future of marriage and family law

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
21

I like some of your statements but not all of them. I perfer gays have committed relationships to non commited ones. I think this strengthens marriage in general. We need to get that commitment back into marriage.

Spirituality, virtues, morals, and God, exist without religion. For darn sure we need to raise awareness of such things and put them back into their family context. For sure without them, civilizations fall.

I feel a need to do some research in past reasoning and then bring what I find back here.

Tentative, we do need to talk of the things you mentioned. Fortunately, most baby boomers will be able to care for themselves for another 20 years, because our bodies remain fairly good until our 80’tys. By then the children will be retiring and their kids will be grown, so they will have room for Mom and Dad, and our economy may be making very different demands on everyone.

I expect to be working into my 80’tys. Then I will be focusing on the last stage of our human development, and I would like to make the adjustments in the apartment where I live, that will best meet the needs of this very large elderly population. Many of us have no hope of having the incomes necessary to live in assisted living, and we really do not want to live our children. I cared for my grandmother with Alzhiemers disease, and my mother who died with ALS, and my grandchildren who were made wards of the court, and I argue with myself about staying with the job I have now, or giving it up to care for more grandchildern and a great grandchild. After sacrificing myself for a life time to care for others, I really don’t want to give up the job I have now. Our children do not have the values that made us care givers, and it is hard to imagine living with them being a pleasure, or even a good possibility. Like Kriswest, they think we all make choices for our selves and if anyone needs help, it is that person’s fault for making bad choices. The idea of sacrificing for another, being an honorable thing to do, and a socially expected thing to do is, unacceptable to those who have been taught to be self centered and competitive, instead of family focused and co operative. However, this idea of sacfricing ourselves for others does play into our ideas of how to manage our last years. In Oregon we fought hard for the Right to Die with Dignity law. Don’t worry too much about us.

It is the children we need to worry about, because their parents were not such good parents, and that makes their ability to parent their children even worse. We are looking at a generation that had nothing like the family and community life of the past, and was raised in day care centers. The prediction for how well they will do is not good. They will lack the human bonding and values, that once made civiliations stable.

22

Hurray for wikipedia.

This would also go with the Stoics and the reasoning for living with reason, instead of basing our decisions on our feelings. Emotions change and change and are not a good bases for our decisions. Also, when we go about our lives as though all that is important is our happiness, and base our decisions on our feelings, instead of on ideals, humans are pathetic and come to no good. They reduce themselves to slaves of their emotions, and don’t know how to make good decisions that benefit others, such as their own children and society at large. They are not fit for family life, nor self government.

23

I’m sorry, but I find too much of this discussion about principles and ideals as if we are going to enjoy the luxury of acting on, instead of reacting. It simply isn’t going to happen that way. The social changes will continue to be a reaction to a rapidly changing standard of living and what is marraige and family will not be “planned”, but forced adjustment to contingencies encountered in everyday life.

AXIOM: Structure controls outcome. Predictability is directly proportional to structural stability.

I keep pointing to high energy costs. Why? Because the cost of energy affects EVERYTHING. We have only begun to see the effects of this. The structure behind our standard of living (how we actually live) is, and will be changing rapidly. My best guess is probably for at least the next decade. Any basis for predicting a change in social structure will be locked into changes in what is possible given the physical environment. What is considered traditional marraige and family will evolve, not as a deliberate planned program to meet a set of ideals, but to simply react to changing conditions on the ground.

I don’t mean to limit the discussion of what ifs waaaay out there, but I see too many in-your-face issues coming at us that will alter all the what ifs and even how we think about them. It isn’t about some giant cataclysmic change, but the cumulative effects of many small changes that will dictate what marraige and family becomes.

24

Why don’t you take this same attitude with everything else you think it is important to discuss and just eliminate the future textbook? What is the point of discussing anything? You are a prefect example of why it took so long for women and Blacks to make any progress.

25

Family and marriage laws have to do with cultures and groups in positions of power, the dominant culture will attempt to ridicule, vote in, or pester politicians, judges, etc for changes. But also the reverse is true where an outspoken minority that has gained enough sympathy from a decent sized population who share the same cultural values (more people do then not, i.e. california). We first have to identify cases where the law was changed and why.

-Usually laws are changed base upon outcry or legal challenge from some event or group

We see it here in Canada with Islamics trying to implement Sharia law on their own particular group and culture. The real problem is the group values competition, the more people that disagree with your position the more likely it is you’ll have to take action to change it, unless it falls under special priveledge of the law/constitution/charter of the state, etc.

26

Athena,

You obviously have a strong position on everything about marraige and family. For you, there are no questions, only answers. This has been rather obvious from the beginning. We might be able to look at issues that will both effect and put pressure on families and see if there aren’t some solutions to those problems that might work. But all of your questions are really just rhetorical. You already have your answers before you ask the question. Since I’m personally responsible for thwarting the progress of women and blacks ( :astonished: :astonished: ???) from making progress, perhaps you ought to not even try to talk to me. I’m not much on trying to look at questions with people on a holy mission.

27

Sorry, but this made me laugh. Anyone who’s been on this forum more than a week knows you’re one of the few guys who will stand up in support of women, especially in some of the more ridiculous threads.

I also have to ask why we now have 4 (or is it more?) threads devoted to this same topic? I am not trying to minimize the importance of this issue, but Athena, your strategy of trying to divert different threads all into this same topic is kind of self-defeating. All of the discussion is getting diluted by being split out in different places. It might be better to pick one of the threads and stick to it, so that people know where to go if they want to comment on it.

