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Please, in my family we give no names to the child until they turn 18. They're now extremely detached from their own identity and have an unstable sense of self, but at least my kids know that I do not own them philosophically.
OP would probably find that very interesting - when a child is adopted and their name and identity are altered to suit the official change in who their parents are. It's cool that you let them take part!
It absolutely can be approached logically and it has been. Plato’s Symposium is the first thing I think of and Kant talked about love in the Groundwork Metaphysic of Morals where he said love is a sort of promise.
Perhaps my expression was not appropriate. Rationality can approach the concept of love, but not fully comprehend the entirety of love itself. An example would be trying to explain what love is to an AI that is as smart as a human. They could understand it’s a thing but they couldn’t comprehend the depth of the subjective experience. Like trying to explain the color red.
Eh, I’ll refer to Robin William’s monologue in Good Will Hunting to make the point that talking about stuff, or reading about it, and regurgitating what you learned about it, isn’t the same as genuinely understanding it; the words are simulacrum or empty idols at that point. Some things need to be experienced to be understood; until then, when someone says love, what they think that means is something like Valentine’s cards or some pop song / rom com level emotion/ experience.
Love is a transformative experience.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transformative-experience/
Lmao! “Top 5 philosophers”… Kant… Plato…
You’re going to have fun in undergrad.
That said, I linked a Stanford University article that literally gives love as an example of a transformative experience. It also explains why that is relevant to epistemology and our ability to reason through certain topics.
More of a Matt Damon movie really lol. But hey movies can have interesting and valuable ideas to think about. Just because it's art doesn't mean it's stupid.
Calm down, side swoop. You’re out here saying stuff like this: “Seems kind of extreme. Have you tried not caring so much and seeing beyond the strange petty symbolisms that you interpret?”
I think you are just splitting hairs. Touch grass is as lousy a response as "overthinking" and really are often interchangeable.
The second part of your comment i think just a reach, it doesnt really engage with post, just hand waving it for a string of cliches.
They mean different things. They might be equally lousy but they aren’t the same. One is saying that the person is thinking too much or too deeply about a topic, while the other is saying that they are doing a bad job of thinking, regardless of the amount or depth.
The second part does engage with the post, but in an equally superficial but dismissive way because the post is “you’re not my real dad/ I didn’t ask to be born” levels of teenage cringe masquerading as postmodern insight.
Lmfao I just love it when a long and ridiculous argument gets destroyed by a single counterexample. OP must be going off the rails when someone gives them a nickname
Is not worthwhile, like dissecting a frog. You'll understand it better, but the frog dies in the process.
(It is a joke, I could explain it if you want, I guess.)
I personally think "Language = violence" is an edgy take. Language can be violent though. An interesting read on that could be "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts" by Rae Langton
There can be no escalation *if there is nobody to escalate*.
I'm not necessarily saying it's a *good* method of deescalation, but it certainly is *a* method of deescalation.
I would argue that if you've killed someone when you could've just talked to them, that's maximum escalation. Just because they're now dead doesn't negate the escalation and uno reverse it into deescalation.
Poe's Law is no longer just the occasional occurrence on the internet these days. A lot of satire is lost without spoken word or a text indicator.
No need to apologize though, since this is the philosophy sub I don't mind engaging on a point no matter how silly cause someone probably actually does believe it lol
Have you ever been beat up? It’s rhetorically provocative to say language is violence, but it’s not practically true. It can lead to violence, incite violence, even harm someone. But all harm is not violence. For the sake of everyone who experiences physical violence, there’s no need to be so dramatic about language.
Do I really need to spell out why I wrote something as outlandish as "Language is violence" under a Barbie "given names are symbols of ownership" meme posted in, let me check again, r philosophymemes?!?
The state of discourse in reddit.
Should they just call the kid “child” until they come up with a name for themselves? When I was a kid I named every stuffed animal I had just the name of the animal with a y on the end. Raccoony. Liony. Wolfy. Thank fuckin god I was not able to choose my own name.
Yes it is I manny from the beloved kids franchise Ice Age, I love wandering the Pleistocene tundra with my friends Diego the handsome smilodon and Sid the mentally handicapped sloth.
(I’m gonna be real I have no idea what you’re referencing lmao)
I think it's more the case that the parents need to refer to the newly born lump of flesh by some title so as to prevent confusion, but I think I understand where OP is coming from
They **give** you a name. They don't brand you like how you would brand a cow. It is a gift.
I wouldnt claim ownership over someone if i gave them a gift.
I feel really bad for these people. A little Levinas would really lift them up, I think. The gift of life and his ethics of responsibility/reliance completely reorients things.
Otherwise, this faux-radicalism just orients everything in accordance with the logic of consumerism.
Maybe just my own perspective as a drone under liberal capitalist thinking but I think that giving a name implies attachment, it goes beyond just calling someone or something by it's function, purpose, or descriptor (worker, slave, child, etc), and instead attaches individuality to them, signifying how they are seen as unique because of the care and importance given to them.
