The Family in Search of Extinction

The “traditional family” that Christians and conservatives fervently defend against feminist, gayzist, pansexualist harassment, etc., as well as against the usurpation of homeland power by the State, is essentially the nuclear family consisting of father, mother and children (few). Cinema enshrined this image as a living symbol of the fundamental values of American culture, and transmitted it to all countries in the US cultural orbit.

But this family model is not traditional. It is a by-product of the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. The first dismantled regional cultures and family work units where agricultural or artisanal skills were passed down from father to son over the generations; traditional families broke up into small uprooted units, who came to the cities in search of jobs. The French Revolution completed the service, abolishing the traditional ties of territorial, family, personal and group loyalty and establishing instead a new system of legal and bureaucratic bonds in which the obligation of each individual goes to the State first and only secondarily - by permission of the State - to your family and friends. The “natural” society, formed over the centuries without any planning, by experience and error, was finally replaced by the planned, rational-bureaucratic society, in which human atoms, amputated from any deep personal and organic connection, only have with each other mechanical relationships based on state regulations or surface affinities born from casual encounters in work and leisure environments. Such is the basis and origin of the modern nuclear family.

Max Weber describes this process as an essential chapter in the “disenchantment of the world”, in which the loss of a greater sense of existence is poorly compensated by ideological substitutes, by the public entertainment industry and by a “religion” increasingly stripped of its own essential function of shaping the culture as a whole. Under these conditions, Weber points out, it is natural that the search for a connection with the profound meaning of existence reflects on the intimacy of increasingly restricted environments, among which, of course, the nuclear family. But, insofar as this is a highly regulated legal entity and increasingly exposed to intrusions by state authority, it gradually ceases to be the ideal shelter for intimacy and is replaced, in that function, by extramarital relations.

Separated from patriarchal protection, loose in space, entirely dependent on the state bureaucracy that crushes it, the modern nuclear family is by its very structure a very fragile entity, unable to withstand the impact of accelerated social changes and each “crisis of generations” that necessarily accompanies them. Far from being the abode of traditional values, it is a stage in a comprehensive historical-social process that goes towards the total eradication of family authority and its replacement by the impersonal power of bureaucracy.

Not coincidentally, the crumbling of society in small family units permanently threatened with self-destruction was accompanied by the unprecedented strengthening of a few patriarchal families, precisely those who were and are in the lead in the same process. I refer to the noble and financial dynasties that today constitute the nucleus of the globalist elite. The more a “social science” subsidized by these great fortunes persuades the population that the dissolution of patriarchalism was a great progress for freedom and human rights, the more strongly the mandatory elite clings to the patriarchal continuity that guarantees the perpetuation and expansion of its power over the generations. With all the evidence, the patriarchal family is a source of power: the social history of the last two centuries is that of transforming patriarchal power into a privilege of the very rich, simultaneously denied to millions of fools whose children learn, in the university, to celebrate the end of patriarchy as the advent of an almost paradisiacal era of freedom. The inevitable development of this process is the destruction - or self-destruction - of the nuclear families themselves, or what remains of them after each new “generation crisis”.

The “defense of the family” becomes, in this context, the defense of an abstract entity whose correspondent in the concrete world only came into existence for the purpose of extinguishing. The feminist, gayzist or pansexualist threat exists, but it only becomes fearful thanks to the intrinsic fragility of the entity against which it turns.

Either families are grouped into larger units based on deep and lasting personal ties, or their eradication is just a matter of time. Religious communities sometimes function as temporary shelters where families find protection and solidarity. But these communities are based on strict moral uniformity, which excludes divergent people, which is why they become easy victims of the drainage of the faithful by the “crisis of generations”. The patriarchal family is not an ethical-dogmatic unit: it is a biological and functional unit forged around permanent objective interests, where the bad and misfits always end up being used in some function useful to the group.

Ultimately, if patriarchy was a bad thing, the rich would not keep it jealously for themselves, but would distribute it to the poor, preferring instead to crumble into small nuclear families. If they do precisely the opposite, it is because they know what they are doing.

It sucks to be a theist who is witnessing their precious customs of disenfranchisement, hate, and exclusion being challenged.

