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.
Interpretation
The definition of family is a source of significant division in society, with opposing views complicating the discourse.
Christopher Lasch highlights the contentious nature of the family as a social institution, pointing out that differing beliefs about what constitutes a family lead to deep societal divides. This disagreement hampers constructive dialogue, as people struggle to find common ground in the face of such varying perspectives on family structures and values.
In practice
In a discussion about family values in a community meeting.
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 — 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.
Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion.
Even if you meet the perfect person, it ain’t gonna be at the perfect time. You’re married, they’re single. That’s right. You’re Jewish, they’re Palestinian. You’re a Mexican, they’re a raccoon. You’re a black woman, he’s a black man.
People run away to be alone,' he said. Some people had to be alone.
I believe we all have different ways we came to the gay community and we can't and shouldn't be pigeon-holed into one cultural narrative which can be uninclusive and disempowering.
I still hear you humming, Mama. The colour of your song calls me home. The colour of your words saying, Let her be. She got a right to be different. She gonna stumble on herself one of these days. Just let the child be. And I be, Mama.
I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
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