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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Marriage and family the basis of a strong society?
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It doesn't have to be an extended family of blood relatives.
Agreed. But I think it is no accident that many religions have distinctly "family-like" structures deeply embedded into their social organisation. If I may say so here, dear brothers and sisters in the faith, as we are all adopted children of God united under the leadership of the Firstborn Son of Man.
And furthermore, the bonds of blood must be replaced by something strong, by something that will make people risk it all. If you want to have family-like security from your religious group, then you need lots of "family building" exercises, and you and the others must be emotionally engaged by them.
Frankly, I doubt that most Christian groups in the West operate at a level where they would function as family substitute in the time of real crisis. (Though if the crisis is itself an attack on their religion, then external pressure can fuse communities into a unity that they never established themselves.)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
I would think that a strong family unit (whatever shape that might take) is beneficial to success and survival of the species—including happiness and well-being.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
I think you're spot on there, Svitlana. The real enemy of the family is (certain varieties of) liberalism, whether of the left or the right - and it's right-wing neo-liberalism that calls the shots in our soiciety at the moment. Neo-liberalism hates the family in the same way that it hates all non-marketised, non-contractual institutions, especially those which provide resilience and therefore get in the way of the free play of market forces aand the commodification of human beings.
Excellent points. It amazes me that right-wing politicians simultaneously extol the family, yet pursue policies which pulverize it - and get people to vote for that! Turkeys, votes, Christmas, etc.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
I have acquaintances who cannot rely on their families, when they are homeless or struggling to get medical care it's friends, not family, who take them in.
Many nuclear families live on the financial edge and feel they can't afford to take in another person. Back on the farm, you can always put a stray sister or uncle or cousin to work and find a spot for them to sleep. But in the city there's not that flexibility of living arrangement.
[ 21. April 2015, 13:33: Message edited by: Belle Ringer ]
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
What arrant nonsense! Dear me, have you ever looked at what the left actually advocated?
You seem to think that I am a social conservative in an American sense. Hardly. And what "nonsense" are you talking about? Your reply does not address anything I was talking about. Alan on the other hand got my point just fine... For example, this:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
And how did it defend the family? Through advocating pensions, family allowances, and universal health care.
is not "defending" the family. All of it is replacing the family. Children were to support their parents in their old age, directly. Now the state does. Either by instituting and controlling saving schemes, or by collecting taxes and thus anonymising the support of the elderly.
Which is pure revisionist nonsense. The main reason for the existence of old age pensions (and similar programs) is that even though there was the expectation that "[c]hildren were to support their parents in their old age", very often they weren't (or had been inconsiderate enough to predecease their parents). Old age and poverty were usually very closely linked prior to such programs being implemented. You've reversed cause and effect.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It was the family's job to deal with failing health of a member (taking care of medical expenses, standing in for the work that the sick person could not do, literally nursing family members through their sickness). Now the state is doing this through an institutionalised system of health care professionals, financed either by contributions to state-controlled organisations or directly by taxes.
Again, systems of socialized medicine arose not to replace a functional system of family-based care but because that system had obviously failed. It could even be argued that modern medicine is expensive to a degree insupportable without a risk pool larger than any family unit. While it may be philosophically satisfying to chuck modern medicine and go back to mustard patches and leeches (or whatever level of medical expertise a family can provide/afford on its own) it seems both individually and socially desstructive.
What baffles me is your insistence that using the state to fix these rather obvious failures of the family system is pernicious to families; that it's more stabilizing to families for mom to go out an turn tricks to raise extra money for little Billy's chemotherapy than to participate in a state-regulated risk pool. If the modern state has replaced the family, it's done so to fill gaps the family wasn't covering (and perhaps may not be able to cover).
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The only thing I would add is that the idea that history has ended is a delusion that is universal throughout history. The current social arrangement will fall, the question is only when. And at times when the state and other supra-individual organisations crumble, invariably the family rises. You can see that in every failed state across the world.
Can anyone think of an example of a state collapsing due to extravagantly generous social spending? I can't. Granted the kind of mixed economies we're talking about (somewhat regulated market economies with a social safety net) are only about a century or so old, but surely there should be some example of a state with an industrialized economy along those lines collapsing into the kind of post-apocalyptic anarchy IngoB describes. I can think of a couple that have, but none of them due primarily to overly extravagant social programs, which is something we'd expect to see if social spending is so corrosive to social cohesion.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
This reminds me of the similar cry that it was historically the job of the church to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. But without significant monetary resources it is not clear how this is to be done, unless the miracle of the loaves and the fishes is worked on a daily basis. The state took over because the church could not do it.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I think that in England it was a little more complex than that. The early C17 Poor Law placed a stautory responsibility on families to support their indigent members but if they could not do that the responsibility fell on the parish- a civil as well as ecclesiatical unit- drawing on funds from the Poor rate- local taxation- administered by the Churchwardens (so again, effectively civil as well as ecclesiastical officers, fitting the understanding of what was meant by an established church at that time). The wardens could, and did, reclaim the cost of support from family members who were considered able to afford it.
What happened by the early C19 was that parishes - local communities- were becoming unable to meet the costs of poor relief in a very much changed society, and while everyone remembers the New Poor Law of 1834 for its deterrent principles, what was equally controversial at the time was that it reduced local control and discretion by amalgamating poor law authorities into larger more sustainable groups (generally accepted) and giving much more power to central government to prescribe rates of support and workhouse regimes (wideely contested, especially by old-fashioned paternalists who believed that they should have discretion to err on the side of generosity).
