging the ideologies now being espoused by the American right-wing really are.
John Gibson of Fox News really tipped his hand when he told white women that they were neglecting their duty to have babies:
Behind this, we see exposed the nexus where sexism, racism, and homophobia swirl together into a single whole: a war over the nation's population. It doesn't matter to these reactionaries that America's population is still growing, it matters who that population consists of. And only someone hopelessly naive would think that this faction is not going to become more brazen and brutal in the coming decades.
Put this next to proposals to prevent the children of undocumented immigrants from having automatic US citizenship, and Pat Buchanan's crusade against Mexican immigration, and one part of the pattern comes into focus: they believe the US should have fewer non-white children.
Combine this with the new classification of all women of childbearing age as "pre-pregnant," efforts to deliberately make it harder for mothers to hold down a job, the ageless and ongoing efforts to stem abortion rights and make it more difficult for women to have access to any form of contraception, and another part of the pattern comes into focus: they believe white women should be forced to have more children.
A third part of this pattern comes into play with the right's program of mandatory heterosexual marriage, designed more than anything else to keep gay and lesbian people in the closet so they will reproduce, which is punctuated by the 'unintended' consequences of punishing unmarried cohabiting straight couples as well. The message, increasingly, is, "marry or else."
The babies you have better not be disabled, either. The right-wing, following ancient and historical precedent, is not too keen on protecting the self-sufficiency of people with disabilities, either. And the gateway to the Final Solution was the Tiergartenstrasse 4 project.
It was this comprehensive perspective on the modern "baby wars" that led me to re-consider my interpretation of ancient moral codes on reproduction. Efforts to encourage the upper class race to reproduce may prove to be a signature pattern of militaristic and expansionistic regimes.
I also now think it's wrong.
At the time that i came up with this theory, i was not inclined to consider the likelihood that the people who devised these laws and wrote these texts had an agenda and were participants in a factional struggle for control of their society. This is because whoever opposed them no longer speaks to us across the millenia; the opposing voices in this debate were not recorded for posterity.
This is why i am now a proponent of what i've been calling (for lack of a better term i'm aware of) "embedded theology": because when you deliberately overlook the political agenda behind "spiritual" texts, when you don't examine religion through the lens of human power dynamics, you miss too much, and much of the real historical significance of a piece of "scripture" is obscured.
What makes me inclined to re-examine my previous hypothesis was a series of realizations about the militaristic and authoritarian imperialism of the modern USA. And what's going on now is not in any way new or unique, because it resembles too closely what happened in the last century.
It began in the early 20th Century with efforts to prevent 'undesirables' from having children -- eugenics boards, forced sterilization, etc. The Nazis took many of their ideas about sterilization from eugenics measures which were already being enacted in the US and Canada and elsewhere. (And actually, American proposals to euthanize people with disabilities helped inspire the Final Solution.) Alongside with eugenics, women of "desireable" races were encouraged or pushed towards having as many children as possible.
I cite this historical stuff not for hyperbole, but because i think most Americans are not aware of how deeply embedded these barbaric principles and practices are in our recent history, and to illustrate how potentially damaging the ideologies now being espoused by the American right-wing really are.
John Gibson of Fox News really tipped his hand when he told white women that they were neglecting their duty to have babies:
Do your duty. Make more babies. ...
Now, in this country, European ancestry people, white people, are having kids at the rate that does sustain the population. It grows a bit. That compares to Europe where the birth rate is in the negative zone. They are not having enough babies to sustain their population. Consequently, they are inviting in more and more immigrants every year to take care of things and those immigrants are having way more babies than the native population, hence Eurabia.
Why aren't they having babies? Because babies get in the way of a prosperous and comfortable modern life. ...
To put it bluntly, we need more babies. Forget about that zero population growth stuff that my poor generation was misled on. Why is this important? Because civilizations need population to survive. So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way -- a slogan for our times: "procreation not recreation."
from Gibson: "Make more babies"
Behind this, we see exposed the nexus where sexism, racism, and homophobia swirl together into a single whole: a war over the nation's population. It doesn't matter to these reactionaries that America's population is still growing, it matters who that population consists of. And only someone hopelessly naive would think that this faction is not going to become more brazen and brutal in the coming decades.
Put this next to proposals to prevent the children of undocumented immigrants from having automatic US citizenship, and Pat Buchanan's crusade against Mexican immigration, and one part of the pattern comes into focus: they believe the US should have fewer non-white children.
Combine this with the new classification of all women of childbearing age as "pre-pregnant," efforts to deliberately make it harder for mothers to hold down a job, the ageless and ongoing efforts to stem abortion rights and make it more difficult for women to have access to any form of contraception, and another part of the pattern comes into focus: they believe white women should be forced to have more children.
A third part of this pattern comes into play with the right's program of mandatory heterosexual marriage, designed more than anything else to keep gay and lesbian people in the closet so they will reproduce, which is punctuated by the 'unintended' consequences of punishing unmarried cohabiting straight couples as well. The message, increasingly, is, "marry or else."
The babies you have better not be disabled, either. The right-wing, following ancient and historical precedent, is not too keen on protecting the self-sufficiency of people with disabilities, either. And the gateway to the Final Solution was the Tiergartenstrasse 4 project.
It was this comprehensive perspective on the modern "baby wars" that led me to re-consider my interpretation of ancient moral codes on reproduction. Efforts to encourage the upper class race to reproduce may prove to be a signature pattern of militaristic and expansionistic regimes.
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Make FEWER babies
Date: 2006-09-28 06:15 pm (UTC)Pastoralists have a bit more carrying capacity on their travels than hunter-gatherers because they have beasts of burden, but still--it sounds to me like societies that've sustained themselves actually practiced birth control, infanticide, abstinence, abortions, etc. more than they practiced "keeping population levels 'high enough.'"
Check out Guns, Germs, & Steel and Collapse by Jared Diamond.
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Date: 2006-09-28 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
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From:I Enjoy Your Journal Tremendously, Too...
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Date: 2006-09-28 08:05 pm (UTC)best,
Joel
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Date: 2006-09-28 08:20 pm (UTC)Someone told me once that Dru was such a "perfect, healthy, strong white baby boy" with such "golden hair and blue eyes" that I should have a bunch more "beautiful white babies".
Seriously.
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From:Absolutely!
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Date: 2006-09-28 10:56 pm (UTC)Thanks.
excellent analysis
Date: 2006-09-28 11:53 pm (UTC)the generally accepted explanation, as far as i have learned over the years from various texts, professors, and even the priests at the catholic high school i attended, for the strictures of the early Israelites' society is that there was a dire need to differentiate themselves from the numerous tribes that were surrounding them, especially considering that there never existed a clear-cut Israelite ethnic group- these were people who were converts and deserters from other tribes and nations. in order to cement their identity, everything from dietary to sexual regulations were put in place- the hittites eat animals with cloven hooves, so we no longer eat cloven-hoofed animals, and so on, as a physically-qualifiable measure to protect their nascent identity as a separate culture.
this does, in a way, support your new ideas. insofar as taking on these laws was an act of demarcation between Us and Them, it was surely politically motivated. as a matter of fact, the seeds were here sown for the countless rivalries that continue to burn through the middle east- "oh, those israelites are too good to fuck and eat shellfish, who do they think they are- who do they think WE are?". while not that simple at all, it is from this surface of simple cultural differences that years-worth of deep-seated issues have unfurled.
Re: excellent analysis
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