The Return to Patriachy?
Denis Dutton's wonderful site Arts and Letters Daily recently added this intriguing like to a story titled The Return to Patriachy?
In it the author, Phillip Longman, posits the thesis that a patriachal society was successful because it produced more children and that today's societies will probably become more patriachal and right wing because parents who are right wing are having more children.
It makes the point I've made in a post below, that the patriachal systems exist because they work, better than I have.
However, Mr Longman's article seems a little light on evidence. It essentially only relies on ancient Greek and Roman history and has little in the way of numbers to back it up. It also relies on the assumption that the ideas and beliefs of parents are passed on to their children (an assertion I happen to agree with but let's see the evidence).
I imagine this might get some of my gentle readers het up so discuss away...
I might add that I'm not sure I would support a return to patriachy but I don't think our current social system is going to be terribly successful and I think we will see it change within my lifetime.
In it the author, Phillip Longman, posits the thesis that a patriachal society was successful because it produced more children and that today's societies will probably become more patriachal and right wing because parents who are right wing are having more children.
It makes the point I've made in a post below, that the patriachal systems exist because they work, better than I have.
However, Mr Longman's article seems a little light on evidence. It essentially only relies on ancient Greek and Roman history and has little in the way of numbers to back it up. It also relies on the assumption that the ideas and beliefs of parents are passed on to their children (an assertion I happen to agree with but let's see the evidence).
I imagine this might get some of my gentle readers het up so discuss away...
I might add that I'm not sure I would support a return to patriachy but I don't think our current social system is going to be terribly successful and I think we will see it change within my lifetime.
posted by Edward Sargisson at 2:52 pm
2 Comments:
Population decline is a complex topic. However, I would somewhat agree with your point although it's not completely about economic systems.
I suspect that, in many ways, the difference between developing and developed countries has to do with fundamental belief systems. Places like Africa and the Middle East currently have a populace who do not behave in ways that work with democracy.
For example, in much of Africa there is a belief that the way to get ahead is to accept bribes. The effect of this, across the entire society, is to destroy efficiency and make the whole place poorer.
In Iraq, there is a belief that all the other ethnic groups are out to get yours and therefore it is justified (for extremists) to respond with violence.
Having said that, I fear I'm drawing a long bow from Africa to Iraq.
I don't think I could bring myself to endorse a patriarchy either. I don't think the system we've got is particularly satisfactory either.
One thing I was going to add. I think a large part of the social movements (e.g. feminism, anti-racism) of the twentieth century is the triumph of individualism over "what's best for others". (My words fail me here.)
i.e. what we had (for example Cat's description of the financial arrangements around marriage) was all about the diminution of individual rights for the benefit of the greater whole. The Victorian social system gave us lots of children in a time of high child mortality but at the cost of the individual hopes and aspirations of all women.
This analysis is certainly an aweful lot harder to justify for racism. (Yes I'm being understated...)
Actually, in this country, the people having the most chilren are the poor and under-educated. Most of them probably aren't right wing. My mother had five children, and is very much a Greens supporter. Of her children, at least three of them are also Greens voters.
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