************___________NOTE:
_____I have since changed my opinions or views on many things expressed within this essay... As I assume you do when you become aware of new information. I mean merely to post this as something that you might critically think about and express yourself--in a response via comment or email--for our own individual and collective benefit. And I hope you do. For serious.______Since the birth of humankind, there has been community, a group of people living in the same locality; and hence a society, a body of human beings associated or viewed as members of a community, has also been. In the beginning, society's sole purpose was to ensure the community's survival--”strength in numbers”--and continuity. The greater society has needs that must be met; in order to meet those needs, society creates subsets of people structured to help meet the needs of society. One of the earliest of subsets known to humankind is family. The purpose and responsibilities of the family have been defined with the various social changes throughout our history in order to better serve specific social needs and accommodate the needs of our fluctuating society. Family is a concept, as it has always been; family's definition changes with the perception and needs of who is doing the perceiving or defining.
______Anthropologists say a culture's biological and martial kinship rules and patterns of reciprocal obligations define family. Each culture defines who is biological and martial kin, and who is not so, and defines the obligations kin have to one another. Structure-functionalists say patterns of reciprocal obligations among people and between structures of people and the greater society define family. Economists focus on production and consumption activities; the family is a production and consumption unit. Our government and the different subsets of government all have slightly different needs; thus the definitions of family are all slightly different. There is no all-encompassing definition of family. To most families in the United States, family isn't defined in these unsentimental and mechanical terms; rather family is seen as brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and grandparents and the relationship they possess with one another. But, families in the U.S. haven't always lived as they do now.
______A subtle and slow degradation of both the American family's role in society and the individual roles of the members has taken place in the past century. United States has become a malaise of decadence by becoming a mass-producing consumerist nation, gradually forfeiting morals and values to the grand scheme of things—American culture. We no longer live in a nation that sees family as a necessity in society; where parents instill their children with fundamental information, a sense of responsibility, and the moral codes to help guide them through adolescence and into adulthood.
______American culture has had many means in which its people were socialized. Sociologists call the continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position, socialization. The people, places, or activities in socialization are called agents of socialization. New agents of socialization, like advertisements, have become more prominent and demanding in their roles in everyday American society. Advertising is the backbone of America's consumer culture, showing what there is to buy, why you need to buy it, and how you would go about buying specific consumer goods. Unfortunately, advertisements don't only sell products and consumer goods; advertisements sell images to the individuals who are exposed. The images are lifestyles: what to wear, what to eat, how to talk, how to act, and even how to think. The societal effects of advertising's encouragement of consumption has led to lifestyle changes and alterations in values. Advertising is teaching people unrealistic norms, which in turn leads to the human drive for social comparison. Advertisements teach that the displeasure people feel is unneeded, and by buying products to enhance their image and lifestyle they can get rid of those pesky, nasty feelings. The lessons being taught by advertisements are about self-fulfillment and a life happily led with new consumer goods and styles. Morals and values that we once had are being destroyed by the wealthy corporations in the pursuit of economic and political gains.
______Many social changes in America have led to the functional and structural problems in the American family. The period of time in which many technological, mechanical and innovative products and ideas were invented is known as the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution during the 1800's had dramatically changed the economic and social structures in Europe and the United States. Many inventions revolutionized the way in which the agricultural industry functioned. The Industrial Revolution in America forced people out of rural areas where machinery was replacing the labor force and into cities in order to find work to support their families. The factory began to mass produce specific products, beginning the consumer revolution. American culture was drastically changed forever; families were broken up from production units to a decentralized labor force, relying on the factories for the basic needs for survival. As technology evolved it became more and more disruptive to the family. Increased mobility, decentralization of information sources, the transfers of traditional functions of the family to societal and private sector establishments, the increased incidence of interpersonal interactions, safer sex with lesser or no consequences—all fostered the disintegration of the traditional, extended and nuclear family. The consequences of the abated roles of family and its members are now beginning to reflect negatively on the production, stability, and moral condition of American society.
______Since the Industrial Age, fathers are required to work full-time, resulting in the absence of the father. Hence, the mother tries to make up for his absence but often lacks understanding in childrearing, making outside sources give help with the needs of the child, culminating in a failed attempt to provide the child with the proper attention, resulting in a loss of security. This all led to the collapse of parental authority. Society shifted from a Super-Ego, self-restraint, valuing culture to a culture that gives more and more recognition to the Id, self-indulgent mentality.