The early C20 welfare innovations in Britain- from the first (British) old age pensions to the Beveridge report of 1942- were definitely aimed aat supporting the family unit. Just read anything by Beveridge from about 1909 to 1949: he is in no doubt that the family is an essential social and ecconomic unit and that the aim of the state should be to help it work well.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
The early C20 welfare innovations in Britain- from the first (British) old age pensions to the Beveridge report of 1942- were definitely aimed at supporting the family unit. Just read anything by Beveridge from about 1909 to 1949: he is in no doubt that the family is an essential social and economic unit and that the aim of the state should be to help it work well.
This seems to be the position IngoB is arguing against. His position, as near as I understand it, is that however well intentioned the aims of such programs are they do not actually "help [the family] work well" but rather subvert the family and replace it with the state.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
The early C20 welfare innovations in Britain- from the first (British) old age pensions to the Beveridge report of 1942- were definitely aimed at supporting the family unit. Just read anything by Beveridge from about 1909 to 1949: he is in no doubt that the family is an essential social and economic unit and that the aim of the state should be to help it work well.
This seems to be the position IngoB is arguing against. His position, as near as I understand it, is that however well intentioned the aims of such programs are they do not actually "help [the family] work well" but rather subvert the family and replace it with the state.
That's a traditional Catholic position, isn't it? It seems to say that the family is 'natural' and should not be tampered with, although my impression is that working class Catholics have often voted Labour, and for the welfare state.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Which is pure revisionist nonsense.
Of course, if to you "history" sort of starts around the time of the industrial revolution, and "pre-history" is then perhaps the renaissance, then you might have some semblance of a point. But since history has been around just a tad longer, you are the one who is talking nonsense here. People for the most part did support their elderly parents sufficiently across many millennia of human history - for the most part they did not send them into the wilderness to die at the age of fifty. And just as an aside, poverty of the elderly hasn't magically disappeared in our societies, best I can tell. Nor is it so clear that modern arrangements guarantee "quality of life" to the elderly, beyond bare survival.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Again, systems of socialized medicine arose not to replace a functional system of family-based care but because that system had obviously failed.
That basically just confuses scientific progress in medicine with the social setting of medical provision, and once more pretends that "history" is what has happened since roughly the industrial revolution. But you do manage to make a sensible point here:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It could even be argued that modern medicine is expensive to a degree insupportable without a risk pool larger than any family unit.
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how modern medicine could exist without its "professional setting". But this is not just about the expense. It is also specialised behaviour of those in the medical profession, in specialised locations like hospitals, which really leads to a kind of quarantining of sick people.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
While it may be philosophically satisfying to chuck modern medicine and go back to mustard patches and leeches (or whatever level of medical expertise a family can provide/afford on its own) it seems both individually and socially desstructive.
Presumably you think that this somehow addresses something I have said. Who knows why...
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
What baffles me is your insistence that using the state to fix these rather obvious failures of the family system is pernicious to families
You clearly have a hard time understanding what I have actually said. As is, you are baffled by your own imagination here, which reads all manner of wild and wonderful things into our discussion.
Here's a handy hint: saying "it is good that the state has replaced the family concerning X" is not actually in any disagreement with the statement "the state has replaced the family concerning X".
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Can anyone think of an example of a state collapsing due to extravagantly generous social spending?
Who knows. But more importantly, who cares? The existence of such a state, or its non-existence, or if you wish its Schrödinger's cat like indeterminate existence, has nothing to do with anything I have said.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
which is something we'd expect to see if social spending is so corrosive to social cohesion.
Good man, what are you talking about? Seriously.
Saying "without the state maintaining a social support system at considerable expense, people will revert to their families as their support system" is not actually saying anything remotely like "social spending corrodes social cohesion."
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Yes, I think that's right, quetzalcoatl. AIUI it's why ++ JC McQuaid (who I sometimes suspect Ingo thinks was a slippery liberal ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ) put the kybosh on the Mother and Child Scheme.
But what Esping-Anderson called the Conservative-Corporatist model of welfare does fairly haappily with RC, or at least Christian Democratic, teaching.
[ 21. April 2015, 16:56: Message edited by: Albertus ]
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's a traditional Catholic position, isn't it?
It hasn't anything to do with "Catholicism". That the modern state has taken over much of the previous role of the family is simple historical fact. That family bonds will reassert themselves if the state stops doing so is my own reasonable speculation. Whether the state is "helping" families depends on your definition of "helping", really. It certainly is true that modern nuclear families, like for example my own, could not live as they do without the state provisions we all have become accustomed to. I have already affirmed that above.
What Crœsos is desperately fishing for is some conservative programme he can unload his sophistical polemics on. But I have not actually offered any particular opinion on what we all should do now, or what Catholicism should teach, or whatever. I have certainly not proposed that we should switch off our social systems, and then will live happily ever after in familial bliss. Heck, I have no family (but for my very nuclear one) within a 500 mile radius.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
AIUI it's why ++ JC McQuaid (who I sometimes suspect Ingo thinks was a slippery liberal ) put the kybosh on the Mother and Child Scheme.
Up to this moment I had never heard of ++McQuaid or the "Mother and Child Scheme". FWIW, I consider NHS-style "universal health care" to be much preferable in our societies to any sort of private / commercial scheme. Though I reckon that it may be necessary to allow the rich to pay through their noses for non-essential "premium care" (like say a single bed room in hospital) in order to finance a good standard of general health care.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Which is pure revisionist nonsense.
Of course, if to you "history" sort of starts around the time of the industrial revolution, and "pre-history" is then perhaps the renaissance, then you might have some semblance of a point.
Since I'm addressing your criticisms of widespread government social programs (or "the nanny state" in your terminology) I am naturally discussing the historical period in which such programs have existed. If you think prior eras had comparable systems which would profitably be discussed in this context, go ahead and give the specifics.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Here's a handy hint: saying "it is good that the state has replaced the family concerning X" is not actually in any disagreement with the statement "the state has replaced the family concerning X".