Do you understand that those years you yearn to return to practiced slavery, and women did not have the vote? What about the slaves? Families torn apart and sold as property by those nuclear theist families?

Count the number of blacks in this movie clip reminiscent of those “good old days”.

Hint … ZERO

@David_Killens

Is that Buster Keaton sitting at the table?

Apart from that; "Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be’ (anon) Corollary “’-and it never was” (Tarquin S Shagnasty)***

***It’s pronounced Shaw-ness -ee.

Which book? It’s over 40 years since I read Weber. I remember thinking 'The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism" was excellent. Arguably the best thing he wrote.

I don’t agree that we have reached that point just yet, but I think we’re getting close.

Not quite yet.

It can be argued that Marx’s lumpenproletariat are far better off than they were two hundred , or even 100 years ago in every measurable factor of which I can think…

In Australia we have the concept of the affluent working class. So much so that at leas one modern writer*** has claimed that Australia is a country without class.

My own position is that Australia may be accurately described as a middle class hegemony.****

IMO the two greatest social changes in western society within the last 200 years have been (1) the positive changes in the position of women and (2) with affluence the steady but sure erosion of the superstitions of religions towards secular humanism.

The correlation between poverty, ignorance and religiosity is so common, that I’d be willing to bet the connection is causal. As far as I’m aware, there is not one affluent society on earth which has had an increase in religiosity over say the last generation.

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

***In “Equality And Opportunity” Sol Encel uses the interactionist perspective brought into disrepute by Margaret Mead . Petr Worsley described that approach as naive.

*** My position is supported by Raewyn Conell in “Ruling Class Ruling Culture”

Buster Keaton, check, a youngish 55 year old. He also directed this movie with R.Z. Leonard a largely forgotten Hollywood director.

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A lie, the only thing that is rightly “harassed” are bigots like you who try to insist everyone else must conform to your view of what a family must be. You and your ilk are the bigots doing the harassing, as no one is telling you how your family should look.

So fucking what, cultural attitudes are constantly evolving, just because something represents a traditional viewpoint doesn’t grant bigots the right to insist no other options are valid. If that were the case we’d still hang on to traditions like public executions, and bear and badger baiting, dog fighting, etc etc etc…

QED, as I said cultural values and traditions evolve.

Nonsense, define obligation here, as I smell a large dollop of your hidden bigoted semantics. To push your creepy pernicious religious extremism on us yet again.

What a truly asinine claim, was that what all that verbiage was building to?

Your views as usual are facile nonsense that underpin your bigoted and idiotic religious extremism. As is always the case you’ve pasted a swathe of irrelevant text, which doesn’t evidence or even support your main assertion produced like a conjuror’s bunch of flowers right at the end.

Give 5 reasons a patriarchal family is better than any other, and I’ll produce five good reasons it can be deeply pernicious.

Your arguments are facile nonsense, used to preach intolerant religious extremism to what is ostensibly a forum of atheists.

As before I can only infer you’re either none too bright, and or you’re attempting to troll.

All very sad really…see you in a few weeks for another of your absurd cut and pastes…

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These same patriarchs that make family alliances with their offspring to grow their combined wealth (arranges marriage). The offspring are duly “trained” to accept these arrangements for the preservation and growth of their power. Setting aside their personal needs, wants, pursuits, identity, they follow the authoritarian rulership of their patriarch and as long as it’s hush, hush :shushing_face: indulge their personal desires outside of their business contract marriages.

BTW they have paid nannies that raise the kids.

Next time, write from your own thoughts :thought_balloon:; it gives some indication that YOU do your own thinking.

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Jerry Falwell Jr’s net worth is estimated at $100 million.

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I’ve been watching a series on Youtube about the mob presented by an alleged former capo regime… He claims that nepotism is very common in the mafia. The idea being that “blood is thicker than water”

I have never benefited from nepotism. The personal cost was too high. Nor have I ever done business with family. My brother did, and the bastard ripped him off.

Nepotism is alive and well in Oz. Most visibly arguably from James Packer, son of Kerry Packer. James owns the $billion Crown Casino group. Currently under investigation for money laundering and links with organised crime. So far it’s just the company, not James Packer.