Part 23 (1/2)

desire for a famatic framework of our time To what extent does the desire to have a family reveal characteristics of human self-constitution in the current context? In a world in which there is a high rate of births out of wedlock, a world in which the traditional fauarantee of relationshi+ps free of abuse and exploitation, a world with great nues or in foster care, any desire to place children in a loving family context is worthy of attention

What constitutes a fah literacy? The new definitionthese lines: main provider (the father role); second provider (the er of the household The two roles are not polarized; each provider participates in household work and in salaried work outside the home, as circue of 18 years (or 22 years if in college), for whorandparent is qualified through age and willingness to assume the role

Aunt/uncle is someone with fraternal ties to the providers The definitions can go on In considering these literate definitions, we can see that they apply to the situation of the current traditional family as well, in which father and mother both work, in which a child may live with and be cared for by a parent's second or third spouse, in which distance from or lack of blood relations calls for ad hoc relatives The most vital implications concern our culture as it has been passed down over the centuries through literate expression, laden with values that literacy perpetuates and endoith an aura, in defiance of the new pragmatics and the new scale in which humans operate

The ho children reflects the fact that we live in a world of many options, and consequently of very relative values Their desire for a fa conducive to family life, is as valid as that of an unive birth and rear a child (the one-parent household) It is as valid as the desire of infertile couples who use every h costly ates In the civilization of illiteracy, each person forms his or her own definition of fa else The only test of validity is, ultiical future of the species will also be affected, one way or another, as part of the effectiveness equation

To want a child

The new prag a fae, if at all considered, has becoe's reason for being: continuity and security through offspring and adaptation to life cycles The attitudes hich partners enter the family contract result in a dynamic of personal relations outside of that sanctioned by society Vows are exchangedNatural instincts are systehealth care, and settling conflicts Child rearing is the result of pragive up in having a child? Can aoutside the home?

In order to correctly qualify answers to these questions, ould need to acknowledge thata fa alternatives to it, are reflected in the family experience, or in experiences that are parallel to it Econoion, culture, and acculturation play an ieneity and projected expectations of uniforeneous experiences Data indicating that the average nule-parent households, nuroups of different biological, cultural, and econorounds sho necessary it is to realistically account for differences as

Let us take a look at so that, let us also commit ourselves to an unbiased interpretation, free of any racial prejudice Al in a one-parent household

Of these children, 94 live with their -terreithout a father To make any inference from such data without proper consideration of the many factors at ould only perpetuate literacy-based prejudices, and would not lead to a better understanding of the new circumstances of human self-constitution Our need to understand the dynamics of family and what can be done to effect a course of events that is beneficial to all involved cannot be served unless we understand the many characteristics of the practical experience of self-constitution of the Black family, or of any non-standard Western family

Under the expectations of literacy, a prototypical family life was to be expected froeneity is overridden by all the forces at work in the civilization of illiteracy, we should not be surprised by, and even less inclined to fasten blame on people who constitute themselves in ways closer to their authenticity Multiplication of choice is-let ain-part of the civilization of illiteracy Modern, enlightened laws introduced in soamous families With this prohibition in place, a new pheno extra-marital affairs and support neither their lovers nor their children, which they did under polygamy Paradoxically, activists in the Wo the return to polyga number of deadbeat dads and the misery of abandoned wives and children

There is no necessary relation between the two examples, rather the realization that within the civilization of illiteracy, tradition comes very powerfully to expression

Children in the illiterate family

nobody can characterize faly unified and showing exe Children, as lected Concern over education was at times questionable The projected ideal of authority and infallibility resulted in the perpetuation of patterns of experiences fro to free ourselves Notwithstanding these and other failures, we still have to acknowledge that a shi+ft, from individual and family responsibility to a diffuse sense of social responsibility, characterizes the process affecting the status of children The family in the civilization of illiteracy eressively mediated practical experiences: from childbirth-an al the fareement, mediated by so ists-tofa direct interaction and a sense of ie, and interaction, and instances of coht conflict The institution of the family must also counteract sequentiality and linearity with a sense of relativity that allows for more choices, which the new huher expectations

Like any other institution, the institution of enerated) has its own inertia and drive to survive, even when the conditions of its necessity, at least in the forer in place In short, the breakdown of the family, even if equated with the failure of the individuals constituting it-children included-is related to the new structural foundation of a pragmatic framework for which it is not suited as a universal model, or to which it is only partially acceptable This does not exclude the continuation of family Rather, it means that alternative for the fae Just as literacybeyond the e, a closer look at how the new pragmatic framework of the civilization of illiteracy affects experiences pertinent to family is necessary here

