CONTRIBUTOR

ASAGI HOZUMI
Membership Number: 2
Regular Member
Asagi Hozumi co-founded Antinatalism Japan in 2021, and has been the Director since then.
He is doubtful of utilitarianism, and finds much greater legitimacy in Richard D. Ryder's painism.
Oscar Piastri is his favorite racing driver.
In my previous column, I shared my ideas of how antinatalists could engage in expressive activities on the internet without hampering the progress of antinatalism.
Many antinatalists, however, keep posting what I see as inappropriate content online, seemingly unaware of the very existence of the problems caused by it.
Then how should we urge antinatalists on the internet to recognize this problem and try to find a solution?
It'd be ideal if the city office sends someone who's just become an antinatalist a letter saying "here are examples of how and what not to express in public spaces, as they could hinder the growth of antinatalism," but that's not how things work.
I suppose something more realistic is making our organization, Antinatalism Japan, known in the Japanese-speaking area well enough for new antinatalists to learn the existence of us as soon as they learn the term 'antinatalism' itself, and sharing content on our website and socials to encourage them to have better awareness.
Looking back at our principles which were created when ANJ was founded, it says one of the goals of ANJ was to eliminate prejudice against antinatalism.
So raising awareness of ourselves should naturally be one of our objectives.
However, as I mentioned at the end of my previous column, I feel like 'museishoku-shugi' (無生殖主義/antinatalism), the new term we started using to address the issue of AN's public reputation, is actually working against us by building a wall between ANJ and existing 'hanshussho-shugisha' (反出生主義者/antinatalists) to hinder our outreach effort.
Over the last few years, I've seen several tweets saying things like "I think there should be some Japanese-speaking antinatalist group," receiving replies like "you may not know but Antinatalism Japan is a thing."
Is it time for us to seriously consider replacing 'museishoku-shugi' with 'hanseishoku-shugi' (反生殖主義/antinatalism) and change our Japanese name accordingly?
According to ANJ's website (which feels odd for me to say given almost everything on the website is written by me), there are 3 reasons for proposing 'museishoku-shugi' as a replacement for 'hanshussho-shugi.'
If we were to stop using 'museishoku-shugi' and switch to 'hanseishoku-shugi,' the first 2 (common definition of AN being speciesist & the concept of 'birth negation' eating into AN) would easily be taken care of, but the last one 'the letter '反' (anti-) potentially hurting AN's public image' may still remain problematic.
As much as antinatalism is true and correct, unnecessarily making it seem cult-like, extremist, or terrorist-like should absolutely be avoided for the sake of gaining enough support to make actual changes. Some antinatalists are concerned about such negative effect that '反' (anti) in '反出生主義' (hanshusshou-shugi/antinatalism) could potentially have, and argue for using an alternative name for it. 'Museishoku-shugi' could be just what they are looking for.
In order to resolve this, we would need to
consider this problem with the character '反' (anti-) to be insignificant enough for us to ignore,
argue that the benefits of using the term 'hanseishoku-shugi' outweigh the disadvantage of the character '反' potentially giving antinatalism poor public image, or
use the term 'hanseishoku-shugi' in a way that immediately counteracts any negative connotation associated with the character '反.'
Let's take a closer look at each of these.
Consider this problem with the character '反' (anti) to be insignificant enough for us to ignore
It's hard to convince ourselves that one of the biggest reasons for us to co-found ANJ with its Japanese name 'museishoku-kyoukai' was simply a misunderstanding.
Whether people have a negative impression of a position whose name starts with 'anti-' ultimately depends on what comes after the 'anti-' -- given the widespread consensus that racism is wrong, it's unlikely for people to find the term 'anti-racism' off-putting, while it's quite natural for them to do so with terms like '反出生主義' and '反生殖主義' given the dominance by pro-natalism.
Argue that the benefits of using the term 'hanseishoku-shugi' outweigh the disadvantage of the character '反' potentially giving antinatalism poor public image
It may be better to build a bridge between ourselves and existing Japanese-speaking antinatalists to share our concerns (while perhaps slightly taking the risk of the '反' giving people a negative first impression of antinatalism), than stubbornly sticking with the name 'museishoku-shugi' and failing to gain recognition, let alone support.
Use the term 'hanseishoku-shugi' in a way that immediately counteracts any negative connotation associated with the character '反.'
I can't think of a way that certainly will be effective. We did choose the visual identity for ANJ based on pale pink and yellow-green as part of our PR strategy, but it doesn't take away the ability to understand the meaning of the character '反' from people.
To me, for now, the 2nd suggestion to "argue that the benefits of using the term 'hanseishoku-shugi' outweigh the disadvantage of the character '反' potentially giving antinatalism poor public image" seems to work as an argument for switching to 'hanseishoku-shugi' from 'museishoku-shugi.'
Perhaps I conclude that only because I'm feeling particularly strongly about the lack of PR strategy for antinatalism now (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this column).
I'd like to sleep on this matter for some time, and if my opinion doesn't seem to change, then this may actually be worth discussing among the members of ANJ.