The families of today look to our government agencies and the consumer culture for socialization—to see what they can become or should become. Lack of parental authority does not lead to lack of the superego, rather a new form of the superego. The parent's inability to serve as role models of self-restraint and self-discipline or to restrain the child encourages the development of a harsh and punitive superego, based largely on archaic images of the parents, fused with grandiose self-images. It holds up to the ego an exalted standard of fame and success, as well as condemns it with savage ferocity when it inevitably falls short of that standard. This creates a superego that is wild with the id's aggression and extremely self-criticizing, resulting in the high rate of depression among the consumer population.
American parents, permissive and evasive, find it easier to achieve conformity through the use of bribery rather than facing the emotional turmoil of suppressing the child's demands, making it extremely hard for the child to develop self-restraint of self-discipline. To instill the morals of our amoral culture into the young is to repeat a cycle that has already shown to lead to the loss of the individual and the individual family.
______Social control from schools promotes anxiety, uncertainty, and restless dissatisfaction. In school, the business corporation, and the courts of law, authorities conceal their power behind a façade of benevolence—posing as friendly helpers, seldom to discipline their subordinates. The appearance of permissiveness conceals a stringent system of controls, avoiding confrontation between the authorities and the people they intend to impose their will on, as frequently as possible by delegating discipline to others. Even the parents rely on doctors, psychiatrists, and the children's own peers to impose rules on the child and see to it that he conforms to them.
______Family hasn't only forgone a new role in economical society due to the factory and industrialization as a whole. Social and ethical codes have changed for men and women. Technology has allowed for wars and economic upheavals and forced the introduction of women into the labor force in America. Women had largely achieved equality in educational and economical opportunities and are fighting a winning battle in other domains of life—the military and political representation. In some legal respects, the bias is against men. It is rare for a man to complain of sexual harassment, to receive alimony or custody of his children, or to be the beneficiary of social welfare payments. The emergence of socially-accepted single parents and non-nuclear families has become commonplace in American society. Most single-parent families are headed by women.
______The roles and traditional functions of the family were gradually eroded and transferred to other social agents. Even functions such as emotional support, psychosexual interactions, and childrearing are outsourced to “professionals”. The nuclear family has been ripped apart from every social institution and reduced to a dysfunctional shell of its former self.
______Marriage rates started to decline in the late 1970's. Marriage is an extremely important part to a family, as it ensures its stability and ability to persevere through hard times. The traditional roles of women became useless in this new environment. Traditions used to lead people to get married because of the value in the union and the sanctity of the family. Nowadays, we live in a society that encourages people to get married to gain economic stability; families have become a place for an unrealistic picture of love and expression of that love. Family was an agreement to pursue wealth, and a reasonable answer to gaining financial stability, forming family with whoever was a successful monetary candidate. It is common for people today to express a need for romance, compatibility, and companionship in order to commit to such a profound union as a marriage, which is wishing for more than today's society is willing to ensure. Society merely pushes for financial stability in the individual, leaving marriage as a superfluous action.
______Fewer marriages exist as the years pass in the United States. Experts try to rationalize their findings with the excuses about the current condition of the country;s employment rate and job stability, saying that financial problems are to blame for such high divorce rates among couples. But if you look deeper into the problem of failing marriages, you begin to see the overall decadence of American culture at large. The incessant advertisements show people what they need in order to obtain happiness, and the majority of the people take in these fallacious reasons whilst nodding in agreement, instead of pure disbelief. There is no simple prescription to happiness, and yet the culture at large pushes consumption as a means in which to live happily and without the troubles of poverty, manipulation, or societal freedom.
______This rut of social changes has been brought about by the wealthy and their obscene quest for wealth and power. The country is beginning experience the malaise that is our consumer culture. Seeing the government scandals as unjust but also commonplace, people turn to their only given outlets. Diverting their eyes from the decadence that is breeding at large in our culture, many believe there is no sense in worrying about something that cannot be changed. As if the ways of consumption, environmental destruction, and manipulation of people can simply take care of themselves; the people remain ardently ignorant and torpid. The constitution, which holds the rights of American citizens, has been manipulated by powerful and greedy minorities. But the sad truth of the people's rights is that they knew very well what was going to become of their rights if they were to let the minority of wealthy individuals lead them. People have chosen to give up their rights in turn for the most blissful, worry-free, blithe happiness that exists and is offered—ignorance.
Sources include:
Diem, Gordon Neal, D.A. The Definition of “Family” in a Free Society. Published 2000.
Dr. Vaknin, Sam. The Family Cycle: the Good Enough Family. Published 2005.
Losch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism. Published 1977.
Gordon, Micheal, ed. The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective. St. Martin's Press, 1973.
