IN THIS PREVIOUS ENTRY, Jesse Powell and I discussed the differences in illegitimacy rates and family stability along class lines, looking at the widely held view that because the college-educated and affluent suffer relatively low rates of out-of-wedlock births, they are not seeing serious levels of family breakdown. We continue our discussion here.

Laura writes:

There is some complacency in this vision of a two-tiered society. Not only is the out-of-wedlock rate rising for the educated too, but they are having smaller families than in the past; they face much higher rates of infertility, and though their divorce rates are not at their peak, they are still very high relative to the past. You also have to judge these intact families by the quality of life they are experiencing and the child-rearing environment. There are unprecedented rates of childhood depression and youth suicide, as well as high levels of depression in women. 

Jesse Powell writes:

It seems reasonable to say that the upper classes are doing better than the middle classes and lower classes but what would you expect? The real question is, do the parents give to their children what their parents gave to them? Is the upper class passing their privileges down to their children in absolute terms? Do the children of upper class parents receive the same benefits and resources that their parents received as children? That is the fundamental question. I’m not talking money here, I’m talking about relationship skills, I’m talking about the children’s ability to form functional family units when they grow up. 

This whole idea of comparative virtue drives me quite crazy. The fact that you may be better off than your neighbor doesn’t impress me at all if both you and your neighbor are acting selfishly and in a way detrimental to the welfare of your children. Maybe your neighbor is a bigger sinner than you are, but so what? You are still responsible for the sins you yourself commit. 

The great dysfunction of American society is that in general parents steal resources from their children. Again, not talking money here, I’m talking about time, attention, love, nurturing, moral guidance, discipline and rule setting, the emotional and ethical functions of parenting. 

It goes something like this. The man withdraws from fulfilling his functions as a man, he withdraws from his provide for and protect duties to women, and he withdraws from the rule setting and decision making function of the household. In response to this the women starts to take on some of the functions that the man is no longer providing, to the best of her abilities. This process of the woman taking on the functions the man is no longer providing is called “women’s empowerment” or “women’s liberation”. When the woman takes on some of the man’s functions she no longer can devote her full energy to caring for the children. The woman takes resources away from the child in order to spend her energies filling in the deficits left by the man’s initial decision to no longer take on his duties as a man. 

So, the man steals resources from the woman by refusing to fulfill his chivalrous duties towards the woman. The woman then steals resources from the child to make up for the lost functions no longer being provided for by the man. 

What this means is that the adults collectively are living a lifestyle where resources are stolen from the children in order to satisfy the selfish and irresponsible behavior of the adults. Maybe the man is primarily to blame because he refused to fulfill his duties as a man. Maybe the woman is primarily to blame because she refused to put herself into a dependent and submissive role in relation to her husband who was eager and ready to fulfill his duties as a man. Either way, whichever adult party is primarily to blame for the situation, the end result is the same. When the family does not operate on a patriarchal model what happens is the adults steal resources away from the children in order to facilitate the adult’s irresponsible and selfish behavior. 

What happens when adults take resources away from children in order to facilitate their own irresponsible behavior? When this happens the child is being treated as a lesser human being than the adult, the child is being treated as if the child’s needs are inferior in value and worth than the adult’s needs. 

So, let’s say a society has this defect, that children are seen as less valuable and deserving than adults. What happens? When this cultural defect first gets introduced the adults start out being competent and caring and able to fulfill their role as parents and as men and women well. Then they become selfish and irresponsible and self-indulgent, they steal resources from their children to subsidize their new “free” “liberated” lifestyle. 

The children of this first generation of irresponsible parents are now no longer as healthy and functional as their parents were because their parents stole resources from them in order to enable their own irresponsible behavior. This first generation of irresponsible parents imposed functional and skill deficits upon their children because they didn’t give the children the time and attention needed to pass on what all they knew and understood about the world. 

So, these children cheated in childhood then grow up and become parents themselves. These new parents already have a difficult time in being as good a parent as they should be because they were never taught how to be good parents or more specifically good men and women as children. Not only that but the ethic that the needs of parents are more important than the needs of children still prevails, the defect in the culture has not yet changed. So, the new parents who are diminished in their capacity as parents because of the neglect imposed upon them as children furthermore possess the same selfish attitude towards their children that their parents possessed towards them. So, the new generation of children, the grandchildren of the original adults who first indulged in irresponsible behavior at the expense of their children, have two deficits or two injuries imposed upon them. The first injury is that their parents were never taught properly how to be parents themselves. The second injury is that their parents steal resources from them to facilitate their own irresponsible and selfish behavior. The grandchildren are victimized twice.