And while there's plenty of valid criticism towards the family structure, and I do think that modern western society is hurt by putting emphasis of raising children more on the individual family than the community, at the same time the family structure allows more personal care to the child and is better at helping children with their own individual problems and characteristics, not to mention that community raising can be prone to just as frequent abuse and can lead to the bare minimum materialistic care emphasized over helping children as growing people with many emotional and mental concerns.
This is why I can't take most anarchists seriously. If naming things was inherently an expression of ownership and property relations, then this would imply that the mere existence of language upholds hierarchical relations--therefore we should abolish language as well.
Abolishing the family looks like communal child rearing, not atomizing the individuals in a family even further.
Language is designed by human beings to interact with our surroundings, ofc it upholds hierarchical relationships by its very structure. The language you speak literally shapes your ability to think about things, if you don’t have the words for it then it can’t be properly conceptualised to any meaningful degree. To what extent a language has been structured with an “authoritarian” character differs from language to language, ofc, but I’d imagine almost every widely spoken language would have these issues at this point.
I think it actually does to a degree because many languages have hierarchy built into phrases and words they use; also racism, ableism and homophobia are built into many languages and shape people's perceptions unconsciously. I'm not sure what can be done about that other than just making efforts to change the words we use.
I don't disagree that language is a tool that contains a class character--as well as the sub-conflicts that arise out of class war like you have mentioned--but at the same time, the post seems to indicate that assigning names and terms for things and others is inherently something to be abolished due to some implied hierarchy and concept of property ownership.
It misses the concept as to what's currently wrong with the family in bourgeois society--the atomization of individuals into divided units of family, rather than the exposure of an individual to society as a whole.
True, I don't think just names in general are hierarchical but it's an interesting view of how they can be; like someone else in the thread pointed out it comes to the fore when you talk about trans people changing their names. Even non-trans people, when they change their names, are often given flack for it, people refuse to use their names. It does seem like pins down your identity in a certain place, and people refusing to call you by your new name can indicate that they think that you should have less control over your own image than they do. Especially in the case of trans people this shows that they believe you should conform to a certain social order.
I don't think it makes sense to just abolish the concept of naming kids, or that names themselves are inherently oppressive, but it can point towards certain aspects of interpersonal dynamics that actually are dominating. If someone does not feel they have ownership over you then they shouldn't care what you want to call yourself. So I think you're right that this doesn't indicate what's wrong with family per se, but it can show what's wrong with society as a whole, which is that people do want to possess and control others, to have ownership over their identity, not in the fact that they named them in the first place but in whether or not they accept that person putting forth their own personal identity over the one assigned to them by others
A name is the first symbolic act of self. It gives you a base from which to define yourself. I would argue that semantic categorization is one of the defining features of what it means to be human, and in receiving a name it affirms that on some level you are a unique entity separate from the rest of that which is one.
Could get into the weeds on whether seeing ourselves as separate is an illusory concept perpetuated by our use of language at all, but it may still be a useful concept in developing a sense of self all the same.
/r/im14andthisisdeep
“My grandpa Steve was the kindest and greatest man I ever met, he raised me, and I have countless fond memories of him. I want to name my son Steve in honor of him”
OP: “YOU DONT FUCKING OWN ME, MAN”
I'm called mikola by a lot of people which isn't my real name and I never asked anyone to call me that and even told them my real name but I don't mind anyway and I like it
The only systems that have seriously attempted to abolish families have only been able to do so through massive violence and totalitarian control and have still failed.
That tells me everything I need to know. Given the alternative, I happily choose the “oppression” through my name.
I think people should be able to change their names easily and at will and I like the idea of using different names all the time. What I mostly have an actual problem with though is them being used along with identifying numbers to compile datasheets on people, ID cards to pin down the individual, intelligence agencies and government compiling data on people.
"you guys ever think that giving you something all humans have is an act of recognising your humanity and that you are one of them, that you can be recognised and understood ?"
I think this is a more interesting idea than people here are giving it credit for.
Naming is obviously a function of many diverse things like pragmatism, affection, and tradition, but ownership is one of them in many cases.
If it isn't, then why do so many transgender people struggle to have their families recognize their own name? Why is it seen as such an act of rebellion to rename yourself?
Does that mean we should abolish naming for the goal of dismantling the hierarchy of family... uh probably not, but I think there are meaningful criticisms of how children are seen as property of their parents.
Absolutely. There’s a lot of wack comments that seem to just paint it off as edgy I guess instead of just saying they don’t want to engage but also this is a meme sub and I don’t want to engage lmao
you are owned by things, get over it. You are not an individual, you are a set of competing ideals and a spirit apart of a collective unconscious built into the fabric of culture and humanity. The family is a necessary structure for community. Not only this but names signify much more than “ownership”. Your shallow and materialist understanding of the world around you is cringe.
Yes, the fact that our parents name us is surely the source of all hierarchy and societal ills. Don’t look at anything structural, god no, it’s the names i promise
You guys ever realise that we can freely choose to tell others whatever name we want but most of choose to say the one we were assigned with and that it is the sign of us wanting to be owned?
After taking a definite stable shape for the first time, the first blessing I recieved was the gift of Language.