But "it is good that the state has replaced the family concerning X" is incompatible with statements like "The nanny state is as far as the "divide and conquer" approach against the family will go", which posits that the nanny state is divisive, comparable to conquest, and "against the family".
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Can anyone think of an example of a state collapsing due to extravagantly generous social spending?
Who knows. But more importantly, who cares? The existence of such a state, or its non-existence, or if you wish its Schrödinger's cat like indeterminate existence, has nothing to do with anything I have said.
Well, nothing except "The nanny state is as far as the "divide and conquer" approach against the family will go, but it is inherently unstable and requires continuous economic success to finance its tremendous upkeep". If you're going to posit the inherent instability of such systems, you'd think at least a couple would have collapsed in the decades that they've been in existence, especially since the condition you posit for their continuation ("continuous economic success") doesn't seem to hold. If, as you suggest, the social welfare state is just one economic downturn away from total collapse, why haven't we seen the abandonment of such systems during the various economic downturns that have occurred since their formation? In fact, one could argue that it was the Great Depression that provided the greatest impetus for the formation of the various social welfare states that exist today, which seems the exact opposite of your hypothesis on the subject.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Since I'm addressing your criticisms of widespread government social programs (or "the nanny state" in your terminology) I am naturally discussing the historical period in which such programs have existed. If you think prior eras had comparable systems which would profitably be discussed in this context, go ahead and give the specifics.
I have right from the start discussed all this in the context of the entire history of mankind, indeed, including pre-history as far as we can include that. Certainly I have been comparing the modern state and its associated family structure with the family system of antiquity to medieval times (and probably beyond, till roughly the industrial age), or indeed with "primitive" contemporary settings as far as they still exist. Others, like Alan, did get perfectly what I have been talking about, so I cannot have been that opaque in my writings.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
But "it is good that the state has replaced the family concerning X" is incompatible with statements like "The nanny state is as far as the "divide and conquer" approach against the family will go", which posits that the nanny state is divisive, comparable to conquest, and "against the family".
But that's simply dealing with a totally different level. I'm basically talking about socio-political power there, not about "welfare outcomes". If you lived in ancient Greece, then it was your "oikos" (roughly, extended household) that was the primary socio-political factor in your life. Yes, there was a king, or perhaps a direct democracy, but for everyday life they were marginal. For young men, those external "players" might be an unfortunate, occasional source of sudden death (through warfare...), but for the most part your "oikos" determined the circumstances of your life. In the 21stC Western civilisation, that is very much not the case. To a very large extent, your daily life is shaped by the state, from tax over health care to traffic law. How we get from one to the other is basically through an extended power grab of the state from the family. What else? Power does not simply shift randomly. Of course, every step of the way may well have been motivated by real or imagined advantages. That's a different question. My point is quite simply that the "patriarch" who determines much of my life is not my dad, or my uncle, or some other blood relation, or even some tribal associate. It is one David Cameron, who has fuck all to do with my family other than having lots of power over it through the agency of the state.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If you're going to posit the inherent instability of such systems, you'd think at least a couple would have collapsed in the decades that they've been in existence, especially since the condition you posit for their continuation ("continuous economic success") doesn't seem to hold.
I don't think that the modern West has had a crisis yet that made the state sufficiently dysfunctional for long enough. Well, at least not in the last two centuries and not across multiple nations. I would assume that say Germany after the Thirty Years War was about as functional as say Syria now, and that you wouldn't have put your hope in the state in either. But there hasn't been an "end of the Roman empire" sort of crash that would have wiped out our entire mode of living across most of its domain.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
In fact, one could argue that it was the Great Depression that provided the greatest impetus for the formation of the various social welfare states that exist today, which seems the exact opposite of your hypothesis on the subject.
Not really. If your grip gets loosened until you almost fumble, it's a common reaction to tighten your grip more than ever before in response.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
A good specific example of a necessary social program is Workers' Compensation, which provided for income replacement benefits and medical costs. This needed to happen because no-one was actually meeting either costs for workers injured on the job; this ain't speculation, the fact was that injured workers who could no longer work could only sue for their injuries, and if they hadn't the resources to sue, they were out of luck.
The idea that family could provide this was simply false of the basis of the Canadian Royal Commission established to investigate it, commonly known as the Meredith Commission. Here's a PDF with easy read history.
One things that is curious about some of the argument in this thread is that some posters seem to assume that the ideas came before the need. Which is manifestly false and illogical. In this specific WC example, the fact of injured workers in poverty created the need. And no, their families weren't either willing or capable of helping.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But that's simply dealing with a totally different level. I'm basically talking about socio-political power there, not about "welfare outcomes".
I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction. Very few people want power for power's sake. Most who seek power do so in order to use it to achieve some end, like "welfare outcomes".
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
To a very large extent, your daily life is shaped by the state, from tax over health care to traffic law. How we get from one to the other is basically through an extended power grab of the state from the family. What else? Power does not simply shift randomly.
This seems a false dichotomy, assuming that agents of the state do not have families and that members of families are not also citizens of the state. Theoretically they're controllers of the state in democratic systems. It seems much more plausible to posit that families and the state are two means by which people attempt to achieve various ends, not competing and incompatible power blocs. Characterizing a shift from one method to the other as "power grab", with all its implications of illegitimacy, misses the real underlying dynamics. It should also be fairly obvious that these aren't the only two power centers in society and that a lot of what can be characterized as "the nanny state" was put in place to curb the influence of entities that are neither families nor states. (See npfiss' previous post for an obvious example.)
