gillbrooks opened this issue on Mar 10, 2005 ยท 116 posts
XENOPHONZ posted Sun, 13 March 2005 at 11:07 AM
What is causing us problems is the transition. When social structures are changing, it's always stressful.
And it's not like Mosuo boys don't have male role models. Their mother's brothers are usually around. Men who want to raise children nuture their sister's children, rather than their own. (This is not unusual even in non-matriarchal societies. "Mama's baby, daddy's maybe." A man can never be sure his wife's child is his, but he can be 100% sure that his sister's children are related to him.)
When you think about it...such families are probably more stable for kids than our own. A husband may abandon his wife and children, but the mother's brothers will likely always be around. Indeed, the "traditional family" isn't Ozzie and Harriet. It's the extended family - not just mom, dad, and kids, but uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents. That's how kids are meant to grow up.
It's true that kids tend to do better with two parents than with one. But it doesn't have to be two biological parents. Studies suggest that it's the ratio of adults to kids that matters. So two adults in the family is better than one...but three or four is better than two.*
Ah, yes......."it takes a village to raise a child" -- seems like I've heard that one somewhere before........
Since the 18th century, there has been a fascination for certain Western intellectual types with what was then known as "the Noble Savage". I.E. -- the idea that somewhere out there in the jungles and on the islands lived groups of perfect people, dwelling in harmony with the earth, and with each other.
This isn't a new idea. It's been buzzing around in Western thought for a little over three centuries.
A few intellectuals and philosophers decided to make good on their theories by relocating to the Pacific islands, and taking up an idyllic life amongst the noble savages.
One of the more famous cases was that of Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist painter (1848-1903). Gauguin was among those that wholeheartedly bought into the mythos of the noble savage. He truly believed that paradise existed with primitive tribal peoples.
So, he went to Tahiti.
His experiences there among the noble savages led to his famous painting Whence Come We? What Are We? Whither Go We? all questions to which Paul Gauguin had found no answers among the Tahitians.
A dying old woman is depicted in the lower left-hand corner of the painting, holding her head in misery. A squawking stupid bird aimlessly wanders around in front of her. The entire scene indicates ultimate despair and meaninglessness.
Paul Gauguin attempted suicide shortly after the painting was completed. And little wonder. He went expecting to find paradise, and instead he found.nothing.
Rather than primitive tribal peoples -- a far more apt comparison culture-wise for our current situation in the Western world would center on the decline and fall of Rome.
Most, if not all, current Western cultural trends can be legitimately compared to the last 100 years of Roman history.
Rome possessed a military machine which no one could defeat; enormous public welfare systems including food, housing, and medical care; people in general had adopted a free-thinking style when it came to subjects like morality and marriage.
Gradually, things fell apart. The culture carried the seeds of its own destruction within itself.
The Romans are the ones that we should be taking our lessons from.
Not from Hillarys mythical village. Hillarys village is as real as Paul Gauguins paradise was.
Poor urban areas like the hell-hole known as downtown Detroit -- a thrid-world country in the middle of America -- show us the "paradise" created by fatherless families.