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.
From what I’ve seen wanting kids for self serving reasons leads to kids as props, and people don’t bond with props, people don’t change because of props. Some might, it’s a wide world of possibilities out there, but in general people who want kids for ego driven reasons aren’t going to really love the kids, and aren’t going to grow them into emotionally healthy adults. The good news is the kids will probably not like them and not do what they wanted the kid for in the first place, which has a certain grim humor to it.
Actually, it was Thanksgiving that was specifically mentioned. Go figure. I do see what you are saying, though.
She also doesn’t live with her husband, so any act of conception will take a miracle. No, they aren’t separated. She never moved out of her father’s house after she got married. Her husband lives one place and she lives another.
Wow. Perhaps you should suggest she adopt a cat instead. Remind her that they can be dressed up in seasonal costumes.
Did I mention she’s an idiot?
Nix the cat idea. Suggest a Chia pet instead.
There is, certainly, such a thing as a disordered love or a disordered need. An adult who has children for the purely instrumental purpose of making servants out of them would be rather a monster. Children belong to themselves, and to God; they are not their parents' chattel.
But is that what you're getting at?
There are some people who just choose to get married and then do not precisely "choose" or "plan" children, but accept their children as they come. They accept them out of generosity or inadvertence, out of piety or a flexible sense of hospitality. They may well have hopes and dreams, but none of them can be absolutely imposed on the children as if the child had an obligation to perform on a contract.
Is that what you're talking about?
Why is this idiotic? It's a positive good to bring new human beings into the world, and wanting them around on holidays is a lot better than not wanting them around on holidays.
If you didn't want children "around," why would you have them?
I'm assuming she knows that childrens are 24/7/365 persons, and not merely holiday paraphernalia, right?
LMAO! Maybe a cement goose for the front porch that she can dress up in seasonal attire?
Again the objection isn’t to hope, the objection is to that being the REASON to have kids. “I’m having kids to keep me company in my 70s and remember me after I die” is NOT hope, it is not anything that even resembles hope, it is a sad shallow motivation for bringing life into this world, a motivation that leads to children as props.
What I’m getting at is exactly what I’ve sad. That there are very shallow reasons to have kids, and that the people who put forth those shallow reasons tend to be the ones quickest to accuse the childless of being shallow.
Exactly.
She’s an idiot for various reasons and this is just one of them.
I’m sorry, but having kids just so you have someone else to set a plate for at Thanksgiving is stupid. What is she going to do with it the other 354 days per year? She’d be better off with the aforementioned Chia Pet or cement front porch goose.
She has a 7 year old step-daughter who “doesn’t count” (her words, not mine).
The Nazis managed to pervert and slime even good things. I guess that’s the usual way of evil.
That is a very ominous indication.
Exactly
If what you’re saying is that people ought not to see children as “things” which are brought into being in order to satisfy our own self-centered needs, then we’re in ageement.
You know what though? They are better off not having children, if that’s the way they feel. If you can’t put aside that self centeredness, the kids lose out. Children should absolutely be wanted.
What I’m saying is that the reasons given by many people for having kids are often at least as shallow as they claim the childless are. That bringing people into existence just to take care of you in your 70s is lame, that genetic immortality is a sad motivating factor, and that because the people who throw these reasons around are also quick to scorn others I enjoy scorning them right back.
Oh. Scorn payback. I get it now.
They deserve scorn one way or the other. They’ve got the mentality that makes prop kids, that’s how you get the Britney Spears and Paris Hiltons of the world.
“I don’t think creating people to keep you company when you’re old and remember you after you die is any kind of love, it’s a pretty sad reason to make a kid.”
What would be a happy reason to make a kid?
I think that care in your old age is ONE legitimate reason. The first institution God created was the family. It’s how we go on; the adults care for the kids, the kids learn and grow and get independent, when anyone in the family is sick/injured the others provide for them, when they get to old those of a productive age take care of them.
What is wrong with that model? It is efficient self-sufficiency, with no government intervention. No one is getting taxed for it, people are getting loved, and there is very healthy social interaction.
What is the alternative? Every man for himself! Only the strong survive! Weak/ill/crippled/old to the trash! Kids raised by the state, but only if deemed to be potentially productive in the future! That’s no way to live. That’s commie talk (how they long to destroy the family!)
“We made that decision in the early 60s.”
That’s your perogative, of course, but I was born in ‘63.
I have married one man, had five kids, and we have voted conservative all of our lives. One kid is an adult now, Christian fellow, he and his wife vote Repub and we have all been quite charitable in our behavior.
We homeschooled all of our lives, so we weren’t much of a drain on the property taxes.
We are not wealthy and have never owned a home. But we pay our bills on time, usually.
All this to say, with all due modesty, I think the world is a better place for us being here. I think it will continue to be a better place for us being here, and our kids, and our grandkids.
Because you like kids, you want to raise kids, and you want to give over your life for them.
Having them to take care of you is selfish, shallow and frankly vile.
Having kids so you’ll be taken care of in your dotage is NOT the model God created, that’s a man made model that’s wrong in every possible way on every possible level. You should be having kids for THEIR sake not YOURS. Having kids is the ultimate commitment, if you do a good job they will take care of you, but if that’s the only reason you’re having them you WON’T do a good job. That’s kids as props, way outside of God’s design.
And actually what you outlined is commie talk, raising one generation with the goal of them taking care of the previous, that’s the ultimate collectivism. And definitely no way to live.
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