{"id":129756,"date":"2024-06-07T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=129756"},"modified":"2024-06-07T07:24:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T11:24:57","slug":"unherd-kathleen-stock-the-god-delusion-of-secular-liberals-pronatalist-influencers-dont-know-when-to-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=129756","title":{"rendered":"(Unherd) Kathleen Stock–The god delusion of secular liberals–Pronatalist influencers don’t know when to stop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By now it\u2019s a clich\u00e9 that liberalism in the Anglosphere has become a religion, whether or not its adherents know it. But less often remarked is a fact somewhat in tension with this claim: namely, that its worshippers get to be minor gods too, making up the moral rules themselves. The past few weeks have offered up two new case studies for us to contemplate. The first involves a married couple from the US, Malcolm and Simone Collins, described as the \u201cposter children of the pronatalist movement\u201d, now thrust into an even wider media spotlight courtesy of a viral Guardian<\/em> interview<\/a> about their lifestyle. The second is a book by political philosopher Alexandre Lefebvre, Liberalism as a Way of Life<\/em><\/a>, published on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the article about the Collins family first emerged a fortnight ago, most scandalised public reactions have been about the fact that father-of-four Malcolm was observed slapping his toddler\u2019s cheek in a restaurant \u2014 albeit that the reporter noted it was \u201cnot a heavy blow\u201d. Collins said the practice was agreed with his wife beforehand and modelled on their having watched \u201ctigers in the wild\u201d disciplining their offspring with the swipe of a paw. (Let us hope they didn\u2019t also see the part where an adult tiger sometimes kills a cub for food.) This week, he wrote a further defence<\/a>, blaming \u201cmuch of the media\u201d for being \u201chell-bent on presenting pronatalists as evil and backward\u201d. To my mind, though, Malcolm and Simone could do with being a bit more backward; for even leaving their disciplinary habits aside, they seem to constitute the reductio ad absurdum<\/em> of attempts to freestyle the moral universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Collins\u2019s world, every stage of the childrearing process is approached as if to be redesigned from scratch. For instance: the couple have given their two little girls \u201cgender-neutral names\u201d \u2014 Titan Invictus and Industry Americus \u2014 apparently on the grounds that this will make the girls \u201cmore likely to have higher paying careers and get Stem degrees\u201d. The fact that future employers are bound to presume such names could only have come from a terrifyingly crazy bloodline seems to have been discounted. A further justification offered by Malcolm is that such \u201cstrong names\u201d will predispose their owners to \u201ca strong internal locus of control\u201d: that is, to that inner feeling, identified by psychologists, of being fully in command of whatever happens to you in life, as opposed to a helpless passive drifter. Clearly, he hasn\u2019t imagined having to spell \u201cTitan Invictus\u201d out over the phone.<\/p>Read it all<\/a>.

Wrote for @unherd<\/a> about the pronatalist Collinses, and the claim that liberalism could be a satisfying atheist religion if only we were devoted enough https:\/\/t.co\/OzX9Nhzr83<\/a><\/p>— Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) June 7, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>