“Open borders” advocate Nicholas Decker shares his thoughts on totally progressive fatherhood:
So far, so good. If not exactly newsworthy. Perhaps a twist is coming, some needless contrivance.
Ah.
There we go. Not sure if watching is involved.
It seems we’re expected to follow Mr Decker’s lead, into that glorious tomorrow, where cuckoldry is ascendant, an ideal, and where fathers and their children are biologically disconnected and physically estranged. Because that always goes smoothly. No issues there. There follows a rather flattened understanding of genetics, and much convoluted fretting, but the gist is,
At which point, readers may be wondering if there’s something wrong with Mr Decker. I mean, some debilitating condition that he would rather not pass on.
I sense a looming but.
It strikes me as a little odd, in terms of hypothetical fatherhood, comparing one’s own as-yet-unknown potential in that regard against some entirely abstract ideal, the particulars of which remain unclear. Fatherhood, I’ve been told, more than once, is very much a process of discovery, and indeed self-discovery.
I’m reminded of the boastfully oblivious noises poked at here. From childless progressives who claimed to view any hypothetical parenting on their part, the birth of a child, as some arbitrary occurrence, unmoored from any biological inheritance or preceding events. Childless progressives who were seemingly unfamiliar with the strange pleasure of seeing one’s children develop the features and attributes of oneself, one’s partner, and various relatives.
However,
Bodes well.
He cares quite a lot about other people, you see. Just not his own family. Hence pursuing biological disconnection, the breaking of lineage and ancestry. At which point, any passing psychiatrists are welcome to chip in.
And then, of course, there’s the issue of whether biological connectedness might be statistically optimal in terms of parenting, engagement, avoiding neglect, and so forth. As available data would suggest. And which would seem to have bearing on any child’s odds of flourishing and happiness.
Needless to say, replies to Mr Decker on X have been lively:
And,
Mr Decker tells us he is “presently pursuing a PhD in Economics at George Mason University.” His interests include “reducing poverty… particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Update, via the comments:
Pst314 points out that Mr Decker has, not too long ago, been in the news.
Update 2:
From Mr Decker’s Substack, a reader’s comment:
So it makes me very happy to see you making this argument and owning it. But I’m also saddened to see so many people caring so much about their genetics being passed on – it feels selfish and it makes me feel like people don’t really care about the wellbeing of their offspring, despite claiming that they do.
With such levels of unrealism and contrivance, such practised not-noticing, it’s not altogether clear where one might begin.
We have arrived at the assumption that a primal, root-level motivation found across species is somehow absent in human beings – for no clearly stated reason – despite all appearance to the contrary, across continents and centuries, and despite the fact that human offspring are unusually dependent and require an uncommonly prolonged and costly investment by the parents.
Presumably, we should ignore studies confirming the correlation of parental investment and physical resemblance, i.e., relatedness, and the statistical preference among adoptive parents for children who could pass for their own biological offspring. Likewise, the lower aggregate levels of investment by stepfathers, noted many times.
And I’m guessing we’ll have to ignore the entire history of human courtship, a great deal of which has been geared towards ensuring genetic relatedness – and to avoiding cuckoldry. The cuckoldry that Mr Decker claims will somehow improve the world.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
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