It might help if you could be a bit clearer on what it is you mean by "the nanny state". It's a term which has alternately been applied to the regulatory state (the folks who implemented stuff like workplace safety regulations, the minimum wage, clean air standards, etc.) or the social welfare state (socialized medicine, old age pension, public education, etc.). Which of these do you mean, or do you include both? And why is it families specifically that you claim have suffered diminishment under such systems.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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tomsk
Shipmate
# 15370
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Posted
In the UK the 'nanny state' is connected with the idea of the 'cradle to grave' welfare state, which was the vision of the post-WWII founders.
Putting aside the rough and the smooth, I think it's right to say that western society requires a pumping operation in terms of resources to maintain it (in Europe it's showing signs of strain, such as the formerly key element of housing slipping back into the open market).
The question was posed above how western families would rise out of the ashes of a society collapse. Sadly, lots of people would starve, particularly townies like me. I guess the kind of families that would do best would be those who may be not at the top of the pile now but already have strong families (e.g. gypsies, or, in America people living in bunkers waiting for Armageddon).
Maggie Thatcher said there's no such thing as society, only individuals and families.
Posts: 372 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2009
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Part of the Soldier's Covenant which all members of The Salvation Army sign is this undertaking:
quote:
I will maintain Christian ideals in all my relationships with others; my family and neighbours, my colleagues and fellow Salvationists, those to whom and for whom I am responsible, and the wider community.
I will uphold the sanctity of marriage and of family life.
I stand by that.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction.
I am.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Very few people want power for power's sake. Most who seek power do so in order to use it to achieve some end, like "welfare outcomes".
Very few people want power to achieve some specific end, like "welfare outcomes". Most who seek power do so in order to have power. (Oh, and assertion is fairly dealt with by counter-assertion.)
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This seems a false dichotomy, assuming that agents of the state do not have families and that members of families are not also citizens of the state.
For those who are in power through the state, a gain of power for the state through diminishing the power of the family is still a net gain in power.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It should also be fairly obvious that these aren't the only two power centers in society and that a lot of what can be characterized as "the nanny state" was put in place to curb the influence of entities that are neither families nor states.
True enough. Though "business" is once more a power that has largely grown out of, and ultimately at the expense of, families.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It might help if you could be a bit clearer on what it is you mean by "the nanny state". It's a term which has alternately been applied to the regulatory state (the folks who implemented stuff like workplace safety regulations, the minimum wage, clean air standards, etc.) or the social welfare state (socialized medicine, old age pension, public education, etc.). Which of these do you mean, or do you include both? And why is it families specifically that you claim have suffered diminishment under such systems.
It's not a term I'm wedded to, in particular if it keeps misleading the discussion. I would generally use it more for the latter (social welfare) than the former (regulation), though I don't think that these aspects are neatly distinct.
And I'm bemused that you don't seem to grasp my simple point here. The social unit that helps you survive your childhood, educates you, provides you with work opportunities, secures your young family, protects your children, insures you against loss of work or other financial disasters, helps you in sickness, provides and cares for you in your old age, and lays your remains to rest - that social unit will be rather important to you, because it shapes your life. Largely, this is now the state. Largely, this used to be your family. Consequently, social importance has shifted from the family to the state. This is then a kind of diminishment of the family, even if you would argue that every single person involved is doing better in the state system than in the family system. The point is not the net individual outcome, the point is that social power clearly has shifted.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
IngoB quote:
If you lived in ancient Greece, then it was your "oikos" (roughly, extended household) that was the primary socio-political factor in your life.
Could that have been said of Sparta?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Could that have been said of Sparta?
I'm not a scholar of Greek history, but AFAIK - yes, in spite of the obvious attempts of the Spartan state to militarise society and organise in particular the men into communities of soldiers, the oikoi retained their social importance in Sparta. In fact, IIRC in some ways they remained more "publicly important" than for example in Athens. For example, the necessity for a foreigner to be "registered" with some oikos during his stay persisted longer in Sparta, whereas in Athens dealing with foreigners became more a matter of the polis. But it has been many years since I last read about this, somewhere...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
How largely?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Personally I would say that marriage and the family are one of the basis of society, but that doesn't mean they are the only basis of society. Or that if you aren't part of a marriage or a family you're not part of society. It seems to me that society is the interlocking of individuals to form increasingly greater units, and certainly one of those units can be a marriage and family. But that doesn't mean it's the only unit.
this
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Part of the Soldier's Covenant which all members of The Salvation Army sign is this undertaking:
quote:
I will maintain Christian ideals in all my relationships with others; my family and neighbours, my colleagues and fellow Salvationists, those to whom and for whom I am responsible, and the wider community.
I will uphold the sanctity of marriage and of family life.
I stand by that.
Nobody has questioned that marriage and family life is good, just that family might not necessarily be blood relatives.
You still haven't answered my question as to why you assume people here are anti-family and why I as a single person am not as valuable to society.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
As for the extended family, in Europe it only really came into its own from the Industrial Revolution onwards. Prior to this, people didn't live long enough to have a family unit including grandparents, though aunts/uncles and cousins would have helped. Certainly grandparents providing childcare wasn't the norm. Childhood was much shorter, don't forget, and working-class children would have helped parents in the field - there was less need for childcare anyway.
So the so-called 'traditional family' is really not very traditional. Sending your child to be a ward of a nearby noble is much more traditional!
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
As for the extended family, in Europe it only really came into its own from the Industrial Revolution onwards. Prior to this, people didn't live long enough to have a family unit including grandparents, though aunts/uncles and cousins would have helped.
