"The Blue Model marriage sees family as a partnership between *two* individuals... I use non-gendered language here because the Blue Model of marriage does not see biological sex as relevant to the fundamental structure of the relationship." [emphasis added]
There's nothing really sacred about that number "two", either, as we are starting to see around the edges.
I completely agree with your article. I want to suggest there is not a lot anybody can do about the changing family structure. Marx was wrong when he insisted the totality of mankind was, "economic man." But mankind is mostly concerned with his economic life. Matters such as, what we should eat, what we should put on, where will we stay --- Maslow's hierarchy of needs. For most of history, most of the people have been bound to the land where they lived for survival. We are, by nature, agrarian. The form of the family was centered around the 'father' and his authority and power. Rome's Pater Familias. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Confucius and his fathers and sons. Patriarchy indeed. Exceptions only prove the rule.
One hundred years ago, you could see mankind was going to go 'urban.' The great shift towards urbanization was nascent. What you couldn't imagine then was how destructive it was going to be to the familial structure of life. Maybe Marx could. He reduced wives and children to commodities, just like he did labor. Women and children were fleshly commodities held in common, just like labor. Marx had a vision for what he called scientific history. He prophesied the end of bourgeois family—the family organized around property, inheritance, and economic dependence. Engels believed that when women became economically independent and inheritance lost its central role, marriage would become a purely personal relationship.
The grim problem we face -- is we can't fix what is happening. It's global and it's not reversible at scale. Individual families and perhaps tribes (Haredi Judaism) can resist it, but I don't think you can reverse the collapsing global birth rate (TFR). Slow-motion we are committing familial suicide. Can man live without family? Can we figure out how to stop the experiment?
Agree, and the way I frame this: patriarchy is enforced EFFORTLESSLY in societies where population density + the economic state of the art make it impossible for a woman to provide for her own calories and those of a replacement number of children (historically around 4). The large majority of the earth's population was living under such circumstances until not too long ago, and systems for family formation haven't caught up, and likely won't catch up anytime soon, because they have to be developed largely de novo and can't easily be borrowed from a nearby group. Nor can one group easily replace another, when all the world's population is now experiencing TFR collapse.
I'm not accusing this piece of doing this, but discourse that thinks of family breakdown in terms of us foolishly taking our "eye off the ball," and letting our ancestral inheritance of patriarchal, monogamous family formation slip away, misses the real dynamic here. Human beings as a whole were never built for keeping our "eye on the ball" and keeping cultural traditions fully intact after a radical change in the economic circumstances that supported those traditions. Rather, we are built for a mix of adherence to traditions and capacity for adapting to new circumstances.
As individuals, though, and as a church, we can try to take the best possible mix of these two approaches.
To me, the social atomization theme in this essay is the most critical of all. It damages families from the full gamut of both the political and socioeconomic spectrums. Historically, families almost always existed as extended units living in close proximity to and supporting each other. Intergenerational support and use of housing, resources, etc was the norm. Children were able to closely observe and learn from many more adult relatives much more frequently than just their parents. Parents could more readily lean on grandparents, siblings etc to help them with life's inevitable challenges. The "traditional" family structure of either mid 20th century America or the anything goes culture of contemporary America are both ahistorical, and serve mainly to facilitate economic production and consumption. There are other factors at work as well, but I feel that the destruction of the American family (as understood historically) makes a significant contribution to the ever worsening mental health crises, failure to launch, and downward socioeconomic mobility we see nowadays.
It's telling that many of the groups in modern America that are generally quite successful (Mormons, Jews, east Asians) follow a much more historically normal family approach: a web of extended relations who actually support and enrich each other versus a series of units that occasionally show up for holiday dinner. Even in the working classes (I grew up in a very different area than I live in now; very rural, lots of poverty), some of the most successful families both economically and in terms of instilling values were immigrant families with strong cultures of intergenerational support. Those who became more "Americanized" almost always ended up worse off. Our own ancestors understood this if you go back 120+ years. But we've by and large had these traditions stamped out of us.
I don't quite understand what "debased moral cultures" as a common root means.
Modern liberals view themselves as morally superior to the haters, racists,, sexists, homophobes, anti-vaxxers, climate-deniers, etc.. They are constantly assaulted by these demons in human form. This is a whole new framework for good and evil that has evolved over the past 70 years or so.
Unfortunately, it is also so unnatural that it requires constant social and political coercion to implement and maintain. The endless screeching, the subtle shaming, the hammering away at class status (i.e., racism is low), Kneeling Nancy, Gay Pride Month, Juneteenth, Drag Queen Story Hour, Hope and Change, on and on. This level of censorship, persuasion and relentless seduction indicates to me something abnormal and freakish that needs constant attention.
Traditional common roots were the seven deadly sins. Plus, the aristocratic ideal of privilege, obligation, honor and divine order.
Also, in Christian marriage there is nothing patriarchal. Both husband and wife make a vow before God and man to love, honor and obey. There's nothing in it about male vs. female power. There is the Adam and Eve story but that's much more subtle then this author seems to comprehend.
