Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Greenfield: Twilight of the Family
Sultan Knish blog ^ | Sunday, June 01, 2014 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 06/01/2014 4:07:35 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Twilight of the Family

Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog

For most of human history the family was the basic social unit of the species. Family was a way of passing down genes, beliefs and wealth. It was a retirement plan that you paid into by keeping your children alive long enough for them to grow up and support you. It allowed the individual to pass on his ideas to people who would care about them because they were part of their heritage. Family was a collective endeavor, small enough to reflect the individual. It was a practical and philosophical aim that made life beautiful and meaningful.

But who really needs it anymore?

The basic practical functions of the family have been replaced by the nanny state. It is the nanny that takes over the care and teaching of the child as soon as possible. And when their parents grow old, it is that same nanny that oversees their care and death.

Governments have come to serve as undying guardians of human society, ushering new life into the world and ushering old life out of it. New parents are as likely to turn to the government for help as they are to their extended family. When their child is old enough to look around for a career, it is the government that they expect to provide the education and the jobs. And when they grow old, the child can keep on working at his government job and paying off his student loans knowing that the government will be there to make all the difficult and expensive decisions about their care.

With all that taken care of, who needs parents or children anyway?

People once had children to pass on wealth, genes and beliefs. But wealth is now thought to be the collective property of society, which is taxed to death or often just given away on some quixotic quest to stamp out disease in Africa or illiteracy in Antarctica. The thought of passing on genes carries with it a tinge of racism for the European and European-descended populations whose birth rates are dropping, but raises no such concerns for minority groups with high birth rates. That only leaves beliefs, which are also thought to be the collective property of the society and the state. Public education, mandatory in some countries, means that the best way to reproduce your beliefs is not to have children, but to get a job as a teacher.

The family has been displaced and replaced. In some places it is even repressed. Like an old station wagon, it idles by the side of the road, while its former owners drive away in their new sleek electric government compact car built for two or a micro-car built for one into a wonderful childless future of unfunded pensions, social collapse and death panels.

Marriage rates have dropped sharply. Not only is divorce more commonplace, but many couples aren't even bothering to marry at all. And many of those who do marry don't bother having children. Childfree is the new Zero Population Growth, not on behalf of the planet, but on behalf of the self. Modern society has made the price of children extremely expensive and many couples have found it easier to end the family with their own deaths.

The future of the West has been aborted or never conceived. It has been broken up, divorced and never married.

The state gave its citizens the impression that it could fulfill all the functions of a family far better than the real thing. Its appeal was the power of bigness, the stability of a system too big to fail and rooms full of experts working night and day to improve on the fallible family. With its vast industrial social services bureaucracy, the state would be able to provide a more stable social safety net, save everyone money on health care, educate their children, care for their elders, perpetuate their values, protect their income, safeguard their way of life and usher in a bright new future.

Unfortunately not only can't the state do any of these things better than the family, but it can't do them at all without the family. And the family has collapsed, falling apart into disassociated lonely individuals, looking for their father and mother, their children and their future, in the great soulless body of the state.

"The State is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else," Fredrick Bastiat wrote. At its most basic the state is a pyramid scheme into which everyone pays into and from which everyone expects to extract more than their fair share. At the very least they expect the state to function like a wise investment fund, taking their taxes and investing them in ways that will maximize their social return.

Unfortunately the state is more like an actual pyramid scheme whose schemers squander as much of the money as they can while pressuring the suckers to throw in more and more, promising big returns and parading around the model investors who made a fortune as their success stories.

Invest more in education, the schemers of the state urge, presenting as an example a few individual students from the diminishing percentage of college graduates who are actually able to find a full-time job based on their degree. Invest more in healthcare they cry, trotting out the elderly and the children who depend on social services, even while those same schemers are robbing those services blind. Invest in foreign aid, in the war on poverty, in infrastructure and the environment and a thousand other social funds, they cry, even as all the trillions of their former investments have gone up in smoke.