This is a very contentious assertion. If - a big if - you made it past your fifth birthday, it was likely that you were going to live until your mid-forties, which is easily old enough to be a grandparent. Living until fifty or sixty wasn't exceptional, and neither did you have to be one of the landed gentry to attain such an age.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
The history of treatment of people with significant disabilities suggests that institutions (initially often private, then usually turned over to government as they became too expensive) arose in response to the failures of families to deal with their disabled members humanely.
These failures, though far from universal, were fairly spectacular when they arose. Safe and humane handling of people with severe mental retardation and chronic mental illness takes resources -- money, information, technology, and technique.
In the US, institutional care arose in response to finding individuals chained, beaten, locked up, starved, and otherwise mistreated by their families because the families lacked resources to deal with them. The "natural order" from earlier times was that such individuals often did not survive infancy / childhood. As human progress improved general health for many, more such individuals survived into adulthood, where they could not take on the roles required of them by both family and society -- economic and familial contributions which constituted "normal" life.
Massachusetts, as far as I know, became the first US state to establish, in the 1850s, a publicly-funded institution for the care of what were then termed "imbeciles" and the "feeble-minded."
The original aim of this institution was to rescue these folks from the abuse suffered at the hands of their families and train them in some simple-but-useful repetitive task, render them somewhat more "normal" and “useful” and return them to their families of origin.
There was one little hiccup in this grand design: families frequently refused to take their disabled member back. Freed temporarily of the often burdensome supervision (and sometimes outright danger from) the disabled person in their midst, they were more than happy to maintain that freedom.
Where families have the capacities needed to provide proper care – adequate money to hire extra help, adequate education to understand and provide the specialized care required, adequate psychological stability to weather the necessary changes involved as infant becomes youth becomes full-sized adult while remaining socially and vocationally unable to contribute to family welfare, adequate social standing to weather the stigma attaching to having a disabled member, etc. – it’s possible to rely on them for this care.
Families without these resources, however, frequently fall apart even in today’s so-called “nanny state” under the extreme strain of trying to care for a family member with significant disabilities.
What IngoB says about the cyclical nature of these phenomena is also true. It didn’t take much time after the founding of Fernald, Wrentham, and Belchertown State Schools in Massachusetts for abuses to begin appearing in institutional care. By the 1970s, we had a movement in New Hampshire to close institutions and return folks to their families and “communities” – often where they had never lived – where, guess what? We now find they are preyed upon and abused there.
I don't claim to know what forms the "basis" for a strong society, but one thing is certain: the relationship between society and family has to be capable of being understood by both parties as a partnership, and not as a potentially mortal contest.
I think we've lost that plot in the US.
[ 22. April 2015, 13:16: Message edited by: Porridge ]
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
As for the extended family, in Europe it only really came into its own from the Industrial Revolution onwards. Prior to this, people didn't live long enough to have a family unit including grandparents, though aunts/uncles and cousins would have helped.
This is a very contentious assertion. If - a big if - you made it past your fifth birthday, it was likely that you were going to live until your mid-forties, which is easily old enough to be a grandparent. Living until fifty or sixty wasn't exceptional, and neither did you have to be one of the landed gentry to attain such an age.
Sorry, I realise I was thinking primarily of working-class families and the childcare issue. For people with servants it wasn't an issue anyway.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Personally I would say that marriage and the family are one of the basis of society, but that doesn't mean they are the only basis of society. Or that if you aren't part of a marriage or a family you're not part of society. It seems to me that society is the interlocking of individuals to form increasingly greater units, and certainly one of those units can be a marriage and family. But that doesn't mean it's the only unit.
this
But the above paragraph gives the impression that single people aren't part of families. Of course they are! They may have parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, etc. still living, and still helping them. In other words, even single people benefit from strong families, if they're lucky.
There are quite a few single, youngish people in my extended family. All of us are benefiting from our parents and the wider family.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The social unit that helps you survive your childhood, educates you, provides you with work opportunities, secures your young family, protects your children, insures you against loss of work or other financial disasters, helps you in sickness, provides and cares for you in your old age, and lays your remains to rest - that social unit will be rather important to you, because it shapes your life. Largely, this is now the state. Largely, this used to be your family. Consequently, social importance has shifted from the family to the state.
The problem is that this doesn't really track your earlier assertion that the "nanny state" is the result of a power grab against the family. It's like claiming the Hollande government exercised a power grab against the Roman Empire and, when asked to justify this, pointing out that the piece of land now called "France" is controlled by the Hollande government but that it used to be controlled by the Roman Empire.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This is then a kind of diminishment of the family, even if you would argue that every single person involved is doing better in the state system than in the family system. The point is not the net individual outcome, the point is that social power clearly has shifted.
That's one of the things that's always bothered me about those claiming to be "pro-family". Usually this means supporting the idea of The Family™ while being indifferent or hostile to actual families, particularly families that don't match up very well to The Family™. The indifference to the well-being of the individual family members in the face of preserving the power of The Family™ can lead to some perverse outcomes.
For example, if a man needs heart bypass surgery the options seem to be to let the "nanny state" handle it through socialized medicine or some other risk-pooling system, or to let his wife handle it, either performing the surgery herself of by having enough money on hand to hire a fully trained surgical team and hospital facility. Note that this second option is an almost certain death sentence for anyone who isn't incredibly wealthy or married to a cardiac surgeon. In other words, by ignoring the welfare of the individual members of a family in order to preserve the power dynamics of The Family™ leaves us where we have to destroy the family to save it. It seems perverse to establish a standard that saving a husband's life through state action weakens his family but widowing his wife doesn't.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Could that have been said of Sparta?
I'm not a scholar of Greek history, but AFAIK - yes, in spite of the obvious attempts of the Spartan state to militarise society and organise in particular the men into communities of soldiers, the oikoi retained their social importance in Sparta. In fact, IIRC in some ways they remained more "publicly important" than for example in Athens.