"The Blue Model marriage sees family as a partnership between *two* individuals... I use non-gendered language here because the Blue Model of marriage does not see biological sex as relevant to the fundamental structure of the relationship." [emphasis added]
There's nothing really sacred about that number "two", either, as we are starting to see around the edges.
I completely agree with your article. I want to suggest there is not a lot anybody can do about the changing family structure. Marx was wrong when he insisted the totality of mankind was, "economic man." But mankind is mostly concerned with his economic life. Matters such as, what we should eat, what we should put on, where will we stay --- Maslow's hierarchy of needs. For most of history, most of the people have been bound to the land where they lived for survival. We are, by nature, agrarian. The form of the family was centered around the 'father' and his authority and power. Rome's Pater Familias. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Confucius and his fathers and sons. Patriarchy indeed. Exceptions only prove the rule.
One hundred years ago, you could see mankind was going to go 'urban.' The great shift towards urbanization was nascent. What you couldn't imagine then was how destructive it was going to be to the familial structure of life. Maybe Marx could. He reduced wives and children to commodities, just like he did labor. Women and children were fleshly commodities held in common, just like labor. Marx had a vision for what he called scientific history. He prophesied the end of bourgeois family—the family organized around property, inheritance, and economic dependence. Engels believed that when women became economically independent and inheritance lost its central role, marriage would become a purely personal relationship.
The grim problem we face -- is we can't fix what is happening. It's global and it's not reversible at scale. Individual families and perhaps tribes (Haredi Judaism) can resist it, but I don't think you can reverse the collapsing global birth rate (TFR). Slow-motion we are committing familial suicide. Can man live without family? Can we figure out how to stop the experiment?
Agree, and the way I frame this: patriarchy is enforced EFFORTLESSLY in societies where population density + the economic state of the art make it impossible for a woman to provide for her own calories and those of a replacement number of children (historically around 4). The large majority of the earth's population was living under such circumstances until not too long ago, and systems for family formation haven't caught up, and likely won't catch up anytime soon, because they have to be developed largely de novo and can't easily be borrowed from a nearby group. Nor can one group easily replace another, when all the world's population is now experiencing TFR collapse.
I'm not accusing this piece of doing this, but discourse that thinks of family breakdown in terms of us foolishly taking our "eye off the ball," and letting our ancestral inheritance of patriarchal, monogamous family formation slip away, misses the real dynamic here. Human beings as a whole were never built for keeping our "eye on the ball" and keeping cultural traditions fully intact after a radical change in the economic circumstances that supported those traditions. Rather, we are built for a mix of adherence to traditions and capacity for adapting to new circumstances.
As individuals, though, and as a church, we can try to take the best possible mix of these two approaches.
To me, the social atomization theme in this essay is the most critical of all. It damages families from the full gamut of both the political and socioeconomic spectrums. Historically, families almost always existed as extended units living in close proximity to and supporting each other. Intergenerational support and use of housing, resources, etc was the norm. Children were able to closely observe and learn from many more adult relatives much more frequently than just their parents. Parents could more readily lean on grandparents, siblings etc to help them with life's inevitable challenges. The "traditional" family structure of either mid 20th century America or the anything goes culture of contemporary America are both ahistorical, and serve mainly to facilitate economic production and consumption. There are other factors at work as well, but I feel that the destruction of the American family (as understood historically) makes a significant contribution to the ever worsening mental health crises, failure to launch, and downward socioeconomic mobility we see nowadays.
It's telling that many of the groups in modern America that are generally quite successful (Mormons, Jews, east Asians) follow a much more historically normal family approach: a web of extended relations who actually support and enrich each other versus a series of units that occasionally show up for holiday dinner. Even in the working classes (I grew up in a very different area than I live in now; very rural, lots of poverty), some of the most successful families both economically and in terms of instilling values were immigrant families with strong cultures of intergenerational support. Those who became more "Americanized" almost always ended up worse off. Our own ancestors understood this if you go back 120+ years. But we've by and large had these traditions stamped out of us.
I don't quite understand what "debased moral cultures" as a common root means.
Modern liberals view themselves as morally superior to the haters, racists,, sexists, homophobes, anti-vaxxers, climate-deniers, etc.. They are constantly assaulted by these demons in human form. This is a whole new framework for good and evil that has evolved over the past 70 years or so.
Unfortunately, it is also so unnatural that it requires constant social and political coercion to implement and maintain. The endless screeching, the subtle shaming, the hammering away at class status (i.e., racism is low), Kneeling Nancy, Gay Pride Month, Juneteenth, Drag Queen Story Hour, Hope and Change, on and on. This level of censorship, persuasion and relentless seduction indicates to me something abnormal and freakish that needs constant attention.
Traditional common roots were the seven deadly sins. Plus, the aristocratic ideal of privilege, obligation, honor and divine order.
Also, in Christian marriage there is nothing patriarchal. Both husband and wife make a vow before God and man to love, honor and obey. There's nothing in it about male vs. female power. There is the Adam and Eve story but that's much more subtle then this author seems to comprehend.