The attempt to redefine the family as a purely voluntary arrangement grows out of the modern delusion that people can keep all their options open all the time.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the notion that family can be entirely based on individual choice, highlighting the unrealistic expectation of maintaining endless options.
Christopher Lasch's quote reflects on the contemporary belief that family structures can be purely voluntary and flexible. He suggests that this perspective stems from a misguided idea that individuals can always choose from an array of options without facing the constraints or commitments typically associated with family ties. In essence, he argues that real familial relationships involve responsibilities and bonds that cannot simply be discarded at will.
In practice
In a discussion about modern family structures at a community event.
Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security.
The reporting of news has to be understood as propaganda for commodities, and events by images.
It is advertising and the logic of consumerism that governs the depiction of reality in the mass media.
Even the reporting of news has to be understood not as propaganda for any particular ideology, liberal or conservative, but as propaganda for commodities β for the replacement of things by commodities, use values by exchange values, and events by images.
It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life.
The question of the family now divides our society so deeply that the opposing sides cannot even agree on a definition of the institution they are arguing about.
Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it. No destructive lies. No ridiculous fears. No debilitating anger.
Shadow looked down at the girl on the table. βWhat happened to her?β he asked. βPoor taste in boyfriends,β said Jacquel. βItβs not always fatal.
There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless, hotheaded, intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she adores, tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard her speech with his pet oaths.
There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.
Never Hesitate to hold out your hand; never hesitate to accept the outstretched hand of another.
One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
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