Not surprisingly, I disagree. The "attempts of the Spartan state to militarise society" isn't something that can just be handwaved away. Particularly in the case of male citizens, things like the agoge system (military education in common barracks from age 7 onward) or the mess groups all male citizens were expected to join were in direct conflict with the oikos system. From Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus.
quote:
For a long time this custom of eating at common mess-tables was rigidly observed. For instance, when King Agis, on returning from an expedition in which he had been victorious over the Athenians, wished to dine at home with his wife, and sent for his rations, the Polemarchs refused to send them to him; and when on the following day his anger led him to omit the customary sacrifice, they laid a fine on him.
A fairly clear example where the oikos system comes out on the losing end of a conflict, despite royalty being on its side.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Personally I would say that marriage and the family are one of the basis of society, but that doesn't mean they are the only basis of society. Or that if you aren't part of a marriage or a family you're not part of society. It seems to me that society is the interlocking of individuals to form increasingly greater units, and certainly one of those units can be a marriage and family. But that doesn't mean it's the only unit.
this
But the above paragraph gives the impression that single people aren't part of families. Of course they are! They may have parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, etc. still living, and still helping them. In other words, even single people benefit from strong families, if they're lucky.
There are quite a few single, youngish people in my extended family. All of us are benefiting from our parents and the wider family.
A lot of singles have no functional family.
When a sibling does the "leave and cleave" thing, the church tells them to leave behind their birth families and start a new one, and many do exactly that, not seeing more than once every few years, much less helping, their former family members with possible exception of parents.
Throwaway kids sure don't get family help!
Widows are often family-less, I know several whose one child died in a car wreck and husband is dead.
Assuming singles each have a caring helping family - often no, not at all.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I wasn't assuming that all singles have a functioning family. My point was simply that singles and families aren't necessarily two different categories in society, but are often overlapping categories.
As I've agreed above, though, modern western society does have less use for the family now than in the past. Perhaps the 'leave and cleave' churches you mention are actually a symptom of a more fractured modernising culture, in which the family is coming under increasing pressure. For some people, abandoning the family for much tighter unit is preferable. Others may have hardly any kind of functioning family network of their own, as you say, so I suppose such churches would be particularly attractive to them.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
As for the extended family, in Europe it only really came into its own from the Industrial Revolution onwards. Prior to this, people didn't live long enough to have a family unit including grandparents, though aunts/uncles and cousins would have helped.
This is a very contentious assertion. If - a big if - you made it past your fifth birthday, it was likely that you were going to live until your mid-forties, which is easily old enough to be a grandparent. Living until fifty or sixty wasn't exceptional, and neither did you have to be one of the landed gentry to attain such an age.
There have always been old people. It's common to read "average life expectancy 35" and misread it as saying living to 40 was rare, but with half the kids dying in early childhood, life expectancy of 35 means lots lived to 65 or 70. My long dead father's grandfather lived to 100, long before geriatric medicine! My great great grandma on the prairie birthed ten, buried five, the other 5 all lived into their late 70s or 80s. "Life expectancy 40" because some died early and some lived long.
"1500 - 1800 A.D. From the 1500s to around the year 1800, life expectancy throughout Europe hovered between the ages of 30 and 40." [URL=1500 - 1800 A.D. From the 1500s to around the year 1800, life expectancy throughout Europe hovered between the ages of 30 and 40.]i.e. living to 70+ was pretty common, as was childhood death[/URL]
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow..." (ps 90:10)- and that was written, what, 2500, 3000 years ago?
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
As I've agreed above, though, modern western society does have less use for the family now than in the past.
Less use or less need?
In my work, I see the extreme pressure placed on families by the presence in their midst of a single seriously-disabled child so detrimental to the family's well-being that the unit breaks up.
It is very much to society's benefit if that family remains intact. It is very much to the family's benefit if society steps in with support.
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
As I've agreed above, though, modern western society does have less use for the family now than in the past.
Less use or less need?
In my work, I see the extreme pressure placed on families by the presence in their midst of a single seriously-disabled child so detrimental to the family's well-being that the unit breaks up.
It is very much to society's benefit if that family remains intact. It is very much to the family's benefit if society steps in with support.
Indeed. And this might be the insidious dark side of this nonbliblical "just so" saying that "marriage and family are the basis of the strong society." It sounds so positive, so affirming-- who could possibly object? (as another poster said). But in reality, it's placing an obscene burden on families they were never intended to carry alone. Some will break under the pressure. Others will struggle along heroically, but without the support systems that would help them to not just "manage" but thrive. Far better to think of society as a community-- where we care and support one another-- rather than all these independent fragmented family units.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
And most totalitarian regimes will argue that family is the basis for a strong society. Kinder, Kirche, Kuche!
Or if you are really over-dosing, Kammer, Kinder, Kirche, Keller, Kuche! Chamber, children, church, cellar, kitchen.
[ 22. April 2015, 17:09: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
In the US there is also the steady co-opting of the 'family the best social unit' meme as a cloak for anti-gay rhetoric. Family in this parlance is always defined as man/woman, which means that homosexuals are defined right of society. That the single or solitary are also tossed over the side is less important.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think somebody earlier made the point that right-wing politicians often extol the family, while actually shitting on it, especially poor ones. Oh damn, was it me?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The problem is that this doesn't really track your earlier assertion that the "nanny state" is the result of a power grab against the family. It's like claiming the Hollande government exercised a power grab against the Roman Empire and, when asked to justify this, pointing out that the piece of land now called "France" is controlled by the Hollande government but that it used to be controlled by the Roman Empire.
