Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00019)

What does it matter how a society is? One theme in sociology is the 
idea that how a society is, just reflects the whims of the present 
leaders plus the cultural influences of past leaders. -That it is 
possible for any type of society to exist, and, the specific way a 
society is, doesn't make a difference overall in the larger scheme of 
things. -so that it is in the individual's best interest to conform 
to the ways of whatever their society is, as it is only individuals 
who care if they are rewarded or punished for obedience or 
disobedience; and that whether they are rewarded or punished or 
obedient or disobedient makes no difference overall. However, this 
is actually somewhat incorrect. And the evidence for this 
incorrectness is found in the existence of the social structure 
called 'family'.
Societal institutions are how essential societal tasks get 
carried out in an organized fashion. Producing the next generation 
is an essential task. But dealing with sexual activity and plus the 
birth and care of children from sexual activity, are the essential 
societal tasks carried out by family or kinship institutions. 
Closely related is the institution of marriage. Here in the US and 
much of the world, we can come out and say that marriage is a 
socially legitimate sexual union with the price that the partners 
limit their sexual activity to only each other. i.e., a monogamous 
relationship. Thus the offspring produced can be tied to that 
couple, and then that group of people are considered a family.
Even without the institution of family, nature, through pre 
history, has provided a means for social reproduction where the next 
generation is produced, through the innate male and female physical 
attraction, and a tribal community to raise the offspring produced 
(unlike gorilla primates which live in nuclear family units). If a 
society tied the burden of raising offspring solely to the couple who 
bore them, then this would discourage childbearing (to a degree) -
(compared to a tribal society where all members helped with the 
burdens of child rearing). With less offspring produced, this would 
free up resources to make better the lives of the existing offspring, 
as well as everybody else. So that tribes who adopted the concept 
of 'family' would achieve an improving standard of living, which 
would allow them to dominate tribes with the natural tribal form. 
And so, this is perhaps, (I would suggest) why most modern societies 
have the concept of 'family' (where the burden of raising the 
children is laid solely on the couple who bore them): and that 
perhaps this has contributed to our higher standard of living 
especially in developed countries. Yet, what has all this wealth 
gotten us; when today, those who have, use hunger and deprivation to 
manipulate the rest of us? What difference has (family) made?
Not all things make a difference, but depending on how friendly, 
nurturing and kind a society is to its members, does make a 
difference. One reason is, is because the human infant is so 
helpless. 
In a very nurturing society, an infant can survive and thrive simply 
by being a member. But in a harsher and colder society, infants 
couldn't survive just being part of that society. In order for 
harsher colder cultures to survive beyond one generation, a more 
nurturing but limited environment must be provided to that society's 
infants. -hence a mother or couple can be designated to care for and 
use their resources to provide a small nurturing enriched environment 
for their infant; allowing the rest of society to continue on in its 
cold negative ways. -otherwise harsh societies would cease to exist. -
hence the institution of family can be a crutch by which harsh unkind 
negative societies continue to exist.
The institution of the family has been given the domain of 
socialization of the children as part of the essential societal task 
it performs. When the human mind is young as in an infant or child, 
it has special learning abilities. For example, at a certain young 
age, a human easily learns languages; whereas when older, an adult 
has great difficulty learning a new language. It is well agreed 
among sociologists that the early socialization of humans during 
young childhood, has a marked effect in determining who they will be 
and how they will act (as out of their culture) later in life. In my 
family when I was growing up, I went through this process where my 
brain had a special ability to learn and be formed (programmed) that 
as an adult I no longer have. Of course the innate biological 
ability to learn, by itself, is insufficient to cause socialization: 
also present must be interactions with society. 
The trouble is, with children, a special artificial world is 
created around them (the whole school curriculum, parental activities 
geared to children), while the adult world is hidden away from them. -
So that they become socialized to the artificial world and not to the 
harsher adult world because it is hidden away. My parents would have 
chores for me to do or encourage me to do my school work or send me 
to camp or to music lessons (which I never was any good at). So 
that as I was being socialized to this artificial world contrived for 
children, the harsher world of adults remained hidden away and I was 
not socialized to it. Of course my parents were just trying to give 
me a happy childhood, but because of it, I missed out on being 
socialized to the nasty ways of adult society. -thus the special 
ability my young brain had to learn culture and be programmed, passed 
without me learning the ropes of adult culture.
What marriage and family meant to me as a child, although I 
didn't realize it at the time, was that I exist in a society with a 
fairly high standard of living, but that wasn't necessarily very warm 
or nurturing but could instead be cold and harsh, that wasn't going 
to allow me a leg up on it by letting my childhood mind have a crack 
at it. And also that I am still alive at all, because without my 
family, I probably wouldn't be one of the skillful few who survived 
socialization into a harsh society as it was self destructing. (In 
order to cause negative and harsh societies to expire naturally while 
maintaining the nurturing ones: disband the family. -something that 
seems to be happening already as a response to the new pressures of 
specialization and globalization. I suppose that wouldn't be the end 
of it as some cloning program would be attempted.)