UP-WINGERS

by F. M. ESFANDIARY

  To have a child of your own and complain of male chauvinism or any chauvinism is hypocritical because you yourself are guilty of the most insidious form of chauvinism—parenthood.

  To liberate women and men we must begin by liberating children.

  We must mount a Children's Liberation Movement.

  To liberate children means doing away with exclusive parenthood. It means doing away with the whole corrupt and primitive tradition of having your own child.

  * * * *

  What must take the place of exclusive parenthood—family—marriage? How will we reproduce? Who will take care of children?

  As the old family systems are breaking down two trends are emerging. Singles and communals.

  Living alone is a new concept. It is a rejection of age-old patterns of tribal and family life. A rejection of monopolizations and exclusivities inherent to all kinship ties.

  Singling is an attempt to assert independence and achieve fluidity. A way of maximizing opportunities to maintain psychological—sexual—professional—economic—political freedoms. The individual is surfacing as never before.

  Precisely because of its newness some singlers are having difficulties breaking away from the age-old conditioning to family life. Loneliness—boredom—estrangement are problems some experience as they learn to make the transition to the new Universal Life.

  A more serious problem is posed by the singler—usually a woman—who wants a child. In urban centers it is increasingly easy for an unmarried unattached woman to have a child. Or what is more common, to have a child or two then divorce the husband.

  The single mother has renounced the hang-ups of family and marriage but she deludes herself that she brings up her child free. “I am very good with my child” many a single mother says. “I am not possessive. I want my child to grow up free."

  This rationalization is based on a dangerous fallacy. The child brought up by a single mother is anything but free. It is in fact a deeply monopolized child. Here again as I have already pointed out the possessiveness or exclusivity is grooved into the mother-child relationship. It is precisely in such a totally one-to-one relationship that the child is conditioned to fixate on the mother and go through life transfixed.

  The single mother no matter how gentle and loving perpetuates the most injurious aspects of the exclusivist family systems.

  The single mother is a flagrant monopolizer of human life.

  She strives to mollify her own insecurities by seeking security in her exclusive relationship with her own—her very own possession—her child.

  This is supreme selfishness.

  It makes no sense to renounce the monopolism of family and marriage only to turn around and monopolize a child. A child is not a trinket.

  This latest form of psychological monopolism must stop. As I will show there are now alternatives for the singler who wants children.

  * * * *

  Communal life is also spreading particularly among modern youngsters. This pattern will continue to spread from urban centers to small towns from advanced societies to the more backward family-oriented societies.

  There are many kinds of communes. Some comprised of monogamous units while others, more advanced, encourage greater communalism in relationships.

  The modern commune is a vast improvement over the old exclusivist family systems. It is the first break with hereditarianism. In the modern commune the members choose their fellow communards. They are not foisted on one another by coincidences of biological birth. Partly because choices are made voluntarily rather than imposed, and the fact that commune members did not as a rule grow up together, the monopolizing forces of guilt and pathological loyalties are minimized.

  Contrary to popular belief the modern commune is not a return to the old communes and extended families. Those were highly structured systems in which relationships were never voluntary but imposed. In which guilt—shame—fear—loyalty made for absolute exclusivity from which there was no escape. The child was conditioned to feel that it belonged to the extended family. The child was also very aware of its own biological mother and father. Its relationship with them was an exclusivity within an exclusivity. The child was pegged not only to its mother and father but also to the entire clan or family.

  Extended families and collectives of the past are not the answer. But the modern commune is a step in the right direction.

  At this stage however modern communes are still too structured. As a rule communards settle too long in one place and within a fixed group. Invariably this leads to some of the exclusivities of the old family systems. This is particularly injurious to commune children.

  We must guard against creeping exclusivities within the new communes. Such exclusivities can harden into new forms of structures.

  The de-structuring of our societies may at first seem threatening because we are all molded by structures and therefore feel that we cannot do without them that there will be loneliness chaos disorder.

  The fact is that there can be more love more security more freedom and communication in a fluid unstructured world than was ever possible in the old fragmented world of families—tribes—nations and other structures.

  We can already see the trend. In the old-world the individual belonged to many structures—a tribe or family an ancestral village an ancestral profession a religion a nation. Today modern individuals have outgrown most of these structures. They would feel very circumscribed by them. They want to grow free and spontaneous exploring and embracing more and more of the world.

  The point is that the de-structuring of society must not be viewed as a threat.

  Don't be afraid to let go.

  Modern communes are part of the trend toward the loosening of structures. But we do not want simply to loosen up structures—we want to do away with them.

  Let us begin by de-structuring the commune. Let us strive for a more fluid commune—a transcommune.

  * * * *

  The transcommune is a nucleus of the emerging transplanetary life.

  To settle in a fixed place with a fixed group of people or in a fixed job is to fester. It is to thwart your potential for growth.