Money however is replaceable. Children are not. And nowhere has the pyramid scheme of the social state schemer proven more disastrous than in the collapse of the family. The state has usurped the family, but it depends on the family to crank out industrious little taxpayers, small men and women who will work the shops and factories, toiling night and day, paying their fines and fees dutifully while raising the next generation of taxpayers. Without the family, the pyramid scheme of the state faces a demographic collapse.

Europe has turned to the American solution, bringing in huge numbers of immigrants to fill the demographic dead zone left behind by the progressive state. And America has doubled down on that same solution. But the solution is no solution.

Importing large numbers of immigrants into a vital and booming society is a shot in the arm, but doing the same in a troubled society in decline is a shot in the head. The difference between integration and conquest is a matter of demographics. If the numbers are not on your side, then you aren't expanding your own country, you're giving it away.

Immigrants from the Third World have fared the worst. Caught between a declining West and a backward East, they have produced large and broken families that explode into violence as their children carve out their own rough tribal identities in ethnic gangs and religious terrorist groups across a lost and bewildered land. Not only have they failed to become the taxpayers of the future, upholding the oversized pensions of tomorrow with the labor of today, but they have become an even larger drain on the social services that they were meant to bail out.

In 1848, Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto fearsomely declaring, "A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism." At that time the birth rate in Germany was five children. Today it isn't even two. The spectre of Communism is no longer haunting Europe. It has come and gone. Under Socialism, it is the spectre of demographics that haunts Europe. It is the dead children, no longer killed in factories or protests, but in clinics and for convenience's sake, that float aimlessly through the streets of Munich, London and Paris. Europe is no longer haunted by its dead, but by those who were never born.

Socialism has left behind a terrible bill and there is no one left to pay it. The population is crashing in every Western country. The elderly are losing their generous benefits, the men and women of middle age worry for the future and the youth no longer believe in the future at all. The streets are full of angry foreign teenagers, grinning and glaring, cutting and smashing, and the veiled women shop for goat in small dirty butcher shops. The old native men and women, of the stock that once made world empires, dream of leaving it all behind for Greece or Spain where they hope for a familiar foreignness, rather than the foreign foreignness that has overwhelmed their countries and made their cities no longer their own.

The state replaced the family. It told men and women that they no longer needed to make permanent commitments to each or to their parents and children. So long as they paid their taxes, the state would bear the burden of their commitments. And so men and women gave up on each other, parents gave up on their children and children gave up on their parents, the family fell apart and now the state that took its place is also falling apart.

A building cannot be built on nothing. The tallest tower is only as strong as its foundation. A skyscraper may touch the sky, but it is its grip on the ground that truly counts. A civilization may reach for the sky and the stars, but it is sustained by the soil of the family and the roots of the basic social structures created by individuals perpetuating individuals, not the gargantuan social mechanisms of the state.

When a civilization destroys its families, then it destroys itself. A man cannot cut out his own heart and live. A society cannot destroy its own capacity for life and regeneration, and continue on blithely occupying itself with the wars on obesity, poverty, racism, cough syrup and gendered pronouns. The state may seem impressive, but it is only a scheme by which people pay officials to make life better for them. When the number of people begins to decline while the number of officials increases, then the man touches the place where his empty heart was, stumbles and falls.

American cities and states have built up a vast social infrastructure of schools and hospitals that there will not be enough children to use. From Detroit to California, the future is four teachers to an empty classroom and eight nurses to an empty hospital. The state that is too big to fail has grown bigger than its people. Like Saturn, the progressive revolution has devoured its own children leaving behind only the empty hallways and empty treasuries of the state.


TOPICS: Government; History; Politics; Religion
KEYWORDS: greenfield; sultanknish
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-49 next last
To: JRandomFreeper
"If", by Kipling, and also the "Stockdale Paradox":

This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

21 posted on 06/01/2014 4:54:52 PM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: DuncanWaring
I'm pretty sure everyone sees the problem. Repeating it over and over may sell articles, but it doesn't do much for fixing the problems.