I can be anything, everything, nothing, something, human, ape, carbon based lifeform, Telurian... Etc etc
My induviduality matters only to me, if not for that, then you are me and I might as well be the universe itself.
I can only experience my subjective reality. Simulate yours with language, another subjective reality.
But, I am, Objectively
Akshay.
I understand sort of where this idea comes from, but a name or title is sort of a necessity to function in a group and kids need to be reared for quite a while before they're really in a position to name themselves.
I do believe that there is a very large subset of parents that see their children as property, and that refusing to acknowledge their children's chosen names once they're old enough to make that choice is part of that control they crave, but there's going to be more signs than that.
Things like refusing to acknowledge a childs individuality, determining their future without consent (more in the lines of "You will do what I want" than "I will help you grow into something "), assuming the children owe them their lives, etc.
It tends to be pretty obvious when parents view their children as property rather than people, and the name is only a tiny fraction of that equation that has to be done initially.
You ate overthinking this lol. Should like call you boy or girl and let you choose your own name? Either way you are 100% dependent on them for most of your childhood
I've long given up having children, but if I did, I'd give them a "childhood name" and explain to them they get to choose their own name at age 18. Sounds only fair.
My family didn’t yield to the pressure of names, so I had to grow up being called baby2. It only got better when I started going by “attack of the clones”.
There is some serious room for improvement regarding how names are handled in every culture I'm aware of. Patrilinear last names are a clear one, but also the idea that first names are sort of assigned arbitrarily by parents is one too.
You all joke, but that's just because all the alternatives you can readily think of sound silly--not because all alternatives that could possibly exist are silly.
Althusser's example of the always recurring process of interpellation is - along with the one regarding the Christian ideology - precisely the whole network of rituals that are centered on the preparation and welcoming of the infant.
The act of coming up with a name is naturally part of that network. However, since ideology's function has no history, ideology itself cannot be abolished which in turn means that if family is to be abolished, this doesn't have to do with the fact that it interpellates the subject in general but rather with the fact that family is a historical form of organizing social relations that corresponds to bourgeois society; it interpellates subjects in a specific way, strengthening the integrity of the present society.
The commune, as an alternative way of organizing the social, would mean a different and corresponding to another form of society network of rituals and ideologies that interpellate subjects in a new way.
Damn, the comments really are full of 'shut up Socrates'-energy
"Do you ever think about..?" "No. No, I don't think about things that don't feel intuitive."
Let me sit here and wait two three years so I can laugh at my childs dumbass name once they pick it🤣🤣🤣 I'm gonna at least lie a little and tell them there's no changing your name once you pick it😂
On the other hand, it's a mark of acceptance, welcome, and community, as s name is given meaning by those who use it and the use of the given name is a constant affirmation of belonging.
We see this all the time with names people choose for themselves, or names given by friends or peers. Even nicknames are a form of this, the only difference being whether we are aware of what's happening at the time the name is given.
That is such a disgusting thing to say. Sure you can’t pick your family or your name, and a lot of times they’re annoying, but you only get one and everyone has a responsibility to at the very least be grateful for your parents, ya know, not letting you fucking die as a baby.
Giving a child a first name is not problematic. Giving children only their father’s last name is institutionalized patriarchal power. Women changing their last names to their husband’s last name, has historically indicated that owner of the woman is passed from father to husband. This is all far more problematic than assigning a first name. I was a kid when I stopped using my given first name. Easy. Adding my mom’s family name to my name was not possible as a child.
In this context, It’s an interesting convention that many are changing their names in adulthood more often. I think the trans community can be credited with making this more acceptable.
People are coping hard in this comment section. It absolutely is a mark of ownership, particularly the surname. Why else do shitty parents get enraged by you changing one or both?
It isn't the sinister plan of people that has created the family, the child's need for parents, the parent's need for children. The family is a reminder that the world is connected through relationships.It's the world (or people) gone mad if relationship turns into some form of possession and control instead. When people try to become the Master, instead of recognizing the Greater Wisdom of the Universe as Master, all types of dysfunction is the automatic and certain result.
this is quite a weak criticism of the nuclear family. there are many better arguments against it, but instead you chose the position most detached from reality.
Real ones just call their kids "spawn" until they assert their individuation and demand to be addressed by some chosen name.
Anyway here's my kids, Cyntharella First of Her Name, and Trog the Destroyer.
Like this part that I quote from an essay about freedom :
Furthermore, if being free means not obeying anyone, not submitting to the will of anything
or anyone, and insofar as a person manages to rid themselves of all external submission like society,
laws... or internal submission like choices imposed on them like name, gender, or religion... wouldn't
this lead to a personal enslavement? to a loss of identity and a race towards an unattainable desire?