28

[b]Family first.[/b]

The American family is fractured & fragmented, with none of that cohesion remaining that it used to naively over-value. The reasons for this are many, but it appears almost everywhere in America’s non-cultural society. It appears in books, television, and especially movies. The most notable movie is The Godfather: Part II. This is voted the #3 movie of all time on www.imdb.com. Why do men adore this movie so much? It is because this movie plays upon men’s greatest fear … losing his family.

This metaphor is a popular one. The glue that holds the Western family together is no longer potently adhesive like it once was, because today’s contemporary society is much different than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, etc. What has changed? The meaning of life has changed.

Human existence used to be one of immediate survival. Outside of the ruling elite, the “master” class of society, people fought on a daily basis to survive. It was not given freely and those that did not take up that struggle died. Now, this is not the case (in America). The American youth owes nobody nothing and their lack of respect is self-evident. This lack of self-respect appears everywhere, especially in philosophy, and especially on ILP. None of the classical foundations are respected. Because this is the situation, humanity is embracing itself to relearn old lessons “the hard way”. The fall of the American Republic and the dissolution of Secular Christian Humanism mark the coming “Apocalypse” on Earth. When men & women lose their male & female souls (as is readily apparent on ILP), then the fall into hedonism is guaranteed. It will happen. The consequences of this will be subtle at first and then build up into dire events (“Hell on Earth”). Without the soul, humanity is lost. People wander about with no meaning & purpose – all that is needed is a catalyst to lead these people into nuclear holocausts based on greed & power by the ruling elites.

The Superficiality of Human Existence is here to stay. I once believed that a solution could be found and administered rather quickly, but now I see the error of my youthful idealism. Whatever I am going to change in my lifetime, if anything at all, is not going to see the light of day until many years after my death. So be it. We all suffer from the same breath of life; it is a pity that most people never care to understand that which gives them life. They are ungrateful.

And how does all of this apply to the “future of marriage and family law”. It applies, because men already have lost their families … and they (ignorantly) don’t know why. They do not know the causes or the effects and nobody cares about finding these questions & answers except for me. I am the only male on this planet that actually cares about this issue. For a long time, I thought I was being paranoid and mistaken in my ego, but now I see it quite clearly. Nobody cares about anything except for themselves. Therefore, nobody takes it upon themselves to bring others into their family (when it is needed). And now it is needed. The human race is full of children with no adult responsibility anywhere to be found. Age is inconsequential. Nobody is an “adult”. “God” disappeared, because He was tired of his children’s constant shit & bickering with no respect for the breath of life He put into their lungs. I would probably leave too.

It is time to grow up together, as a human race.

Again, age is inconsequential. it doesn’t matter if you’re 7 or 70, you are likely a child with a childlike mentality. Feel free to be offended by my words, because if they apply to you, then you will be offended by them. If you are an adult, a [b]powerful man[/b] or a powerful woman then you will know my words as true, because they ring about in your heads with an outstanding resonance. You cannot deny them.

Since everybody is selfish, then what can a singular man do to actually help his brothers & sisters on this planet? What can you do when your actions are selfishly motivated, whether you are a man or woman? I will tell you: you can make a family out of every person on this earth. Whoever walks the ground will be your brother and sister. A new hedonism transcends humanity when you take everybody into your home in order to temper your allegiances to others and most importantly, to yourself. Who is your lover, except for your fellow animals on this planet? The greatest Christian lie was that “beastiality” is/was a sin, because we are all [animals]. Who can you have sex with except for an animal?

It is time to put one roof over our heads or “we will not survive the coming storms”. Be selfish. Do this for yourself and nobody else. Make a family out of who you let into your door. Acknowledge that you must kill those that you do not allow entry. The nature of males is a violent one – we kill, we rape, we plunder, and we commit many atrocities under the guise of “justice” (including merciless wars). Prepare yourselves for murder if a man or woman should be murdered. We will come together unified under a common purpose, one where we liken ourselves as a family, and all else will suffer the consequences of being left outside when the door slams shut.

29

Tentative, I don’t think you should attempt to say what is so for me, because you are not in my head and can not know what I think or how I feel about what I say. The only thing I am sure about is, the weaker the family gets the stronger the government will be,and this is not good in my opinion. Is it a good in your opinion?

The reason for approaching the issue of family from several points of view, is each point of view tells us something different. I was happy with Real’s defending marriage thread, but it was moved from the futurist textbook, so it became necessary to introduce the subject in an acceptable format for the textbook. And if you think you can do a better thread about the future and family, please do. Why are you attacking me, instead of sharing your thoughts about family?

SuperCulture I think secular countries must be very clear that are secular countries. Sharia law is not secular, but religious, and it must be made clear that religious law does not have the authority of law in a secular nation, and if religious people do not like this, they do to a country that suits them better. We are making a terrible mistake by allowing immigrants to believe they do not have to adopt our culture if they wish to reside long in our countries. This is a matter of good manners. You don’t walk into someone else’s home and tell that person how to live, and don’t enter another country and tell the people how to live.

In democracies laws are based on reason, a rationale. They can be changed with new information or better reasoning, but holy books are not accepted as the last word in good reasoning. all this said though, who should have the most say over family affairs, government or the family? This is a serious question when dealing with Muslims. And Tentative, this one of several areas dealing with family, where I am very unsure.