Death and Rebirth of the Western family

 

Family destruction:

The family structures in poor countries is different to Western countries. In large part the family is more than just a social union in poor countries, it's also a defence to dangerous poverty. So the pressure to stay together in the family is strong, as people are co-dependant to meet their most basic needs for safety and nutrition, etc.

In one way, this can look good as families in poorer countries appear strong through unity. But are they really so strong, if the people are only together out of a deep fear for what could happen to them if they separated? You could argue maybe not.

In the wealthy West, we see families fragmenting and separating all over the place, with members often rarely visiting each other and sometimes never visiting at all. This can seem sad, yet we can ask ourselves...Are modern Western families only exposing a deeper truth was always really there? Would people in poorer countries like to separate from much of their family, if only they felt it was safe enough to do so? The answer, is quite possibly.

Being genetically related to someone is only an abstraction in terms of its social meaning. Of course, related-links are no guarantee that you'll like someone, though it's true of course that growing up with people, and spending a lot of time with them, makes family a context where social bonds can and will obviously occur.

Suppressing family rebirth:

Though no needs are more fundamental than food, safety and shelter, the social need is obviously still very strong. The West, though largely abandoning traditional family structures, still has a drive to form some kind of "tribe" and develop friends of the type that are close, and even closer than their related family...

I think these kinds of friendships require two things. First the person must be "your kind of guy", and second there must be a considerable amount of time to socialise on a one-to-one level, where two people can speak freely in a context of trust. In this manner, friends can often become more of a family member, in substance, than related family members. This process can (theoretically) lead to the development of new families, and families based on social needs over survival needs.

Note: The picture I'm drawing is different to what you could call a gang. In a gang people are "groupies". They join together out of a need to create some kind of symbolic family that they never had in childhood, which is a way of fighting a kind of private desperation. You will notice that the members in a gang always socialise in large groupings, not devolving into much private social intercourse. A gang is no kind of natural family or 'tribe' and the conformity pressures tend to be acute, which suppresses individualism and likewise authentic attachment. You have to be able to be yourself to connect genuinely with others.

In my view, new and social-need based families would develop in Western society if the circumstances permitted it. That is, if government got out of the way so public demand could have its way.

Modern family fragmentation is maintained though scholastic and work pressures, that seem to work to keep the development of new unions inhibited. It's hard to get to know people as a real friend in the Western world. Westerners have lots of 'mates' but few real friends. As a society, I think we pay dearly for this.

Allowing for family rebirth:

I think we could allow for the development of new families in the West by giving more opportunity for young people to socialise - properly. Schools could help with this if they gave teenagers more time to broadly socialise as they see fit, and without the schools prescribing their social opportunities by choosing their classes and classmates. 'Free schools' of this type have long existed and they've been successful for decades. It's proven to work.

Another thing we can do is allow for the development of private communities, where there's more opportunity for people to group amongst their kind of people. It's not snobbish to wish to isolate people who make new unions difficult. It's natural. We all need to keep away from people we don't want to know, at times. Social privacy is vital for the development of real friendships.

Another thing I recommend is for people to try and keep their workload down to 30 hours a week - obviously you need time. This is easy to achieve in our technologically advanced world, at least if governments would allow it to happen. But alas, governments like to keep people working as much as possible for two reasons: One, is their financial backers are totally dependant on it. Two, they need your taxes to pay-off voters with election bribes. So it's doable in theory, yet hard in practice.

Regardless, a family rebirth based on social truth over the abstraction of biology could be a wonderful thing. There's no comparison in fun within groups of people who really know and like each other, as compared to people who are only trying to like each other because they feel they need to, to stay together and survive.