[PEN-L:30482] RE: Re: The family

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:30481] Re: The family

traditional conservatism didn't simply rely on the (patriarchal) family as the "default institution for social reproduction." It also relied on community, religious institutions, and the like. Further, the "good side" of the state (its military apparatus) was also seen as an important replacement for the ("bad") welfare state.

Of course, one of the reasons why this kind of conservatism isn't doing well these days is that capitalism (e.g., its globalization) undermines communities, while religions are always in competition (at least in the U.S.) Of course, each traditional conservative hopes that his or her religion can replace the positive role of the state (as madrassas replace public education in Pakistan and Hamas replaces the welfare state in Palestine). But that often doesn't happen...

So it's likely that the militarization of society will continue apace in the U.S. of A. Of course, this links up with the rise of the prison-industrial complex.

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joel Blau [mailto:jblau@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 9:28 AM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:30481] Re: The family
>
>
> This represents a good first step towards an analysis of the family.
>  She might have gone on to point out that the family is the right's
> default institution for
> social reproduction--that is, it is the cheapest method of
> accomplishing
> (at least partially, and varying sharply by class) the tasks
> that need
> to be done: caretaking, socialization, education, and training.
> Consistent with its standing as the most reluctant of all welfate
> states, the U.S. has made the least accomodation to the shift in the
> family from a unit of production to a unit of consumption. As
> a result,
> the U.S. fails to provide a family or child allowance, day care, paid
> family leave, or most egregiously, some form of national health care.
> Americans mystify the family and demand it stand alone.
> Overstressed, 
> thrown back on its own inadequate resources, and lacking the
> capacity to
>  provide sufficient nurturance, families then become ever
> more likely to
> raise children with the narcisstic personality features that Mark
> identified: murdurous rage, self-pity, and an infuriating blankness
> about the effect of their behavior on anyone else..
>
> Joel Blau
>
> Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> > Nancy F. Cott. Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation.
> > Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. 297 pp. Notes
> index. $27.95
> > (cloth), ISBN 0-674-00875-8.
> >
> > Reviewed by Felice Batlan, Department of History, New York
> University.
> > Published by H-Law (August, 2002)
> >
> > Beneath the Private Mask: Marriage as a Public Institution
> >
> > In the past months, a gnawing question has haunted me. Has
> the United
> > States entered a period which is as conservative as, and in some
> > respects similar to, the 1950s? Is this especially so if we look at
> > issues of gender and the family? Let me present some anecdotal but
> > relevant evidence.
> >
> > Recently I attended a party of about sixty people. Only
> three of the
> > women, myself included, were employed outside of the home.
> The others
> > had husbands who worked while they tended the home and raised the
> > children. Many had recently moved to suburbia where they had their
> > hands full driving their children to activities, decorating
> the house,
> > and coordinating an ever-expanding list of play dates, chores, and
> > sports practices. As they described their lives, the
> suburban kitchen,
> > complete with sub-zeros and free standing isles, was anything but a
> > "comfortable concentration camp" as Betty Friedan described
> it, almost
> > thirty years ago, in The Feminine Mystique.[1] Rather,
> these couples
> > had decided that the husband was to be a breadwinner and
> the wife, as
> > housewife, financially dependent upon him. Interestingly none
> > commented that in many ways this was an economically rational
> > decision, as in most cases their husband's earning potential (as
> > partners in major law firms, or in the upper echelons of
> Wall Street)
> > far exceeded their own earning potential, although their
> educational
> > achievements were similar. Rather, these couples appear to
> understand
> > the choices that they have made to represent private and individual
> > decisions.
> >
> > Sylvia Ann Hewlett's much-publicized new book Creating a Life:
> > Professional Women and the Quest for Children claims that women's
> > career success has come only at the cost of forgoing marriage and
> > children, leaving women in their forties and fifties
> unfulfilled and
> > desperately searching for love and a family life. She urges
> women in
> > their twenties to set out to find a husband and to have children
> > before their thirties, when their fertility precipitously
> declines.[2]
> >
> > In numerous conversations with acquaintances and strangers,
> I hear the
> > argument--to support anything from the administration's "war on
> > terror" to the further dismantling of the welfare
> state--that one has
> > to think of their families first. The argument is as
> follows: "I don't
> > support the government's welfare spending on the poor because it
> > doesn't benefit my family--lower taxes do. My
> responsibility is to my
> > family, not to other people's families." A variant is: "I
> feel bad if
> > we kill civilians in Afghanistan but I need to worry about
> protecting
> > my own family against terrorism."
> >
> > In the July 5, 2002 New York Times, the Ad Council ran an
> > advertisement in which the text appearing below an
> illustration of the
> > American flag reads in part, "Your right to backyard barbeques,
> > sleeping on Sundays and listening to any darned music you
> please can
> > be just as fulfilling as your right to vote for president.
> Maybe even
> > more so because you enjoy these freedoms personally and often."
> >
> > In the popular HBO cable television series "Sex and the City," the
> > leading characters seem ever more urgently to be searching for true
> > romantic love. While waiting, they spend increasing sums of money,
> > from their all-but-invisible labor, on designer fashions.
> >
> > In a U.S. women's history class I taught this past
> semester, thirteen
> > of the fifteen self-selected, bright and motivated students
> had never
> > heard the slogan, "The personal is political."
> >
> > These examples are not unrelated. Rather, as with 1950s
> domesticity,
> > the family has once again taken on a certain quality of
> being the last
> > bastion of stability in what is perceived as an
> increasingly unstable
> > and frightening world. Describing the family ideology of the 1950s,
> > historian Regina Kunzel writes, "A crucial site for
> fighting cold war
> > battles, the family was charged with nothing less than providing
> > refuge from nuclear weapons, halting communist subversion, ensuring
> > economic progress by operating as a consuming unit, and reviving
> > conventional gender roles."[3] To what extent could such a
> description
> > apply to today's family? This stress on the family as a
> cohesive and
> > conflict-free unit with a relatively rigid division of labor,
> > providing for the emotional and physical needs of its
> members is not
> > necessarily problematic--but it becomes so when the
> privatized family
> > serves as a mechanism for de-politicization and assumes an
> imaginary
> > but nonetheless atavistic quality, making it appear
> unattached to the
> > polity.
> >
> > full:
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=82951032791741
>
>
>
> Louis Proyect
> www.marxmail.org
>
>