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The Forum > Article Comments > Happy families = a healthy economy > Comments

Happy families = a healthy economy : Comments

By Babette Francis, published 2/5/2013

Social and economic conservatives don't necessarily see eye to eye on the rights of the unborn child.

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You argue, "Moynihan wrote that "A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations about the future - that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure - that is not only to be expected, it is very near to inevitable.""

Does seem to describe the perceived reality of so many Islamic societies despite their mandation of traditional marriages and male authority...

But ignoring that, you've convinced me, Babette...

"The middle and upper classes in Australia and those who are tertiary educated, more or less follow this formula but many in the lower socio-economic groups seem trapped in a cycle of poverty fuelled by the absence of stable marriages, a revolving door of serial de facto relationships and out of wedlock births."

Sounds like you are committed to either, banning the lower classes from Australia (old ugg boots and trackie dacks are always inappropriate street wear), or
abortion being compulsory for everyone outside marriage.
Posted by WmTrevor, Thursday, 2 May 2013 8:34:09 AM
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"A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women..."

How would you suggest we stop "allowing" these broken homes Babette? Do we force couples to stay together? Do we force loveless couples to stay in the home for the 'good' of the children?

I am all for happy families, whether they be single parent families, traditional families, families with Gay parents , extended families, or whatever.

Unhappy families can occur in any of these sorts of families.

I would suggest the unhappiest families are those strictly religious traditional families where a strict hold on the wife and kiddies is maintained by the 'head' of the household...you know, the one who controls all the others under the fear of some wrathful god or two?
Posted by Suseonline, Thursday, 2 May 2013 10:04:59 AM
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The natural family, the first government in the social order, is under brutal assault by the union of the two towers - the singularity the 'Market-State'. As Hannah Arendt explained, the essence of totalitarianism is the destruction of intermediary institutions between the individual and the state, most importantly family and church.

Today this is done incrementally by bureaucratic/legal means. The cracking open and flattening every mediating institution or assocation prior to the state. The rationality of tradition, the normativity of nature and moral teleology, the deliverances of the Good News of Jesus, are systematically 'debunked' and ultimately proscribed as sources of independence and freedom apart from the state. There is to be only weak atomised individuals facing up to a massive central power - the entire new ruling class is in thrall to this delectable symbol. The ABC will not even staff conservatives who might challenge their fanaticism. Pretending to be news while begging questions announcing news with "anti-gay marriage" or "anti abortion" instead of "marriage supporters" "pro-human child supporters". So neurotic and fearful that their world view is correct that they hide and acquire taxpayer money by stealth to promote their propaganda.

The World Congress of Families is the only place progressive politics is being discussed - the ruling class is crystallised and static and its fate is bound to the One Ring of central rule. It is at war with the dynamism of a variegated society.

God bless Babette Francis and the organisers and attendees. It is from these people we will find the leaders of the future.
Posted by Martin Ibn Warriq, Friday, 3 May 2013 9:14:57 AM
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And when the world is ultimately over populated (if it isn't already) and we run out of non renewable resources, what do we do. Perhaps a cry to a non existent God in the "sure and certain hope" that we will be saved.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 3 May 2013 12:16:39 PM
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It is difficult to argue with the statistics. Studies have consistently shown that the "traditional" home arrangement of a stable family grouping is less likely to breed crime, or criminals.

The rejection of these values may have many different starting-points, some cultural, some economic. But once an egg is employed in the production of an omelette, getting it back inside the chicken is a touch problematic. So it will be of some academic interest to discover how the Australian Family Association intends to bring this about.

"How to break this cycle will be addressed at the World Congress of Families 7 and academics and the Australian government should take note."

I'm sure they will. Just how much notice will of course depend upon the quality of the proposed remedies. Martin Ibn Warriq, for example, offers...

>>The rationality of tradition, the normativity of nature and moral teleology, the deliverances of the Good News of Jesus...<<

...which are of course unachievable outside a theocracy. Sadly, very few theocracies provide an environment in which freedom counts for anything much. Especially for women.

In the article, Babette Francis hints at economic sanctions against 'sinners':

"Already there is much angst about the cut to single-mothers' benefits..."

Which at first glance indicates that she might like to see it withdrawn completely, and in doing so merely condemns them to a deepening spiral of penury. Which, by the way, might not do much for the welfare of the kids concerned.

But no, apparently the answer lies in...

"...government efforts to re-integrate the father into the lives of his children - not only in terms of maintenance payments but as a role model and authority figure"

At which point we move into fantasy-land. What effect might it have, I wonder, on statistics of home violence, when patently unwilling parties are forced to live together?

More significantly, in what kind of world would such a procedure be, even remotely, implementable? It would have to be a rigid, totalitarian regime, with a fixed, immovable set of values, as to how people should live and conduct themselves.

Welcome to Saudi Arabia.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 3 May 2013 1:27:25 PM
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@Pericles, I think you'll find secularists like yourself are the religious pluralists and are happily Islamising their societies, concomitantly their preaching of sexual liberation is devastating society such that we can't even reproduce ourselves and Islam is increasingly demographically assertive. And both secularism and Islam are voluntaristic, (will/desire trumps reason) so you've learned your lesson from your rulers well, you're both confused and invert what truth you do posses at the same time. You can see why your "welcome to Saudi Arabia" speaks more like a repressed wish than anything else. You can see why political progress looks much more likely from within organisations who value the family, thank you very much.