And articles like this ignore the great gains we've made in things like the 2nd amendment, and closing abortion clinics. Those things have happened since FR started.

Excessive negativity is demoralizing.

/johnny

22 posted on 06/01/2014 5:01:54 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Louis Foxwell

For the future, I am both pessimistic and optimistic.

My pessimism says that a collapse is coming. Probably within my lifetime, say under 25 years. The collapse may or may not start in the US. That does not matter. Governments and economies are too interwoven for any to escape once it begins. It will not be confined to any country, nor to any continent. The collapse will result in death, both from killings and from “natural” causes, such as exposure and starvation, on a scale that will make the 20th Century look mild. The killings will be done by both government agents, until the collapse overwhelms even the remnants of government, and clashes between individuals and groups of “survivors.”

My optimism is from considering the reconstruction that will follow. People will survive, apply either of the words “some” or “many,” but people will survive. Mankind will revert to tribalism (it is only a short reversion) because that is how we know whom to trust. Families are not dead and gone, because families are the most basic of “tribes,” and form the basis of the larger tribe, as has always been the case.

We won’t collapse to the stone age, but there will be no corner grocery stocked with products from far and wide. Food will have to be produced locally, as has been the case with nearly all our existence. Learn all you can of traditional skills: axe, knife, shovel, rope craft, food growing and preservation, soap making; any manual skill will be of value. Relearn the mending of clothing.

And, we will recover to a somewhat more comfortable existence. But, we better avoid the man who says he can make it all better, if we just follow him.


23 posted on 06/01/2014 5:07:29 PM PDT by RobinOfKingston (Democrats--the party of Evil. Republicans--the party of Stupid.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JRandomFreeper
The truth is that there are still plenty of families, with children, and that isn't going to end anytime soon.

I was just gonna say ... Certainly from my personal perspective, it's family, family, family, and not just my own. And then in our wider social interaction, the same thing, except everybody's a $%&*!@ liberal. Go figure!

24 posted on 06/01/2014 5:58:38 PM PDT by dr_lew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: JRandomFreeper

I see a renewal coming, along with a religious revival.

We are called to support it.

I think the article is a warning and a call to action.


25 posted on 06/01/2014 5:59:30 PM PDT by marktwain (The old media must die for the Republic to live. Long live the new media!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: JRandomFreeper

I feel Greenfield’s perspective on this issue is lagging the reality of a growing dissatisfaction with the Left’s abuse of traditional America.


26 posted on 06/01/2014 6:01:16 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Louis Foxwell

Really? Is it the government that rejected the constitution, or is it the federalism that established the constitution speeding to its logical conclusion?

Patrick Henry was right when he noted that he smelt a rat in Philadelphia tending toward monarchy.


27 posted on 06/01/2014 6:03:39 PM PDT by RKBA Democrat (Relocate and Dominate: freestateproject.org)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: JRandomFreeper

I sure see a lot of young families with kids out there. True, many aren’t married, but what would you expect when it’s such a bad deal from an economic perspective?


28 posted on 06/01/2014 6:05:24 PM PDT by RKBA Democrat (Relocate and Dominate: freestateproject.org)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: JRandomFreeper

You’re right, Johnny. The eeyores get tiresome after awhile. While I believe that I have significantly less freedom than I did when I was younger, I do see plenty of opportunities for greatness and a better future. See tag line for one example.


29 posted on 06/01/2014 6:09:44 PM PDT by RKBA Democrat (Relocate and Dominate: freestateproject.org)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Louis Foxwell
Importing large numbers of immigrants into a vital and booming society is a shot in the arm, but doing the same in a troubled society in decline is a shot in the head.

Paging Sen. Cruz - your campaign meme awaits you.

30 posted on 06/01/2014 6:33:36 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JRandomFreeper

In two hundred years there won’t be enough Germans to keep the language alive... And yeah, the land mass known as “Germany” will still be there - but it’ll be a middle eastern country. Same with most of Europe.