  Up-individuals do not settle in a home a commune or a homeland. Rather they move and evolve and transit and shuttle and glide and jet and rocket and float all over the planet.

  They are not part of a commune a home or a homeland. But part of the whole planet.

  The stage beyond the family, beyond the commune is the Universal Life.

  To he part of this process is to be involved in a dynamic unrooted evolution.

  This is tomorrow-life which we must initiate today.

  * * * *

  Such a highly fluid world cannot accommodate the slow structured communes of today. In fact we must begin now by phasing out the word commune. The word is too evocative of oldworld communes, too often confused with old systems. Above all the word commune suggests rootedness and stability. Stability is a rationalization for stagnation.

  We need a word signaling motion and fluidity —

  Mobilia.

  The mobilia is simply a stopover—any place the individual who wishes to be unalone may stop at to be with peers and with children.

  In the coming decades the mobilia will replace homes—families—communes. Anyone arriving in any community anywhere on the planet will be able to stop at any mobilia without introductions. Stay a few days or weeks then move on.

  The Universal Life is already evolving at modern resort clubs and hotels. In a way these modern hotels are forerunners of mobilias. People converge at all times from all parts of the planet stay a few hours days or weeks enjoy modern conveniences then lift off for all parts of the world again.

  The home or commune was a place you lived in. The mobilia is any place you translive through.

  The family by its very structure is conservative. The mobilia by its nonstructure dynamic.

  The family and the commune foster stability. The mobilia encourages mo
vement.

  The family by its exclusivity leads to sluggishness—boredom—loneliness. The mobilia by its fluidity maximizes growth and aliveness.

  The family encourages possessiveness. The mobilia sharing.

  The family has been the nucleus of a tradition-bound—settled—fragmented world. The mobilia is the nucleus of a fluid Universal Life.

  To translive through mobilias is to be involved in the human family.

  * * * *

  How can we accelerate the breakup of the family and the destructuring of the commune to release more and more people into the Universal Life? The Up-Winger who lives singly is already in the planetary mainstream. But for the Up-Winger who wishes to translive with others and to have children a brief loose guideline may help.

  —You can start a mobilia simply by linking up with a few people and opening up your house or land to the world.

  —No one should stay at a mobilia longer than a few days a few weeks or at most a few months. Six months ought to be the maximum. Move on. Don't fester. (As people grow more and more transplanetary this time limit will become superfluous. Up-Wingers themselves will not want to stay long in any one place or with any one group.)

  —You can move to another mobilia in the same community or to a mobilia across the planet. You can always go back to a mobilia. Of course it will never be the same because all along new people will be transliving through.

  —In these early stages of the Universal Life you must strive to make the mobilia multi-national and multi-racial. Help start mobilias all over the planet. Invite peoples of different nations and races to them.

  —In these early stages it may also help if you display a sign at the door designating the place as a mobilia. The sign may simply say Mobilia or Universal Life or it may simply be a symbol such as the peace symbol or the United Nations insignia. This is to help people particularly from faraway places to find mobilias. Each mobilia should also have addresses of other mobilias. Hopefully at a later stage all this won't be necessary. Every house and estate will be a mobilia open to the world.

  —The number of people at a mobilia will vary. A mobilia may accommodate three people or three hundred depending on the size of the place and the conveniences. If the mobilia is temporarily full new arrivals can be directed to other mobilias.

  —The mobilia should be open to the world not only through the flow of people coming and going but also through other channels of universal communication such as television—radio—telephone—videophone—computer—two-way TV—pocket-laser—film—microfilm—cassette—videotape etc.... To be without these channels of global communication is self-defeating and weakens efforts to overcome oldworld insularity.

  —The commodities in the mobilia are for the use of all people. Use them enjoy them then leave them for others to enjoy. You can contribute things to the mobilia but you should not take anything away. My house my stereo my telescope my land—this psychology of possessiveness must give way to our house our stereo our telescope our land ... But even such joint ownership does not become petrified into any kind of exclusivity. Today our mobilia is shared with a fluid group of people tomorrow or next week or next month our mobilia will be another shared with another fluid group in another part of the community or planet.

  —The private possession of people is even more reprehensible than the possession of objects. The mobilia must not accommodate the hording of people or of love. Love must be inclusive not exclusive.

  At one time the individual who could not commit to a one-to-one relationship was considered neurotic. In our fluid times it is precisely the individual committed to an exclusive relationship who is immature.

  Are you in love? Are you involved? Are you married? Whose man are you? Whose woman? Do you go with someone? These are all anti-universal. The Up-individual has many involvements many relationships many loves.

  Once you have outgrown the primitive-childhood hang-up of exclusive love you will find fluid love the more humanized.

  Do not look for some one to love. Look for some ones to love.

  To be in love with only one person is to be arrested at an infantile stage of parent fixation.

  To be deeply involved with only one person is to thwart your potential for growth.

  To be with the same person day after day is a bore.