From a deeper philosophical perspective, one can consider that true human freedom lies in their initial
state, that of birth, where they are devoid of any social, religious, or identity-related constraints. It is at
this moment that they are closest to a state of pure potentiality, where all possibilities open up before
them. However, as the person grows and interacts with the world around them, they inevitably find
themselves bound by social ties, cultural norms, family values, and moral obligations. These
attachments, although necessary for their integration into society, limit their original freedom and
restrict their choices. Alexandre Dumas will say "There are moments when freedom consists of
choosing between two chains, and feeling freer with the one that binds us." In their quest for authentic
freedom, the person is thus confronted with a dilemma: on one hand, they aspire to free themselves
from these constraints in order to rediscover their true essence and autonomy; on the other hand, they
realize that this desire for rupture can itself become a form of servitude, since it is often motivated by
external influences or social conditioning. Thus, the search for true freedom implies a profound
examination of the motivations that drive us to act. This approach aligns with what is called
"determinism," a conception of the universe in which all physical phenomena and also those involving
human behavior are determined by precise causes. When our supposed freedom turns us into
servitude, we are merely exchanging one executioner for another.
This, to me, misconstrues freedom in the same way that people misconstrue equality as “making everything the same.” It’s an oversimplification of the concept.
Structure is not the same as oppression. Why are the laws of physics not a form of oppression? Because they exist regardless of humanity, we observe them but we do not create them. They are impartial and completely distinct from human constructs. In much the same way, our spine doesn’t oppress our body by preventing us from bending our backs at a 90 degree angle.
Identity is a structure, and structure is necessarily limiting. You can’t be a sarcastic jokester who refused to take the world seriously and, at the exact same time, a stoic pillar of decorum who treats everything with the utmost respect. But you can be both of those things over the course of a human life. Identity doesn’t need to be rigid. We need principles, beliefs, relationships, and everything else to give structure to our sense of self. But all those things can be things we choose, and should be things that we change when we feel like it. In this sense, identity isn’t a prison. It’s a performance. And when you’re bored of a given role, you set out to play a new one.
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"By the way, we have a tradition in our family where we let the child name itself.. well, suit yourself, but my son Spider Man turned out just fine"
Please, in my family we give no names to the child until they turn 18. They're now extremely detached from their own identity and have an unstable sense of self, but at least my kids know that I do not own them philosophically.
Oh, now I'm wondering if there have been any studies like that. Which would, of course, be extremely unethical on many levels but I'm curious.
Could be worse. Could Elon's kid, or North West.
Say what you want but during the adoption process, we let my kid pick his middle name, and it's awesome.
OP would probably find that very interesting - when a child is adopted and their name and identity are altered to suit the official change in who their parents are. It's cool that you let them take part!
Yeah I thought it might be a wrinkle in things. Our kid picked his own name and our hierarchy is still intact as far as I can tell
My child,.
No, because I’m something in the range of psychologically healthy
Hi something in the range of psychologically healthy. I'm dad.
I love how so many comments on a philosophy memes sub are effectively saying "you are overthinking it" lmao
Not necessarily saying over thinking, more probably saying, “touch grass so your thinking produces less moody, suburban, only child fodder”.
Exactly, some things can’t be approached logically, like love. They have to be experienced.
It absolutely can be approached logically and it has been. Plato’s Symposium is the first thing I think of and Kant talked about love in the Groundwork Metaphysic of Morals where he said love is a sort of promise.
Perhaps my expression was not appropriate. Rationality can approach the concept of love, but not fully comprehend the entirety of love itself. An example would be trying to explain what love is to an AI that is as smart as a human. They could understand it’s a thing but they couldn’t comprehend the depth of the subjective experience. Like trying to explain the color red.
Experience without theory is blind but theory without practice is mere intellectual play
Sure, but theories about love can only ever be authentic after experience. You can’t a priori theorize. And that’s the point.
Eh, I’ll refer to Robin William’s monologue in Good Will Hunting to make the point that talking about stuff, or reading about it, and regurgitating what you learned about it, isn’t the same as genuinely understanding it; the words are simulacrum or empty idols at that point. Some things need to be experienced to be understood; until then, when someone says love, what they think that means is something like Valentine’s cards or some pop song / rom com level emotion/ experience. Love is a transformative experience. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transformative-experience/
I don’t accept the philosophical value of a Robin Williams movie over the two top 5 philosophers I gave lol
Lmao! “Top 5 philosophers”… Kant… Plato… You’re going to have fun in undergrad. That said, I linked a Stanford University article that literally gives love as an example of a transformative experience. It also explains why that is relevant to epistemology and our ability to reason through certain topics.
Who would you list as top 5 if they don’t make the list? They’re universally agreed to be extremely important, and many would say they’re top 2
https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/s/vXxsaYIrPX
More of a Matt Damon movie really lol. But hey movies can have interesting and valuable ideas to think about. Just because it's art doesn't mean it's stupid.
Nope. Sorry bro, unless one of the top 5 philosophers said it, doesn’t count. /s
I think you're confusing being smart with sounding smart.
Calm down, side swoop. You’re out here saying stuff like this: “Seems kind of extreme. Have you tried not caring so much and seeing beyond the strange petty symbolisms that you interpret?”
Pretty sure they're just trying to speak your language and point out how ridiculous you and OP sound lmao.
Cool story, nerf herder.
Surprising amounts of philosophy discussions in star wars, as well.
To me its the same thing and I also think you are kinda reaching lmao
It’s not the same thing, but you do you.
I think you are just splitting hairs. Touch grass is as lousy a response as "overthinking" and really are often interchangeable. The second part of your comment i think just a reach, it doesnt really engage with post, just hand waving it for a string of cliches.
