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From
The American Interest (via
Joshua Snyder):
Klinenberg is rarely explicit about his convictions, which saves him the
trouble of seriously assaying their implications, but he finally gets
to the point directly in his conclusion, asserting that “living alone is
an individual choice that’s as valid as the choice to get married or
live with a domestic partner. . . . [I]t’s a collective
achievement—which is why it’s common in developed nations but not in
poor ones.” Klinenberg cites Sweden as a model to be emulated.
This
is a novel position, to be sure, considering that no known civilization
in human history has lauded solitary living as a social ideal. Either
the extended family or, since the Industrial Revolution, the nuclear
family variant of it, has been a universal social norm for at least the
past 10,000 years and arguably much longer than that. And you don’t need
data to see why: Society needs children and children need families.
What the Founders knew, but so many contemporaries
seem to have forgotten, is that the well-being of any society turns not
just on its capacity to procreate but on its ability to transmit a
tradition of moral reasoning, and the values that attend it, to future
generations. Drawing from the Hebrew prophets and the Greek
philosophers, they recognized that values are in flux as virtuous or
venal cycles reverberate across generations. Not that moral development
is to be feared, or that change is in principle to be disparaged, but
development and change has to be carefully nurtured by sentries on the
lookout for indulgence, corrosion and selfishness. The Founders
understood that the good life can only be safeguarded by a good society,
and that this indelible connection bestows obligations on individuals
to invest in the acculturation of future generations. (Read entire article.)
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5 comments:
I'm not married and I never will be. I wanted to in my early to mid-20's but since then I have determined to avoid it at all costs. Am I being selfish? Maybe so but I hope not because I can summon no regret over it. If you're going to have children you should certainly be married but I honestly cannot understand for the life of me why any man in this country would ever want to get married. The way things are now, women don't need to get married (it seems) and I think any man would be nuts to get married.
It's ultimately a matter of vocation. Not everyone is called to be married. Those who are called must trust that they will be given the grace of the sacrament.
I feel that the increased tendancy of narcissism in individuals have wreaked havoc upon the unity of the husband and wife in their role of nurturing one another,as well as seeing to each other's needs and desires rather than one's own. This 'me first' attitude and sense of entitlement has also spilled over into the behavior of today's young people.
Marriage never has been easy but it just seems to me that nowadays society and even the state are working against you (especially the husbands and fathers) to the extent that the odds are too stacked against you. What do marriage vows really mean when either party can, at any time and for any reason, call the whole thing off?
Love is, and always has been, a risk. Even in the olden times, a spouse could be taken away by death or alienated by infidelity. Babies died right and left. Marriage has never been trouble-free.
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