"Present-day Western governments conduct all the normal activities of traditional, preliberal governments, and then some. They confer honors, establish holidays, educate the young, determine family law, support people in their troubles, define crimes and determine how serious they are, spend a very large part of the national income, and try to reshape institutions, attitudes, and personal relationships in the interest of what they believe to be just. **How could such a comprehensive scheme of activity possibly be rational without an overall view of what to promote and what to curtail?** If the sole purpose of these efforts, which pervade all aspects of life, is maximization of equal freedom, without regard to the effect on other goods, the efforts are fanatical. Why is fanaticism in the name of freedom and equality better than fanaticism in the name of virtue or God’s will?" http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1815

I don't think Pericles is willing, but for others who want some understanding of political philosophy, the internal link to Remi Brague's “Are Non-Theocratic Regime's Possible?” will help. http://ethikapolitika.org/2012/03/21/sacred-ambivalence-reflection-remi-bragues-are-non-theocratic-regimes-possible/
Posted by Martin Ibn Warriq, Friday, 3 May 2013 2:53:52 PM
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That's a tad presumptuous, Martin Ibn Warriq.

>>I think you'll find secularists like yourself are the religious pluralists and are happily Islamising their societies, concomitantly their preaching of sexual liberation is devastating society such that we can't even reproduce ourselves and Islam is increasingly demographically assertive<<

What is a religious pluralist? As an atheist, how can I be a religious anything, since my position is firmly against the validity of any of them?

And how does sexual liberation equate to an inability to reproduce? Not forgetting that correlation does not imply causation. Just saying.

And what has all this - especially the sexual liberation part - to do with your assertion that Islam is "increasingly demographically assertive". The linkage of those two ideas is particularly opaque.

>>You can see why your "welcome to Saudi Arabia" speaks more like a repressed wish than anything else. <<

Errrr... no. I was hinting at the delights of theocracy. Not specifically an Islamic theocracy, by the way, but any theocracy. Think of being ruled by a strict, to-the-letter Roman Catholic theology, and you will start to understand that it is not the particular flavour of religion that is the issue, but its application.

Incidentally, I'm not sure how those pieces you link to actually help your case. Perhaps it is because they are written in a more erudite manner, and are therefore more intellectually accessible.

They mostly consist of either self-serving or circular definitions and arguments. This seems to be one of the main themes:

"Basic social institutions inevitably claim the right to make decisions on matters of life and death, and to demand sacrifice — even extreme sacrifice — of personal interests. To do so, they must be seen as grounded in ultimate realities regarding the meaning and value of life, and thus correspond to an authoritative religious outlook."

There is a massive hole in this argument, starting from the words "they must". Democratic governments take their authority from their people, not from "the meaning of life". Theocracies, on the other hand, work primarily from the basis that they, alone, know the truth.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 3 May 2013 5:08:22 PM
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Your other reference is equally self-serving, Martin Ibn Warriq.

"Russell Kirk wrote: At the back of every discussion of the good society lies this question, What is the object of human life? The enlightened conservative does not believe that the end or aim of life is competition; or success; or enjoyment; or longevity; or power; or possessions. He believes, instead, that the object of life is Love".

That's all very fine and dandy, but supremely impractical when it comes to forms of government. As the Ethika Politika article concludes:

"It is hard to see why the pluralistic, desacralized state could facilitate this sort of ethos better than the religiously unified, sacral state; thus, there is a good argument that the real 'power of religion in the public sphere' must be a sacred power."

Once again, it should be crystal clear to you, as it is to anyone who has read any history or even scanned a newspaper, that this call to theocratic rule has been the rallying-cry of despots since the beginning of time. What on earth makes you think that it would be any different in the twenty-first century?

Given your own views on Christianity and Islam, Martin Ibn Warriq, you come across as the sort of person who is looking forward to a re-run of the Crusades.

A sort of "My Theocracy Rules". Only with the participants eliminated permanently.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 3 May 2013 5:21:30 PM
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@Pericles. Crusades :) fair dinkum. For everyone else http://wcfsydney2013.org.au/ going to be huge!
Posted by Martin Ibn Warriq, Friday, 3 May 2013 8:26:48 PM
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Conservatism is not necessarily born of religion.
Often it is born of trying to imitate religion.

As people progress along their spiritual path, they tend to be more able to postpone their impulses and delay satisfaction. Thus they are for example more likely to finish high-school, to not have children before the age of 20 and to get married to a suitable spouse before having them. That same discipline allows them to avoid getting into crime, violence, unrest and unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure.

As one evolves even further along the spiritual path, self-discipline increases further and one tends to marry later if at all and have less children if any. One is no longer interested in family life at all (nor in random sexuality), but rather devote their whole life to God.

Despite the strong correlation, it's an error to view criminality and violence as a result of broken families, then attempting to fix the family (the conservative approach) and/or social conditions (the progressive approach) in order to reduce crime: BOTH are equally a result of spiritual under-development.

First comes religion, the yearning for God (which may be conscious or otherwise), then come religious practices that concentrate on God, thence as side-effects of having a direction in life come the power of concentration and self-discipline, of which are born
1) Either good family life or renunciation ; and
2) Non-criminality.

Mechanical conservatism is therefore an example of trying to imitate religion, turning it upside-down, mixing up the cause (lack of self-discipline) and the effect (broken families).
Progressivism errs similarly, as it views people's low economic position (merely another effect of the lack of self-discipline) as the cause of crime, instead of identifying the lack of self-discipline (and in turn the lack of religion) as the true cause of both.

Finally, we're all on our spiritual path: within this long convoy, some are relatively ahead, others behind. We all come from the same place and head the same way, so being behind is no reason for shame - we should all just start from where we are.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Monday, 6 May 2013 2:29:00 AM
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