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.
So, she’ll probably have happy holidays.
There can be a lot behind that one comment.
Someone to love. Someone to care for. Someone you can bless. Someone to say “life goes on.” Someone to make your life meaningful and timeless. Someone for you to focus on other than yourself. A gift to the entire world.
I hadn't understand your words in that sense. Of course people who treat kids like things have the wrong attitude. One must respect the child as a person, not a chattel: he belongs to God and to himself.
“Having kids so you’ll be taken care of in your dotage is NOT the model God created,”
I didn’t say that’s the ONE reason. The older take care of the younger, the productive take care of the older/feeble, etc., we all take care of one another.
And God did indeed institute the family, starting with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and it was the only institution for a very long time. Many of His laws concern protecting it (Honor Your Father and Your Mother, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adulter) and there is a whole structure of headship and submission, rights and responsibilities laid out both in the New Testament and the Old.
The family is THE vehicle for social care and continuance.
I respect the right of anyone not to procreate. But even if they don’t, they are part of a family, too! Except in rare instances of being total orphans.
In my family, our mother insisted on doing everything her way. It was literally her way or the highway. Looking back, it was a good thing to force us kids out of the house and become productive citizens.
I just don't understand what could be wrong with a family whose members care for each other intergenerationally: an interdependent, mutually supportive family.
Discostu seems to be interpreting this as a vile plan to trap children into a state of servile subjection, tyrannized by their demanding elders. That's not it at all. It's natural and good for members of a family to bear each others' burdens out of love for one another.
Ephesians 6:1-5
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
"Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise—
"that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."
Fathers, do not exasperate your children;
instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
And here is another beautiful reading on that topic.
It is not "vile," but very pleasing to the Lord for sons (and daughters) to comfort their parents, I would say especially when the children are adults and the parents are old and feeble.
Yeah, read the follow up posts to that one.
Thank you for the well wishes. I never thought that I'd get married, I have always enjoyed the single life.
In short I'll say that I agree. But what is interesting is that you see more of this with the "yuppies". It's almost like they became "only children" (if you know what I mean) as earning went up.
” always thought the more important ingredient was the (usual) bond that takes place afterwards”
You nailed it. I was unplanned but (as far as I know!) never unwanted. Oh, there may have been a moment or two of panic, of ‘this isn’t what I wanted/planned’, of the what-am-I-going-to-do, of the feeling of not wanting a baby. I’m not so naive as to think my mom was overjoyed right from the get-go. But from the time I was born, I was loved and wanted by both parents. I never felt one iota of resentment or aggravation due to the circumstances of my birth (back in the 60s, hurried wedding in Elkton, MD). I feel very fortunate to have the family I do, the parents I got. And who knows - it may *have* been too much fruity wine at a reception!
Did I mention that I’m really happy for you and the Mrs.? WHOOP-WHOOOP-WHOOP!
“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”
I’ve seen that sort of thing with folks who place more value on materialism than they do the quality of the relationships with their children.
I’ve also seen it with people who attempt to live out their unfulfilled dreams through their kids, and make their kids feel like failures if they don’t achieve it (even though they didn’t achieve it themselves either)
But I have also seen quite alot of people who are changed by the whole experience of becoming a parent.
I’ve personally known some very career driven women who had plans set-in-stone before the birth - just to change their whole outlook and all those plans after the birth.
People are funny - you never know how they will deal with it until they are handed the deck of cards.
yeah...it would seem having a child would require some physical proximity to the father - and living together as a family once the child is born.
Out of our 8, only 3 of them arrived after careful planning and discussion.
We tell the others that they arrived on God’s schedule, and it was our job to welcome them to the world.
Despite the different circumstances of their conceptions, I cannot say “oh - I love baby #2 most because his conception and birth were more conveniently planned..”
No...we love them all.
Here's a poem for you by Gerard Manley Hopkins: he's got an unusual, characteristic meter (called "sprung rhythm")-- if you read it aloud in a proclaiming way, it's good:
At the Wedding-March
God with honour hang your head,
Groom, and grace you, bride, your bed
With lissome scions, sweet scions,
Out of hallowed bodies bred.
Each be other’s comfort kind:
Déep, déeper than divined,
Divine charity, dear charity,
Fast you ever, fast bind.
Then let the March tread our ears:
I to Him turn with tears
Who to wedlock, his wonder wedlock,
Déals tríumph and immortal years.
It turns into unexpected joy.
And a little house-remodeling tizzy :o)
yes...when did it become that love and joy had to be “planned”?
And why can’t initial shock and surprise eventually wind up developing into something good?
We do have 9 months to get used to the idea afterall.
I dreamed that I was in labor last night, but it turned out I just had a cat lying on my stomach. (Small cat, but she was clawing.) In my dream, I was trying to figure how to keep my mother from finding out.
“In my dream, I was trying to figure how to keep my mother from finding out.”
OMG!!
That is always my greatest hurdle! How to tell MOM!
This time I was nearly 3 months along before I decided I couldn’t hide it anymore.
Hard to hide it once you’ve had the baby :-). I suppose I could say I was babysitting, but our kids all look exactly like each other!
I was also (as I went into labor in a very businesslike way) giving my husband instructions about the Spanish Mass for Sunday and trying to teach Anoreth the descant on the “Amen.” I think I need a vacation, or at least a night with no catz.
your mind sounds very busy...that happens when you have so many people running around you all day.
My most common nightmare is that I’ve had one that I’ve lost track of and I think to myself “where IS he? and how long has it been since I’ve fed him?”
Just when I consider the likelihood I am heading for prison or a mental institution, I wake up - do a quick count - and breathe a sigh of relief.
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