Mr. Moderate

The most basic change that must be made is that we need to explode the idea of the nuclear family. As it says in that linked article:

Around the world, the structure of family norms are different. Ideas of what constitute a family changes based on culture, mobility, wealth, and tradition. In many cultures, the need to be self-supporting is hard to meet, particularly where rents/property values are very high, and the foundation of a new household can be an obstacle to nuclear family formation instead of extended family forms (or people remaining single while living longer with their parents).

In other words, in other parts of the world which faced this same crisis where “the need to be self-supporting is hard to meet,” one solution is to adopt “extended family forms.” From the article on extended families I quote:

Workload is equally shared among the members. The women are often housewives and cook for the entire family. The patriarch of the family (often the oldest male member) lays down the rules and arbitrates disputes. Other senior members of the household baby sit infants. They are also responsible in teaching the younger children their mother tongue, manners and etiquette. The members of the household also look after each other in case a member is ill.

A recent article in the Washington Post attributes the disconnection from society to the changes in marriage customs in just the past two centuries:

Marriage, in fact, used to be an institution that sought to extend community ties. From princes and princesses in Europe who married each other to matches arranged between the less well-off, marriage was largely about broadening one’s network of allies, friends and benefactors.

Not anymore. Modern marriage, sociologists Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian have shown, is really about two people setting themselves apart — not just from the larger community, but from other relatives, including parents and siblings.

…

One of the benefits of modern marriage — its tendency to make people financially better off — may be partly behind the phenomenon that Gerstel and Sarkisian describe. Community ties have historically been about interdependent relationships; as nuclear families have become more independent, they have less need for others, and thereby feel less obligated as well.

I don’t challenge the general observations of the above; they coordinate very well with my own feelings. But from a standpoint of causal relationships, I believe that an industrial economy, where workers are viewed more as interchangeable parts in a corporate machine, and where workers are expected to remove themselves to wherever their particular work is most needed, is the ultimate root cause of the independence that modern people feel. In our modern economy, men are expected to “marry their jobs” to some degree or another. That lack of connectivity between husband and wife contrasts strongly with the old agrarian model of a family working together on a farm. So, this too contributes to feelings of independence from family members. I really doubt that the married couple is any better connected to each other in a modern marriage than they were in more ancient times, particularly in an economy based upon family farming.

The lesson out of all of this is that we need to feed our need for inter-connectedness. That is a path to mental health and happiness for all family members. We just need to somehow find ways to nurture inter-connectedness within the context of our modern industrial economy where the majority of couples have both spouses working at full time jobs.

Now, we will probably never get to the point where total strangers will be welcomed into households in the same way that true relatives are, but we do not need to stick to the current paradigm either, where people hide in their houses because it can get to be dangerous to go outside, and you might live in a house for years before you really get to know your neighbors (if you ever do).

When my family moved into the second home of my childhood, my parents made friends with other families up and down the street, and those friendships lasted decades, until most of the then-adults had died off. Somehow, our culture has changed to the point where we no longer want to know our neighbors, but instead deeply fear them. Maybe its the fault of too many police shows on the television. But it seems to me that, if you live in a place where you are afraid of 90% or more of your neighbors, and you want nothing at all to do with them, then you have got to move to a better place to live!

Having good neighbors you can rely on to help you, and who you will not hesitate to help when they need help, is all part of having a good quality of life. So, the first objective of my utopian community is to encourage neighborliness. The people in any such utopian community will naturally get to know each other because the nature of the community will be such that people spend more time in common spaces and less time in private spaces. The more people get to know each other, the more they will naturally tend to trust each other, and all that leads to a better quality of life through shared effort. You need a babysitter for Saturday night? No problem, and sure, you would be glad to return the favor next Saturday. And so on and so forth.

My utopian community creates a space of possibilities that range from an economical version of the nuclear family all the way over towards an extended family of relatives. But mostly what I’m advocating returning to is the sense of community that existed on the small cul-de-sac where I grew up. Basically, that starts with making an effort to know each other and be friends with as many neighbors as is humanly possible. If you do that successfully, the chances are good that you will have a far greater quality of life at a far lower cost than most average people. Plus, you will probably get a lot more than just a few kids and grandkids showing up for your funeral.

Human beings are social creatures, and the isolated nuclear families of our modern era actually lead to insanity. Somehow, the nuclear family develops feelings of paranoia about the surrounding world, and that can lead to spousal violence, divorce, and any number of other ills that could be easily defused if we felt safe within our own homes and neighborhoods.

You do not need a specially built community to begin. Just take all the houses on your block (or all of the apartments in your apartment complex) and start trying to meet everybody who is your neighbor. If you are good at it, then you probably need to volunteer as a political organizer for your precinct.

But the bottom line here is that the more we know about each other, the more we will tend to trust each other, and the more we will tend to give to one another, thus improving the quality of life for each other at little to no cost to ourselves.