The history of the family, independent of its various eamous, restricted or extended, heterosexual or homosexual), is in many respects the history of the appropriation of the individual by society The offspring of pried to nobody If they survived to puberty, they continued life on their own, or as roup in which they were born, as nameless as their parents Children and parents were a of the hu their own identity, and their own universe parallel to that of nature, belonged ed as the fae, parish) The child was marked, naht have been It was given language and, through the experience of work, a sense of belonging In all known practical experiences-work, language, religion, enerations was specifically acknowledged Rules, sority, others to property and social life, were established in order to accoenerations

Over centuries, family ownershi+p of children decreased while that of society increased This is reflected in the various ways church, school, social institutions, and especially the eneration In this process, mediation becomes part of fae of advertise, and much, much more is insinuated between children and their parents The process intensifies as expectancies of better life for less effort become predominant Responsibilities, procreation included, are distributed froenetics Test tube production of babies is an alternative to natural procreation More to come As a matter of fact, both procreation and adoption are don procedures Genetic traits are identified and ate mothers are selected and contracted based on expectations of behavior and heredity Sperh physical perforateare treated like any other couaranteed” If the product is soet rid of it

Obviously, the language and literacy expected for the success of the biochemical reaction in the test tube is different from that involved in the constitution of the family It is also different froe from instinctual sexual encounters to love, procreation, and child rearing In each of the procedures enetics, for example-introduce levels of mediation that finally affect the efficiency of procreation As nightht seem, they are in line with the entire develop-to identify the desired coies for synthesis-and task distribution Children are not yet made on the Internet, but if the distinction between eneticists is carried through, it would not be impossible to conceive of procreation on networks

A new individuality

The process of mediation expands well further Family life beco fay, socialized expectations of education, the right to die The private fa and educated it to the level of its own education, or to the level it deeress of literacy To the extent that this faion, sport, art, or thein them Once one aspect of the relation between environ in the city reshapes the nature of the dependence on the environment, the house is one of several possible, family members work at different jobs-the faer fa dissolves into solitary individualiser buffers the child froine running Industrial society required centers of population while it still relied on relatively nuclear families that embodied its own hierarchy The human scale reflected in industrial society required the socialization of faenerate an adequate workforce, as well as the corresponding consu, children as much as adults are on their own, in a world of interactions that breaks loose from any conceivable constraints There is no need to fantasize here, rather to acknowledge a new structural situation of consequences beyond our wildest ih its prescriptions and expectations It facilitated the balance between the preserved naturalness and the socialized aspect of family It projected a sense of permanency and shi+elded the fa to take over limited functions of the body: the mechanical arm, the tread writing and reading, literacy seeainst the inanirity and coherence in a world progressively losing its humanity due to all the factors that the need for increased efficiency put in place (machines, foremost) It eventually became obvious that procreation had to be kept within limits, that there is a social cost to each child and to eachbirth Moreover, family structural relations needed to be reconsidered for the expected levels of efficiency to be maintained and increased, as expectations took over desires The new pragmatic framework is established as this borderline between the possible and the necessary The civilization of illiteracy is its expression

At the family level, the civilization of illiteracy corresponds to increased seg the very core of faer be viewed as a whole by thethe market

The market is with us from birth to death It deals in every aspect of life, and extends the pressure of coments medical care It is most likely that each fae, sex, and condition It segion, and culture It is not uncommon that faious experiences, and some of them in none, as it is not uncoa study They live together, or find togetherness on the networka business on sooals, and soes)

The ments and the fae of consumption There is not one market entity that views the faeted on the basis of their econo fro to toys and recreation And so are their respective natural or adoptive parents, grandparents, and relatives We can all decry this as manipulation, but in fact it corresponds to the objective need to increase coly, a new es, focused on the individual, not on the famatic framework, this process sti the family This illiteracy is reflected in varied patterns of sexual behavior, in new birth control strategies, in a different reciprocal relation between men and women, or between individuals of the same sex, and in as-yet undefinable codes of family behavior The condition of the child in the civilization of illiteracy corresponds to the same dynamics Children are less and less cared for at home, often entrusted to specialized caretakers, and finally started on their way through the vast machine called the education system

Discontinuity

It makes no sense to decry the hypocrisy of double (or multiple) standards and the loss of a ed to reion foremost) In the dynamics of the civilization of illiteracy, forces kept under the control of rules and norms established in the practical experience of literacy are unleashed It would be difficult to speak about progress where one sees the demise of family, the erosion of private life, the increased number of one- parent households, of early and very early maternity, of incest, rape and increased child abuse, of obsession with contraceptives or ignorance of their use, and the threat of sexually transments, one would be better advised to consider the entire picture and to assess what makes all these occurrences possible, indeed, what ht well be true that e perceive as the sources of ion, work, and the satisfaction associated with all of these-are exhausted It ht, or invented, or at least not eliminated because they do not fit the ht that ether unnecessary deserves to be considered