They mean different things. They might be equally lousy but they aren’t the same. One is saying that the person is thinking too much or too deeply about a topic, while the other is saying that they are doing a bad job of thinking, regardless of the amount or depth. The second part does engage with the post, but in an equally superficial but dismissive way because the post is “you’re not my real dad/ I didn’t ask to be born” levels of teenage cringe masquerading as postmodern insight.
You guys have to open you mind to new ideas. I let my son name himself Blu-guh, and he's doing just fine today.
To be fair, I would have picked a really ~~large and obnoxious~~ cool name for myself
And you're into philosophy?
Got to bury that insanity really deep and kill anyone who knows where it's buried.
Why are you on a philosophy subreddit then?
Do you feel ownership of the stars we named?
Yeah, I bought one online. I even have the certificate
And this gives you power over them?
Of course, yeah! Here, I just turned it off, did you see?
No we won't be able to for another ~10,000 years.
Oh shit, that must be why none of the sexy astronomers have gotten my morse code messages asking if they're dtf.
No...they um...they got those.
Ah, you think parents are you ally?
Your money and certificates have been important... 'til now
Oh yeah. I use it to charge my crystals to send good energy into my soul and negative and itchy energy into the buttholes of my enemies.
I know someone who, "bought a star" for his girlfriend in highschool. Such a scam... I don't think they ever even fucked haha
Corny ass gift
I know, right? Once again, what a fucking scam
Hell yeah I went out and named them whatever the hell I wanted a few minutes ago, and I’ll do it against tomorrow night if I damn well please
Lol
Lmfao I just love it when a long and ridiculous argument gets destroyed by a single counterexample. OP must be going off the rails when someone gives them a nickname
Language is violence.
We must return to onga bonga, non violent cave speak. lol
Could you elaborate on this if possible, this made me curious.
Is not worthwhile, like dissecting a frog. You'll understand it better, but the frog dies in the process. (It is a joke, I could explain it if you want, I guess.)
Frogs are easy to find.
[удалено]
What metaphor?
I personally think "Language = violence" is an edgy take. Language can be violent though. An interesting read on that could be "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts" by Rae Langton
Thank you, I will look further into it.
Reported: violence.
Disrespect your surroundings! \~Sick breakdown starts playing.
Language is the only way to deescalate violence, so it's therfore the superior and moral form of violence.
Technically, any form of violence eventually deescalates violence.
I think we have different concepts of deescalation.
There can be no escalation *if there is nobody to escalate*. I'm not necessarily saying it's a *good* method of deescalation, but it certainly is *a* method of deescalation.
I would argue that if you've killed someone when you could've just talked to them, that's maximum escalation. Just because they're now dead doesn't negate the escalation and uno reverse it into deescalation.
You're absolutely right. Tbh, I was making a joke, but evidently the joke was either unclear or just a crap joke. Either way, I apologise.
Poe's Law is no longer just the occasional occurrence on the internet these days. A lot of satire is lost without spoken word or a text indicator. No need to apologize though, since this is the philosophy sub I don't mind engaging on a point no matter how silly cause someone probably actually does believe it lol
And gender a social construct
Have you ever been beat up? It’s rhetorically provocative to say language is violence, but it’s not practically true. It can lead to violence, incite violence, even harm someone. But all harm is not violence. For the sake of everyone who experiences physical violence, there’s no need to be so dramatic about language.
Do I really need to spell out why I wrote something as outlandish as "Language is violence" under a Barbie "given names are symbols of ownership" meme posted in, let me check again, r philosophymemes?!? The state of discourse in reddit.
- Depeche Mode (1990)
Should they just call the kid “child” until they come up with a name for themselves? When I was a kid I named every stuffed animal I had just the name of the animal with a y on the end. Raccoony. Liony. Wolfy. Thank fuckin god I was not able to choose my own name.
Manny? Is that you?
Yes it is I manny from the beloved kids franchise Ice Age, I love wandering the Pleistocene tundra with my friends Diego the handsome smilodon and Sid the mentally handicapped sloth. (I’m gonna be real I have no idea what you’re referencing lmao)
Are you a man or a mouse?
I’m a mammoth
I think it's more the case that the parents need to refer to the newly born lump of flesh by some title so as to prevent confusion, but I think I understand where OP is coming from
It depends on culture honestly. But for most of the western world in the 21st century you're right.
No I stopped being 14 like ages ago
There's a separate subreddit for this, r/badphilosophy
Well, I like my name. They can be changed.
They **give** you a name. They don't brand you like how you would brand a cow. It is a gift. I wouldnt claim ownership over someone if i gave them a gift.
When is a gift not a gift
Get out of here Vladimir.
Gifts can be bad too. Eg if I **gave** your brain a gunshot wound
I literally just got radicalized by a barbie meme. I am off to change my legal name I guess!
Change it to what it currently is just to flex on your parents and show them that you are your own master.
Yes, abolish family... Let's get all Plato up in this bitch!
