Posted on 02/25/2008 1:13:10 PM PST by Caleb1411
Civilization depends on the health of the traditional family.
That sentiment has become a truism among social conservatives, who typically can't explain what they mean by it. Which is why it sounds like right-wing boilerplate to many contemporary ears.
The late Harvard sociologist Carle C. Zimmerman believed it was true, but he also knew why. In 1947, he wrote a massive book to explain why latter-day Western civilization was now living through the same family crisis that presaged the fall of classical Greece and Rome. His classic "Family and Civilization," which has just been republished in an edited version by ISI Press, is a chillingly prophetic volume that deserves a wide new audience.
In all civilizations, Zimmerman theorized, there are three basic family types. The "trustee" family is tribal and clannish, and predominates in agrarian societies. The "domestic" family model is a middle type centering on the nuclear family ensconced in fairly strong extended-family bonds; it's found in civilizations undergoing rapid development. The final model is the "atomistic" family, which features weak bonds between and within nuclear families; it's the type that emerges as normative in advanced civilizations.
When the Roman Empire fell in the fifth century, the strong trustee families of the barbarian tribes replaced the weak, atomistic Roman families as the foundation of society.
Churchmen believed a social structure that broke up the ever-feuding clans and gave the individual more freedom would be better for society's stability and spent centuries reforming the European family toward domesticity. The natalist worldview advocated by churchmen knit tightly religious faith, family loyalty and child bearing. From the 10th century on, the domestic family model ruled Europe through its greatest cultural efflorescence. But then came the Reformation and the Enlightenment, shifting culture away from tradition and toward the individual. Thus, since the 18th century, the atomistic family has been the Western cultural norm.
Here's the problem: Societies ruled by the atomistic family model, with its loosening of constraints on its individual members, quit having enough children to carry on. They become focused on the pleasures of the present. Eventually, these societies expire from lack of manpower, which itself is a manifestation of a lack of the will to live.
It happened to ancient Greece. It happened to ancient Rome. And it's happening to the modern West. The sociological parallels are startling.
Why should expanding individual freedoms lead to demographic disaster? Because cultures that don't organize their collective lives around the family create policies and structures that privilege autonomous individuals at the family's expense.
In years to come, the state will attempt economic incentives, or something more draconian, to spur childbirth. Europe, which is falling off a demographic cliff, is already offering economic incentives, with scant success. Materialist measures only seem to help at the margins.
Why? Zimmerman was not religious, but he contended the core problem was a loss of faith. Religions that lack a strong pro-fertility component don't survive over time, he observed; nor do cultures that don't have a powerfully natalist religion.
Why should we read Zimmerman today? For one thing, the future isn't fated. We might learn from history and make choices that avert the calamities that overtook Greece and Rome.
Given current trends, that appears unlikely. Therefore, the wise will recognize that the subcultures that survive the demographic collapse will be those that sacrificially embrace natalist values over materialist ones — which is to say, those whose religious convictions inspire them to have relatively large families, despite the social and financial cost.
That doesn't mean most American Christians, who have accepted modernity's anti-natalism. No, that means traditionalist Catholics, "full-quiver" Protestants, ultra-Orthodox Jews, pious Muslims and other believers who reject modernity's premises.
Like it or not, the future belongs to the fecund faithful.
You are quite correct. Mixed up the two most important 14xx dates.
Isn’t that why birthcontrol revolutionized sexuality in America?
In a purely biological sense a person who chooses not to reproduce is a genetic dead-end.
That was the basic point of my earlier post. The rest of your post illustrates one of my secondary points: that you may find that what you thought you wanted isn't really what you wanted in the long term.
Best wishes for your current pregnancy!
I cannot deal with kids. They cause me to have anxiety issues if I am exposed to them for long periods of time. So not having children is a sane choice for me.
Oh, right. You can make public, mocking comments on the vagina of any woman who's on TV. Try that with Ann Coulter or Laura Bush. (Actually, better not: squadrons of FReepers would swarm through your monitor and give you a bloody nose.)
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
I am protected by a big, tattooed, long haired, biker. My husband is all the protection I need.
Oy. I was trying to avoid this thread. Some of the comments are shocking, many are sad. I’ll go back to where in disappointment, I left off.
To each her own. I certainly have known a number of excellent, celibate, non-parent people. Two of my closest friends have made that choice -— wisely, too.
Stop it! I’m falling in love with you!
Same here - homeschooling but paying high school taxes so the illegals can have an education.
Also with my medical issues, kids are not right for us. I had my spine fused in 2006. A pregnancy would create a lot of stress on my spine and make for a difficult pregnancy. I need to work, so missing work for pregnancy and delivery is NOT an option or we would be homeless.
My anxiety issues around kids is also a concern. I do not take medication and I do not want to, I avoid situation where there are a lot of children and I am OK.
There was a time when I wished I had lots of kids, but that was when I lived next to a sneaker factory in Indonesia and was short on cash.
Because some children turn out to be bums...
And how has he arrived at this conclusion? Are there studies to confirm it? Has he interviewed conservatives personally and asked them to explain what they mean, then find out they can't explain themselves? In order to use the modifier "typically", he would have to use a large sampling of that group to make a blanket statement like that. Where is his documentation to back up this assertion?
I am becoming increasingly annoyed with leftist writers who concoct these inflammatory conclusions out of whole cloth with no accountability. This is a form of brainwashing.
Hey...
Still kicking...
:)
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