Tove K on Wood From Eden

[Tove K]

Your accusation that I want the pieces to fit is an interesting one. Spontaneously I would call it an interest in philosophy, the way I define philosophy. https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/philosophy-is-the-mathematics-of

In sociology, just like in mathematics, every line of reasoning that can be simplified should be simplified as much as possible (but only as much as possible).

And that's why we have philosophy. Simplifying "religion" and "social norms" in a certain context into "parent shaming" gives a more transparent line of reasoning, in my opinion. And that's why I'm doing it. "Shame people less, praise people more!" is clearer and more concrete than "change social norms!".

>>But if you think you have a big C cause, why doesn't it explain these four cases?

I said it was the big cause behind the aggregate fertility rate. Not the cause behind the decisions of individuals: Parent shaming is an important part if the landscape in which individuals make decisions. Since all four of us are probably unusually shameless we feel free to make non-typical decisions. As you say, people have children or abstain from children because they want to. Other people's shaming, laws and material circumstances are only background factors against which people make decisions.

And organized religion is obviously very strongly connected to social shaming. Leah Kaplan, an ex-Ultra Orthodox Jew, wrote about the social condemnation of childless women in the group in which she grew up. She described a woman who happened to be childless and how her childlessness made her seem ugly (although she was technically beautiful). If Leah Kaplan is right and her observation can be generalized, some organized religion is doing rather intense anti-fertility shaming.

Edit: Leah Vincent. I mixed up her different names.

[Apple Pie]

> Said it was the big cause behind the aggregate fertility rate. Not the cause behind the decisions of individuals

OK, that makes sense. I don't really agree with the rest, though.

[Yehoshua]

I don't think there is a campaign of social condemnation of childless women and I assume Leah Vincent never meant that.

I think it is just the natural consequence of a society which views fertility as important. All humans have a sense of shame and failure when they don't accomplish something which their society views as important.

However, I that the critical factor is not valuing fertility but rather deemphasizing 'productivity' and human intervention. I think this is why religion in general, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Amish in particular are high fertility.

[Tove K]

Yes, she only wrote about it very figuratively. A childless married woman couldn't appear attractive because childlessness made her unattractive. That was all she wrote, as I remember it.