Abema did its 2nd show on antinatalism the other day.
The last one was apparently 3 years ago.
Time flies!
We, antinatalist activists, need to make necessary changes to the outside world sooner rather than later, otherwise we'll find ourselves on our death beds (or down on streets after being stabbed by some pro-natalist extremist, or whatever) before we know it.
I'll share my thoughts on the show in this blog post.
ANTINATALISM IS NOT PERSONAL GRIEF OVER ONE'S OWN BIRTH
I don't know what to call this bar at the bottom of the screen which indicates that the show is called 'Abema News' and it's about 'antinatalism,' but I was shocked to read ''I Wish I Hadn't Been Born': What is Antinatalism?' on it!
You're fake news! (in Trump's voice)
It should have been, at worst, ''We Should Not Create People': What Is Antinatalism?'
Of course that wouldn't have been good enough from the perspective of anti-speciesist antinatalists, but certainly thousands of times better than 'I Wish I Hadn't Been Born.'
What appears to be intended as an introductory video to antinatalism, which plays above these horrendous words at the start of the show, also is terribly misleading, especially when the show is intended for the general public, the majority of whom wouldn't even have heard the term antinatalism.
I suppose the most significant element in what caused Abema to make and play this video is the fact that Professor Morioka is seen as the one with the greatest authority in Japan when it comes to antinatalism, despite his very unique and wrong (from actual antinatalists' view) way of defining antinatalism as something that consists of what he calls 'birth negation' and 'procreation negation.'
If we put aside the speciesist problem and consider only humans, antinatalism is an ethical view that humans should not procreate.
But Abema seems to have mistaken antinatalism as one same thing as someone's personal grief over having been born, had no chance of having that mistake pointed out, and made this video as misleading as it is.
The sentence "there are also antinatalists who deny procreation, not just their own existence" at 2:18 clearly shows Abema's misunderstanding (by the way I really hate how the word 'deny' is often used in Japanese. It's so vague and makes little sense).
They were decent enough to note that "antinatalism doesn't encourage already existing people to commit suicide" at 0:38, but sadly, not decent enough to do the same about antinatalism having nothing to do with one's personal grief over their own birth, at least in principle.
DESPICABLE STRUCTURE OF THE SHOW
Let's be generous and consider what I talked about above was an honest mistake made by Abema.
Compared to that, I find their couscious decision to make this show happen and spread their wrong knowledge that antinatalism is an extremist view held by people who have gone through traumatic events far more malicious.
They asked antinatalists how they came to support antinatalism (not why they support antinatalism), had them say that they had gone through some painful experience in the past (as they surely would as painient beings), and made a show to tell the world "look! These people went through some painful experiences and started having this extremist view!"
What Abema did here, on purpose or not, is failing to relativize their own view that procreation is a personal choice and the birth rate needs to start going up, pretending to set up a show to discuss the legitimacy of antinatalism in a fair manner, and starting a race where oil had been sprayed only on the starting grids of antinatalists thanks to the misleading intro video.
Many people get to know the term 'antinatalism' for the first time in their life becasue of this kind of show.
Showing that intro video and then starting the discussion among those at the studio was a dirty choice by Abema, as someone who has great influence on the viewers' first impression of antinatalism and how their thoughts on it would develop.
I'd like to highly commend Prof. Morioka for pointing out the problem with the video as soon as he was asked to talk about the basics of antinatalism 👏
[6:43] Someone watching that video with no previous encounter with antinatalism could think that those who have this view have problems with their family or some experience of tragic accidents or disaster, and I'm against misleading viewers that way.
I know that some people, without such experience, just happen to come up with the antinatalist idea and be convinced of it, or reach the conclusion through logical reasoning.
Here at 12:49, Abema's dirtiness can be seen particularly clearly.
After Tanaka explained how they came to support antinatalism, the host asked them if they would still be an antinatalist without going through what they did.
Clearly, Tanaka was expected not to say they definitely would, and they actualy said "potentially no."
Right after that, a slide was displayed on the screen with examples of what Morioka would call 'birth negation,' i.e. some of the statements antinatalists would agree with, and the host, not Tanaka, read that out, which seemed like an attempt (and a succesfull one) to tell this story: "someone who have worked in a psychiatric ward, worked in sex industry, and had difficulty navigating their way through the society with a development disability began to have an extremeist view that (a) humans should not have children, (b) if creating 100 people means creating 99 happy people and 1 unhappy person, all 100 shouldn't be born, and (c) human race should go extinct. Do these statements sound right? They don't!"
Following that, Patrick Harlan gave his (poor) arguments against antinatalism, and Prof. Morioka defended the antinatalists' position, I'd say very well and in a fair manner.
But up until that point, the viewers had been fed with information that mislead them into thinking that antinatalism is an extremist view held by losers, so I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the viewers couldn't process what Prof. Morioka said with their rationality and just kept reacting to it emotionally.
INACCURATE ON-SCREEN CONTENT
On many occasions, some kind of presentation slides were shown big on the screen with presenters in small boxes around them.
2 of the slides contained inaccurate information.
First, this slide at 8:33 which says "What is Antinatalism? (a) Birth Negation (b) Procreation Negation."
I've already covered how this is wrong here.
If this was shown as an overview of the history of philosophical views that are in some way related to antinatalism, it would have been not inaccuratem even if inappropreate.
But of course, they showed it as an overview of the history of antinatalism itself, based on Prof. Morioka's view that antinatalism = birth negation + procreation negation.
HOST SPEAKING FOR ANTINATALIST RUDELY
I'll talk about something that has nothing to do with the ligitimacy of views held by Abema or any of the presenters.
Following Tanaka's answer to the question of how they became an antinatalist, the host rephrased their answer according to what was shown on the slide on the screen.
I found that disgusting, honestly.
They cut it off the YouTube version, so you'll have to watch it on Abema and skip to 14:57 to see it.
What I felt like I heard there is "thanks for sharing your story to make our viewers think antinatalism is a view of losers, but the way you delivered it wasn't quite perfect, so let me rephrase that," whether that was actually what Abema or the host intended or not.
OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS ANTINATALISTS
It's no surprise that Abema had to make this show how it is, when we look at what 'antinatalists' on the internet make antinatalism look like.
Of course they would treat our position that way, if antinatalism is represented by people who post on Twitter images of pessimist philosophers' quotes with black background and white/red characters.
Our PR strategy is clearly not working, probably because it doesn't exist!
Part of the reason I co-founded ANJ with a new Japanese name for antinatalism is to help it with its PR, but I cannot help feeling like the name has built a wall between us and existing Japanese-speaking antinatalists.
I wonder what we should do about it.
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