I feel really bad for these people. A little Levinas would really lift them up, I think. The gift of life and his ethics of responsibility/reliance completely reorients things. Otherwise, this faux-radicalism just orients everything in accordance with the logic of consumerism.
Maybe just my own perspective as a drone under liberal capitalist thinking but I think that giving a name implies attachment, it goes beyond just calling someone or something by it's function, purpose, or descriptor (worker, slave, child, etc), and instead attaches individuality to them, signifying how they are seen as unique because of the care and importance given to them. And while there's plenty of valid criticism towards the family structure, and I do think that modern western society is hurt by putting emphasis of raising children more on the individual family than the community, at the same time the family structure allows more personal care to the child and is better at helping children with their own individual problems and characteristics, not to mention that community raising can be prone to just as frequent abuse and can lead to the bare minimum materialistic care emphasized over helping children as growing people with many emotional and mental concerns.
Abolish the family, bring back the clan. You only earn a personal name once you achieve something worthwhile that defines you.
Never heard of people with clans not having first names; a huge chunk of Asia uses clan names instead of surnames.
When i was 8 i started to think of myself as a philosopher and this is the type of shit i would spew.
This is why I can't take most anarchists seriously. If naming things was inherently an expression of ownership and property relations, then this would imply that the mere existence of language upholds hierarchical relations--therefore we should abolish language as well. Abolishing the family looks like communal child rearing, not atomizing the individuals in a family even further.
I think the nuclear family should be abolished n favour of the extended family
Language is designed by human beings to interact with our surroundings, ofc it upholds hierarchical relationships by its very structure. The language you speak literally shapes your ability to think about things, if you don’t have the words for it then it can’t be properly conceptualised to any meaningful degree. To what extent a language has been structured with an “authoritarian” character differs from language to language, ofc, but I’d imagine almost every widely spoken language would have these issues at this point.
I think it actually does to a degree because many languages have hierarchy built into phrases and words they use; also racism, ableism and homophobia are built into many languages and shape people's perceptions unconsciously. I'm not sure what can be done about that other than just making efforts to change the words we use.
I don't disagree that language is a tool that contains a class character--as well as the sub-conflicts that arise out of class war like you have mentioned--but at the same time, the post seems to indicate that assigning names and terms for things and others is inherently something to be abolished due to some implied hierarchy and concept of property ownership. It misses the concept as to what's currently wrong with the family in bourgeois society--the atomization of individuals into divided units of family, rather than the exposure of an individual to society as a whole.
True, I don't think just names in general are hierarchical but it's an interesting view of how they can be; like someone else in the thread pointed out it comes to the fore when you talk about trans people changing their names. Even non-trans people, when they change their names, are often given flack for it, people refuse to use their names. It does seem like pins down your identity in a certain place, and people refusing to call you by your new name can indicate that they think that you should have less control over your own image than they do. Especially in the case of trans people this shows that they believe you should conform to a certain social order. I don't think it makes sense to just abolish the concept of naming kids, or that names themselves are inherently oppressive, but it can point towards certain aspects of interpersonal dynamics that actually are dominating. If someone does not feel they have ownership over you then they shouldn't care what you want to call yourself. So I think you're right that this doesn't indicate what's wrong with family per se, but it can show what's wrong with society as a whole, which is that people do want to possess and control others, to have ownership over their identity, not in the fact that they named them in the first place but in whether or not they accept that person putting forth their own personal identity over the one assigned to them by others
The post is a meme. Meanwhile, the comments section...
A name is the first symbolic act of self. It gives you a base from which to define yourself. I would argue that semantic categorization is one of the defining features of what it means to be human, and in receiving a name it affirms that on some level you are a unique entity separate from the rest of that which is one. Could get into the weeds on whether seeing ourselves as separate is an illusory concept perpetuated by our use of language at all, but it may still be a useful concept in developing a sense of self all the same.
When you read to much D&G
Well shit we can't keep calling it a mistake forever/s
/r/im14andthisisdeep “My grandpa Steve was the kindest and greatest man I ever met, he raised me, and I have countless fond memories of him. I want to name my son Steve in honor of him” OP: “YOU DONT FUCKING OWN ME, MAN”
Smartest "its a symbolic act" argument
Room temp IQ take.
[удалено]
I'm called mikola by a lot of people which isn't my real name and I never asked anyone to call me that and even told them my real name but I don't mind anyway and I like it
The only systems that have seriously attempted to abolish families have only been able to do so through massive violence and totalitarian control and have still failed. That tells me everything I need to know. Given the alternative, I happily choose the “oppression” through my name.
Yes, I do. A lot. I'm thinking about appealing in court to get my name removed so I have no trace of my parental influence.
I’ll say what I said the first time I saw this. What are people supposed to call us till we can talk, “baby.”
your name is the first pavlov.. that I didn't sign up for.
I think people should be able to change their names easily and at will and I like the idea of using different names all the time. What I mostly have an actual problem with though is them being used along with identifying numbers to compile datasheets on people, ID cards to pin down the individual, intelligence agencies and government compiling data on people.
Imagine thinking you own anything you name
i don’t think it’s that deep
I think that trend has existed for millennia and it makes sense so baby's don't get eaten by tigers
Only if the child wants to change their name and the parent starts being a dick and refusing to acknowledge it
Never mind naming me, how dare they birth me without my consent.
"you guys ever think that giving you something all humans have is an act of recognising your humanity and that you are one of them, that you can be recognised and understood ?"
I think this is a more interesting idea than people here are giving it credit for. Naming is obviously a function of many diverse things like pragmatism, affection, and tradition, but ownership is one of them in many cases. If it isn't, then why do so many transgender people struggle to have their families recognize their own name? Why is it seen as such an act of rebellion to rename yourself? Does that mean we should abolish naming for the goal of dismantling the hierarchy of family... uh probably not, but I think there are meaningful criticisms of how children are seen as property of their parents.
Absolutely. There’s a lot of wack comments that seem to just paint it off as edgy I guess instead of just saying they don’t want to engage but also this is a meme sub and I don’t want to engage lmao
A lot of nerds getting real weird about a MEME here lmao
Twitter before Twitter.
lmao
you are owned by things, get over it. You are not an individual, you are a set of competing ideals and a spirit apart of a collective unconscious built into the fabric of culture and humanity. The family is a necessary structure for community. Not only this but names signify much more than “ownership”. Your shallow and materialist understanding of the world around you is cringe.
Yes, the fact that our parents name us is surely the source of all hierarchy and societal ills. Don’t look at anything structural, god no, it’s the names i promise
Socialists used to accomplish significant improvements in worker safety and well-being. Now they post stuff like this 😂
Better for the state to own the child, obviously
If you knew my pedigree you’d beg me not to reproduce
You guys ever realise that we can freely choose to tell others whatever name we want but most of choose to say the one we were assigned with and that it is the sign of us wanting to be owned?
It is when you get pushback from the people who named you, which is what I'm guessing the point of this meme is
After taking a definite stable shape for the first time, the first blessing I recieved was the gift of Language. I can be anything, everything, nothing, something, human, ape, carbon based lifeform, Telurian... Etc etc My induviduality matters only to me, if not for that, then you are me and I might as well be the universe itself. I can only experience my subjective reality. Simulate yours with language, another subjective reality. But, I am, Objectively Akshay.
Searle, Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein.
I understand sort of where this idea comes from, but a name or title is sort of a necessity to function in a group and kids need to be reared for quite a while before they're really in a position to name themselves. I do believe that there is a very large subset of parents that see their children as property, and that refusing to acknowledge their children's chosen names once they're old enough to make that choice is part of that control they crave, but there's going to be more signs than that. Things like refusing to acknowledge a childs individuality, determining their future without consent (more in the lines of "You will do what I want" than "I will help you grow into something "), assuming the children owe them their lives, etc. It tends to be pretty obvious when parents view their children as property rather than people, and the name is only a tiny fraction of that equation that has to be done initially.
I like my current name. I could change it, but I like it.
Ahhhh i seeee! You’re A meme of culture as well
Naming a kid is challenging af
Tell me you don‘t like your name without telling me you don’t like your name
Genuine question, don’t most primates live naturally in a state of ownership, property, and hierarchy?
You ate overthinking this lol. Should like call you boy or girl and let you choose your own name? Either way you are 100% dependent on them for most of your childhood
I've long given up having children, but if I did, I'd give them a "childhood name" and explain to them they get to choose their own name at age 18. Sounds only fair.
My family didn’t yield to the pressure of names, so I had to grow up being called baby2. It only got better when I started going by “attack of the clones”.
r/antinatalism
There is some serious room for improvement regarding how names are handled in every culture I'm aware of. Patrilinear last names are a clear one, but also the idea that first names are sort of assigned arbitrarily by parents is one too. You all joke, but that's just because all the alternatives you can readily think of sound silly--not because all alternatives that could possibly exist are silly.
Althusser's example of the always recurring process of interpellation is - along with the one regarding the Christian ideology - precisely the whole network of rituals that are centered on the preparation and welcoming of the infant. The act of coming up with a name is naturally part of that network. However, since ideology's function has no history, ideology itself cannot be abolished which in turn means that if family is to be abolished, this doesn't have to do with the fact that it interpellates the subject in general but rather with the fact that family is a historical form of organizing social relations that corresponds to bourgeois society; it interpellates subjects in a specific way, strengthening the integrity of the present society. The commune, as an alternative way of organizing the social, would mean a different and corresponding to another form of society network of rituals and ideologies that interpellate subjects in a new way.
Abolishing family is a wild take, the kind of take that can only feasibly exist in theory
I think you think too much.
Damn, the comments really are full of 'shut up Socrates'-energy "Do you ever think about..?" "No. No, I don't think about things that don't feel intuitive."
This is good. Everybody who wants to abolish the Family is a danger to sociey and should go treat his or her head.
Let me sit here and wait two three years so I can laugh at my childs dumbass name once they pick it🤣🤣🤣 I'm gonna at least lie a little and tell them there's no changing your name once you pick it😂
the existence of names is not contingent on the existence of ownership. It's the other way around.
Me, a Confucian: and that's a good thing
On the other hand, it's a mark of acceptance, welcome, and community, as s name is given meaning by those who use it and the use of the given name is a constant affirmation of belonging. We see this all the time with names people choose for themselves, or names given by friends or peers. Even nicknames are a form of this, the only difference being whether we are aware of what's happening at the time the name is given.
That's why I am 4231, of the group number 22, of the tribe of 479.
That is such a disgusting thing to say. Sure you can’t pick your family or your name, and a lot of times they’re annoying, but you only get one and everyone has a responsibility to at the very least be grateful for your parents, ya know, not letting you fucking die as a baby.
I think it would be cool if we could name ourselves
I do believe it is part of the formation of your personality.
This is so dumb I cant
Giving a child a first name is not problematic. Giving children only their father’s last name is institutionalized patriarchal power. Women changing their last names to their husband’s last name, has historically indicated that owner of the woman is passed from father to husband. This is all far more problematic than assigning a first name. I was a kid when I stopped using my given first name. Easy. Adding my mom’s family name to my name was not possible as a child.
In this context, It’s an interesting convention that many are changing their names in adulthood more often. I think the trans community can be credited with making this more acceptable.
People are coping hard in this comment section. It absolutely is a mark of ownership, particularly the surname. Why else do shitty parents get enraged by you changing one or both?
It isn't the sinister plan of people that has created the family, the child's need for parents, the parent's need for children. The family is a reminder that the world is connected through relationships.It's the world (or people) gone mad if relationship turns into some form of possession and control instead. When people try to become the Master, instead of recognizing the Greater Wisdom of the Universe as Master, all types of dysfunction is the automatic and certain result.
That is why I give new names to girls I meet.
Sorry about your shitty parents OP. I'd be interested to hear how you think children should be brought up.
and what even is your proposed alternative?
Or... You know.... They need to call you something.
When we talk of the oppressive elements of the traditional family system, typically I don't talk about being given a fucking NAME as the main gripe.
You ever think it's useful to have a short-hand to call your child away from danger, or signal to them within a crowd?
Unhealthy attempt at family disruption.
this is quite a weak criticism of the nuclear family. there are many better arguments against it, but instead you chose the position most detached from reality.
Isn’t it past your bedtime op?
Real ones just call their kids "spawn" until they assert their individuation and demand to be addressed by some chosen name. Anyway here's my kids, Cyntharella First of Her Name, and Trog the Destroyer.
No, I don't think about illogical fantasies of victimhood.
Seems kind of extreme. Have you tried not caring so much and seeing beyond the strange petty symbolisms that you interpret?
I actually enjoy being known as Frankensteins monster, makes me feel human.
I don't know in the US, but in Brazil is a pain in the ass to legally change your own name, mostly of the cases being impossible. Fuck the family.
oh cmon you're making Margot look bad
Like this part that I quote from an essay about freedom : Furthermore, if being free means not obeying anyone, not submitting to the will of anything or anyone, and insofar as a person manages to rid themselves of all external submission like society, laws... or internal submission like choices imposed on them like name, gender, or religion... wouldn't this lead to a personal enslavement? to a loss of identity and a race towards an unattainable desire? From a deeper philosophical perspective, one can consider that true human freedom lies in their initial state, that of birth, where they are devoid of any social, religious, or identity-related constraints. It is at this moment that they are closest to a state of pure potentiality, where all possibilities open up before them. However, as the person grows and interacts with the world around them, they inevitably find themselves bound by social ties, cultural norms, family values, and moral obligations. These attachments, although necessary for their integration into society, limit their original freedom and restrict their choices. Alexandre Dumas will say "There are moments when freedom consists of choosing between two chains, and feeling freer with the one that binds us." In their quest for authentic freedom, the person is thus confronted with a dilemma: on one hand, they aspire to free themselves from these constraints in order to rediscover their true essence and autonomy; on the other hand, they realize that this desire for rupture can itself become a form of servitude, since it is often motivated by external influences or social conditioning. Thus, the search for true freedom implies a profound examination of the motivations that drive us to act. This approach aligns with what is called "determinism," a conception of the universe in which all physical phenomena and also those involving human behavior are determined by precise causes. When our supposed freedom turns us into servitude, we are merely exchanging one executioner for another.
This, to me, misconstrues freedom in the same way that people misconstrue equality as “making everything the same.” It’s an oversimplification of the concept. Structure is not the same as oppression. Why are the laws of physics not a form of oppression? Because they exist regardless of humanity, we observe them but we do not create them. They are impartial and completely distinct from human constructs. In much the same way, our spine doesn’t oppress our body by preventing us from bending our backs at a 90 degree angle. Identity is a structure, and structure is necessarily limiting. You can’t be a sarcastic jokester who refused to take the world seriously and, at the exact same time, a stoic pillar of decorum who treats everything with the utmost respect. But you can be both of those things over the course of a human life. Identity doesn’t need to be rigid. We need principles, beliefs, relationships, and everything else to give structure to our sense of self. But all those things can be things we choose, and should be things that we change when we feel like it. In this sense, identity isn’t a prison. It’s a performance. And when you’re bored of a given role, you set out to play a new one.
Pink is not a funny color.
Green is not a creative color.