  —The private ownership of people and of goods cannot be overcome so long as the private ownership of children persists. To free the child we must not only do away with exclusive parenthood. We must also eliminate something far more basic—exclusive procreation.

  Creating a new life is too important a decision to leave to one individual or couple. The concept of individual rights in procreation is primitive. We need collective planning collective procreation collective child-rearing.

  In our rapidly interdependent world the rights and welfare of humanity must not be subverted to the whims of individuals.

  Not long ago people believed that it was their right to beat up their own wives and their own children. People also considered it their right to throw garbage on their own side of the river or lake. Birth control was denounced as an infringement on the right of the individual.

  Moreover it is a delusion to believe that having a child is an assertion of your individual right. What individual right? What do you have to say about the mixture of genes that develops into a child? You want a girl, you get a boy. You want a dark-haired dark-eyed child, you get a blond blue-eyed one. You hope for a beautiful baby, you get hit with a lulu. You cannot even determine its physiological intellectual and psychological dispositions. If you or your mate has recessive genes can you even be sure that your child will be free of inherited diseases? Or whether you will have a baby at all or have twins or triplets? Where then does your decision, your so-called individual right come into all this?

  The newborn is a product of chance. This is haphazard breeding—impersonal and arbitrary.

  But babies are not radishes to be produced haphazardly. Come let's have a child. No, let's have three children. Let's have four. It is time we stopped treating human life as though it were a commodity produced by whim.

  Human life is too precious to leave to chance. It is no longer enough to give children suitable environments after they are born. We must give each newborn a chance to start life with healthy genes. This is where the quality of each human life is first determined.

  We must decrease the quantity and increase the quality of newborn life. (Every year several million babies are born with genetic defects. Fifty percent of all diseases are hereditary.)

  How do we maximize collective participation in the creation of every newborn life? How do we go beyond slam-bang breeding and exclusive parenthood to universal-planned procreation?

  —We must begin by rapidly spreading a new moral climate in the world de-romanticizing the whole archaic mystique of motherhood and fatherhood. Just as at one time procreation out of wedlock was stigmatized let us now attach a stigma to exclusive parenthood (private enterprise in children). If two people have a child do not shower them with congratulations and gifts. Congratulations for what? For their ego trip?

  Let us stop romanticizing parenthood and make people fully aware why they really have children, particularly in our times —

  Having a child today is an act of supreme selfishness. It is the ultimate indulgence in narcissism.

  Having children is a submission to cultural conditioning. Society has always expected young couples to have children—so they still obediently have children. When a woman says that she feels the urge within her to have children she is ascribing to biology what is nothing more than cultural programming. There is no such thing as a biological drive to reproduce.

  Having children is a cop-out from life. The woman unconsciously knows that by becoming a mother she will be excused from holding a job going out into the world or being involved in its problems. This is a convenient rationale for the woman who feels inadequate at finding fulfillment in professional intellectual
or recreational outlets.

  Having children acts as a shield against the world in yet another way. In these fluid times when you can no longer be sure of holding on to a husband or lover, a child provides some source of security or rootedness. Men come and go is the unconscious reasoning—they cannot be counted on. But here is the one love that is mine and mine only.

  Having children means power. At one time economic and military power. Today psychological power. Here are helpless dependent lives you can control and manipulate. This is gratifying to a man or a woman with poor self-image.

  Having children is considered a way of pegging down a marriage or an affair. Children have traditionally been viewed as adhesions holding relationships together. This doesn't work any longer. In our times children more often break up involvements.

  These are some of the reasons people still feel driven to have children. At one time the reasons did not matter—now they do.

  We must spread the awareness that people can now find fulfillment and love in new ways such as becoming involved in the Universal Family—the children and adults who are already here.

  Instead of indulging yourself having a child indulge yourself by traveling.

  Don't feed your narcissism. Feed the hungry of the world.

  You cannot guide others to defuse the population explosion if you yourself are fueling it.

  The world is still full of unfed unhoused unloved children. They are now your children.

  —To insure collective participation in the planning creating and rearing of newborn life every country must right away set up Child Centers. (A few European countries already have.) These centers must be coordinated with a World Child Center perhaps a modernized UNICEF.

  —As individuals reach adolescence or early adulthood they must be encouraged—perhaps even required—to deposit their sperm or eggs and body cells at the Child Centers. Or at Sperm Banks—Egg Banks—Cell Banks supervised by the Child Centers.

  —At the Child Center a group of specialists comprised of geneticists—biologists—gynecologists—social scientists and others diagnose each sex cell to determine its genetic condition and also study the psychological intellectual and physiological history of each donor and his/her ancestry. This group then advises which sperms and eggs are genetically best suited to produce new life. (The selected sex cells come from women and men of different ages different generations—nationalities—races—physiological types. The donors themselves may now be dead or in their eighties or living far away. People are never informed whether or not their sex cells have been selected for reproduction.)