That comparison does not work at all, since political entities like the Roman Empire come and go (if in the specific case of the Roman Empire extraordinarily slowly), whereas human biology and its immediate social consequences remain the same (at least on historical time scales). The family as a general entity is basically realised human reproductive biology with some fairly "hard-coded" behaviours, and consequently can be identified essentially universally across cultures and times. (Yes, with variations like polygamy vs. monogamy etc. But concepts like "mother" or "brother" are about as universal as it gets.) Hence we can at any point in time and in every culture ask just how socially important the family is, and compare that meaningfully to other times and cultures.
It is just not a particularly bold claim that the family ("blood relations") in ancient Greece played a bigger social role than in say contemporary Britain. I have no idea why you feel obliged to make contrary noises about that.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
That's one of the things that's always bothered me about those claiming to be "pro-family". Usually this means supporting the idea of The Family™ while being indifferent or hostile to actual families, particularly families that don't match up very well to The Family™. The indifference to the well-being of the individual family members in the face of preserving the power of The Family™ can lead to some perverse outcomes.
I have not proposed any sort of contemporary American political agenda that presumably corresponds to the "pro family" label in your head. I have simply stated that the modern state has taken over much of the social support role that ancient families used to have, and thereby also taken over the social importance that providing such support has in the minds of people looking for support. That really isn't a particularly controversial claim. "Blindingly obvious" is more like it.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
For example, if a man needs heart bypass surgery the options seem to be to let the "nanny state" handle it through socialized medicine or some other risk-pooling system, or to let his wife handle it, either performing the surgery herself of by having enough money on hand to hire a fully trained surgical team and hospital facility.
I'm sure that's terribly relevant for something, say the medical policies of some political party in the contemporary USA. But it is not particularly relevant to anything I have said. Maybe you can successfully argue that a family support system cannot possibly work for modern medicine. Fine. Find somebody who cares about that discussion, and have it with them. But do realise that it is just not what I have been discussing, and that it is not something that I particularly care about in what I have been discussing. Please?
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Not surprisingly, I disagree. The "attempts of the Spartan state to militarise society" isn't something that can just be handwaved away.
I didn't wave anything away, but rather gave an explicit example of the practical, social importance that the oikos retained in Sparta. If you feel like making a further study of this, go ahead. It will not however have much relevance, given that Sparta pretty much is known for its exceptional militaristic society. Whether Sparta is a bit more or a bit less exceptional concerning some aspect really does not tell us much about the normal run of things in antiquity...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
]I have not proposed any sort of contemporary American political agenda that presumably corresponds to the "pro family" label in your head. I have simply stated that the modern state has taken over much of the social support role that ancient families used to have, and thereby also taken over the social importance that providing such support has in the minds of people looking for support. That really isn't a particularly controversial claim. "Blindingly obvious" is more like it.
I think it's rather the opposite-- that ancient large, complex, inter-related tribal units with some extended biological "family" connection functioned much like the modern state-- i.e. like communities. As one still sees in many parts of the world. Which is far different from what our modern (or at least American) ears hear when you say "family as the basis of society" since, as we have seen, we hear that as a very small nuclear family.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The problem is that this doesn't really track your earlier assertion that the "nanny state" is the result of a power grab against the family. It's like claiming the Hollande government exercised a power grab against the Roman Empire and, when asked to justify this, pointing out that the piece of land now called "France" is controlled by the Hollande government but that it used to be controlled by the Roman Empire.
That comparison does not work at all, since political entities like the Roman Empire come and go (if in the specific case of the Roman Empire extraordinarily slowly), whereas human biology and its immediate social consequences remain the same (at least on historical time scales).
It's meant to illustrate the major, gaping hole in your "proof" that the state has expanded itself at the expense of the family. Your assertion that because state power is larger it necessarily follows that family power has diminished depends on the premise that there are only two influences in human societies (the family and the state) and if one has greater authority now it can only be because it has stolen it from the other. The possibility that a state's expanded power is gained at the expense of some entity other than the family doesn't even seem to be considered by your analysis.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is just not a particularly bold claim that the family ("blood relations") in ancient Greece played a bigger social role than in say contemporary Britain.
Except you went well beyond that to claim that this situation arose because of a deliberate "power grab" on the part of the state, intentionally designed to "divide and conquer" the family. I find it hard to believe that the folks who implemented the NHS sat around saying "this'll really destroy the family as a social unit!"
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
For example, if a man needs heart bypass surgery the options seem to be to let the "nanny state" handle it through socialized medicine or some other risk-pooling system, or to let his wife handle it, either performing the surgery herself of by having enough money on hand to hire a fully trained surgical team and hospital facility.
I'm sure that's terribly relevant for something, say the medical policies of some political party in the contemporary USA. But it is not particularly relevant to anything I have said.
I picked the example because you claimed your criticisms of the "divide and conquer" nanny state were more geared towards its social welfare aspects than its regulatory ones and social medicine is kind of the hallmark example of the social welfare state. If you prefer I can craft another analogy involving pollution controls.
At any rate, the point is simply that by implementing some kind of risk-pool medical policy the state is not "diminishing" the power of families to set up their own cardiac surgical units, largely because that's not something families ever really did. If you dislike the analogy, it's just as true to say that the state enforcing industrial emissions standards doesn't diminish the power of families to do likewise for more or less the exact same reason.