In our country liberal ‘elites’ hate middle class traditional families... we know it - and we’re giving up too. You’re wrong on this JRandom - it’s happening slower here than in Europe - but it’s happening...


31 posted on 06/01/2014 8:31:48 PM PDT by GOPJ (ObamaCare - like buying a pig in a poke...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: RobinOfKingston

Here’s a book you’ll enjoy:

“The Knowledge - How to rebuild our world from Scratch” by Lewis Dartnell...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10757085/The-Knowledge-How-to-Rebuild-OurWorld-from-Scratch-by-Lewis-Dartnell-review.html

from the above link:

... and his book is full of those “oh!” moments... In the fascinating chapter on substances, for instance, Dartnell talks about the uses of wood. Not merely the obvious one – building stuff out of it – but its importance as a source of industrial chemicals. No doubt many people already know this, but to me it was extraordinary to learn that you can get tar, pitch, acetic acid, turpentine, acetone and methanol out of wood, by heating it and capturing the vapours that pour out – and that the cordite used in the First World War was made using acetone captured in this way (until Britain ran out, and started gleaning acetone from conkers).

Similarly, cement is something I rarely think about. But the invention of so-called “hydraulic” cement, the stuff that sets underwater, was one of the reasons the Romans were able to dominate the Mediterranean – because they could create huge breakwaters of concrete, simply by pouring it into the sea, where there was no natural harbour. Cement itself is based on quicklime, made from limestone, without which little of our civilisation would operate.


32 posted on 06/01/2014 8:42:51 PM PDT by GOPJ (ObamaCare - like buying a pig in a poke...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: GOPJ

Thank you. $21.13 at Amazon. It’s on my wish list.


33 posted on 06/01/2014 8:50:27 PM PDT by RobinOfKingston (Democrats--the party of Evil. Republicans--the party of Stupid.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: GOPJ
we know it - and we’re giving up too

You may be, but not everyone is. Try getting away from television for a while, and see if that doesn't help. A steady mental diet of liberal crap can make anyone depressed.

/johnny

34 posted on 06/01/2014 8:56:27 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: JRandomFreeper

Thanks JRandom for the encouragement...I’m not totally giving up... did you see post #32?


35 posted on 06/01/2014 9:07:50 PM PDT by GOPJ (ObamaCare - like buying a pig in a poke...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: GOPJ
No, I hadn't seen that book. I've been putting together something similar for my grandchildren. I've also been teaching them the skills. Book larnen' is good, but there is nothing like actual OJT to make it real. ;)

/johnny

36 posted on 06/01/2014 9:11:41 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: GOPJ
In our country liberal ‘elites’ hate middle class traditional families...

But the liberal elites ARE middle class traditional families. True enough though, they hate themselves. It's WHITE GUILT, the hidden throbbing power source of liberal politics.

37 posted on 06/01/2014 9:56:09 PM PDT by dr_lew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Louis Foxwell

Bumping an excellent exposition of our parlous state.


38 posted on 06/02/2014 5:51:29 AM PDT by headsonpikes (Mass murder and cannibalism are the twin sacraments of socialism - "Who-whom?"-Lenin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Paladin2

“Only half are paying in. In both time and money.”

We pretend the system can be made to work and the system pretends to take care of us.


39 posted on 06/02/2014 6:12:01 AM PDT by GladesGuru (Islam Delenda Est - because of what Islam is and because of what Muslims do.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Louis Foxwell

“The government that took us into a terrible bloody war to overcome racial slavery has transformed into slavemaster of all the citizenry.”

Regretfully, I must point out the sad reality that the public willingly went to the government feeding troughs. We have allowed ourselves and our children to become the Gimme Pig and the GibsMeDat generation.

Pigs always are slaughtered, and those with their snouts in the trough are getting nervous because the trough is going empty and the smell of blood is in the air.


40 posted on 06/02/2014 6:16:51 AM PDT by GladesGuru (Islam Delenda Est - because of what Islam is and because of what Muslims do.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-49 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson