“Children are the future. Frequently interpreted literally, this familiar adage carries an important theoretical underpinning: we must plan for the children of today to become the next purveyors of the social order. In the polemic No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, Lee Edelman coins the term reproductive futurism and calls for Queer opposition to it. Edelman argues that the conception of children as our future is the political idea of the Child: our participation in politics is predicated on building a better world for our children. Planning for a future world, whether by reform or envisioning an end-game utopia, has the neat benefit of revealing the social systems and institutions we wish to manifest. Rather than living for present and people who live now (including ourselves), we hope to assert the dominance of our politics and desired social order to shape children who will benefit from-and continue-our vision. Planning for this future society precludes the possibility of instead ending or rejecting society entirely. To escape our captivity to Future we must kill the Child: reject the idea of reproductive futurism in favor of an ecstatic queer anti-politic.”