To me these seem fairly clear examples of the state expanding its power without diminishing the power of families, which undermines your bipolar theory of family-state power relations. In fact, very often these standards can enhance families. If a husband/wife can avoid dying because of state-provided medical intervention (or workplace safety regulations, or emission standards, or whatever example of "nanny state" intervention you won't consider hopelessly American), doesn't that prevent their wife/husband from becoming single parent, a type of family you consider "subpar"? I know you claim that the well being of a family is independent of the well being of its individual members, but this would seem to contradict that by your own asserted standards.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Reacting to the original post: It seems to me that there have been societies not based on marriage and blood ties. I am thinking of convents, monasteries, expatriate communities, some academic institutions and perhaps military units. These are societies one joins rather than into which one is born, and membership may be less than permanent.
I guess there is a question here of what constitutes a society. If a band goes on tour for a year or two, visiting many places, during which time none of the company sees any blood relatives, isn't the band arguably a society? Does a Boy Scout troop on a week-long camping trip constitute a society?
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
And we are all many-faceted. We are members of many subgroups, some of which are surely societies. Churches, neighborhood groups, artistic communities, choirs, soccer teams, school associations -- the list is endless. Some of these are very elaborate, offering many services.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The possibility that a state's expanded power is gained at the expense of some entity other than the family doesn't even seem to be considered by your analysis.
What other entity would that be then? The family was the clearly dominant entity concerning "social welfare", it isn't now. Case closed.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except you went well beyond that to claim that this situation arose because of a deliberate "power grab" on the part of the state, intentionally designed to "divide and conquer" the family. I find it hard to believe that the folks who implemented the NHS sat around saying "this'll really destroy the family as a social unit!"
So all your tedious off-topic repetition stems from an obsession with that one sentence? It was really more a "post hoc" analysis of what they ended up doing, than any specific attribution of intentional policy. Consider it simply retracted, if that is so important to you.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
At any rate, the point is simply that by implementing some kind of risk-pool medical policy the state is not "diminishing" the power of families to set up their own cardiac surgical units, largely because that's not something families ever really did. If you dislike the analogy, it's just as true to say that the state enforcing industrial emissions standards doesn't diminish the power of families to do likewise for more or less the exact same reason.
You keep repeating this as if it is something that should concern me. It doesn't, at all. Perhaps it even provides a partial explanation why we have moved from familial to state-sponsored welfare. But that does not change that we have done so. Which happens to be what I've been saying. Can we move on now?
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
To me these seem fairly clear examples of the state expanding its power without diminishing the power of families, which undermines your bipolar theory of family-state power relations.
Not at all, what are you talking about? In antiquity you would have been cared for by your family when sick, and if your family was influential / rich it might have brought in a shaman / physician. In modernity, you get cared for by professional staff in a setting entirely organised by the state, where practically no family could afford to finance this even if they wanted to. Clearly the social power and status that I attribute due to "caring for me when I'm sick" has to a large extent moved from my family (where it would have been in antiquity) to the state (where it is now). You have simply illustrated what I'm saying with a specific example here.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
In fact, very often these standards can enhance families.
Sigh. Which is entirely irrelevant, since it simply talks about something else. You say the family is "enhanced" because it ends up being "healthier". Maybe so. I say it is "diminished", because it has lost its status as primary health care provider. Can you really not see that these statements do not contradict each other, can be true at the very same time?
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I know you claim that the well being of a family is independent of the well being of its individual members, but this would seem to contradict that by your own asserted standards.
I have not claimed that at all... and it would be a stupid thing to claim.
How about we just agree that for all intents and purposes I speak gibberish to your ears. I have my own opinions why that may be so, and I'm sure you have yours. But I really feel that this discussion here is an utter, bloody waste of time. I at least gain nothing from it but aggravation.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Another interesting point is that many people at the age of 18 or thereabouts, flee the family in fear and loathing. Of course, I jest, and it happens less now with rising house prices. I still remember the massive guilt and relief with which I left. Of course, we go back with our dirty laundry.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
It is very much to society's benefit if that family remains intact. It is very much to the family's benefit if society steps in with support.
I'm sure you're right, but the I think modern society works in a way that makes family life harder to sustain, while also providing the very stresses and strains that make a strong family background a very useful thing to have. IMO this paradox provides a real tension in the culture.
Is it possible to have it all?
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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
And most totalitarian regimes will argue that family is the basis for a strong society. Kinder, Kirche, Kuche!
Or if you are really over-dosing, Kammer, Kinder, Kirche, Keller, Kuche! Chamber, children, church, cellar, kitchen.
Perhaps your comment was not mean to be taken seriously, but even so, it sounds more like a recipe for keeping women busy than a promotion of the family as such. What about the role of fathers, grandmas, uncles, and the duties of children towards elderly parents, etc? Can 'totalitarian regimes' realistically reduce family to what youngish women with small children are supposed to do?
Besides which, 'Kirche' seems less easy to co-opt into the programme these days. Many of today's totalitarian regimes are not Christian. In extremist Islam the business of conducting public religious duties is expected to be carried out by the men, not the women. And even in the most devoutly Christian of countries women have to go out to work. The stay-at-home sectarian mothers with large families still rely on other women (and men) in the society to go out to work and pay the taxes that they rely on.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
I find the "power gap" issue quite interesting - have families conceded power or has it been inveigled from them? The difficulty is that a few subjective experiences do not give an average picture of trends. I see a lot of families who are unwilling to give their children adequate boundaries, and that is possibly the biggest change. Which seems to be a societal shift, with facebook et al also providing a route to a less bounded life. To what extent that trend is encouraged by government policy - I am unsure. In some ways the families are taking more power by refusing to have their children disciplioned at school... Though it's a bit of a no-win strategy.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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quetzalcoatl
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Posted
Svitlana, good points about Kinder, Kirche. I know very little about how fathers, husbands etc. were treated in such regimes. It would be interesting to look at the Soviets, where early liberalization seems to have been followed by the Stalinist conservatism, for example, my memory is that abortion became harder to get.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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