 What happens when the grandchildren grow up to become parents themselves? First of all these new adults have a double injury imposed upon them and their ability to be competent parents due to the neglect imposed upon them as children. Secondly the wider culture hasn’t changed; the ethic that the needs of adults are more important than the needs of children is still in place. So, these new parents then impose three injuries upon their children, three levels of neglect and abuse upon their children. The first two injuries imposed upon their children are due to the neglect and abuse imposed upon them in their childhood. The third injury, the new injury, is an expression of their attitude that their needs come before their children’s needs, they add their own selfish and irresponsible self-indulgence on top of the sins of their parents and their grandparents that came before them. 

On and on it goes until the family and relationship abilities of the people in this society are totally destroyed. 

This is what is happening today in American society. Feminism constitutes a cultural bias against children, an idea that the needs of children are less important than the needs of adults. This bias against children leads to an ever increasing level of abuse and neglect towards children through the process I describe above. The end result, if the process goes on long enough, is the near total destruction of people’s ability to form relationships. 

The never ending increase in out-of-wedlock births to me is a real world manifestation of this ongoing destruction of people’s ability to form relationships. An extra level of harm is created with each passing generation. If you take the harm created with each new generation and divide it by 25, taking 25 years as the length of a generational period, then you get the new level of harm that the family system suffers per year. This level or quantum of harm equates to a 6% proportional increase in out-of-wedlock births. This is why you get the phenomenon of out-of-wedlock births increasing about 6 percent a year no matter what year after year after year. Add this injury on top of injury on top of injury for a long enough period of time and you get the radical destruction of the family seen in the black community or seen in the out-of-wedlock ratio going from 2 percent to 50 percent among white 20 to 24 year olds. 

This is sort of my grand explanation for why the out-of-wedlock ratios grow like they do and what is happening to American family life overall. Feminism is the source of the anti-child bias that sets never ending destruction of the family in motion and only a return to patriarchy can undo the damage that has been done and reestablish a cultural model that can maintain itself from one generation to the next. 

You mention the issue of how to motivate men to take on their duties as men. A healthy society will create incentives for men to behave as they should behave and punishments for when they do not. The signals sent to men are dysfunctional on a number of different levels.

 As far as men being “enslaved” in the past, this idea is so outrageous. The man refusing to fulfill his duties to the woman is the first stage of societal destruction. First the man steals from the woman by refusing his duties and obligations as a man, then the woman steals from the child to make up for what she is not receiving from the man, then the child is not able to perform their functions as an adult when the child grows up, furthermore the child learns that stealing from children to satisfy adults needs is OK, and the set up for never-ending family destruction is now complete. 

It is absolutely vitally necessary that men fulfill their duties and obligations as men. Don’t get me started reminding me of the idiocy and selfishness of some men’s rights types. 

I guess if I was to talk about how to get men to take on the provider and protector role again I would start out with duty and obligation. Men need to take on masculinity simply because it is the right thing to do, because it is the duty and obligation of men. After the concept of duty and obligation is established then it is time to set up the system of rewards and punishments to reinforce obedience to what duty and obligation requires and obliges men to do. 

In order for a healthy social system to be maintained, yes, a system of rewards and punishments needs to be set up to maintain and uphold social values. However, in order to rebuild a system of ethics that has been lost I believe that duty and obligation comes first, self-serving rational response to rewards and punishments comes after the sense of duty and obligation has established the need for the virtuous behavior in the first place.

Laura writes:

Thank you. This is an excellent statement.

                           — Comments —

Kimberly writes:

This is interesting. I was fascinated from the first post from Jesse, but I didn’t know what to make of the information. I think Jesse sums it up extremely well, and I appreciate it.

Jesse writes:

“This whole idea of comparative virtue drives me quite crazy. The fact that you may be better off than your neighbor doesn’t impress me at all if both you and your neighbor are acting selfishly and in a way detrimental to the welfare of your children. Maybe your neighbor is a bigger sinner than you are, but so what? You are still responsible for the sins you yourself commit.”

I’d like to add to what Jesse is saying here. I think that the well-off are responsible for more than just the sins they commit themselves. They probably worked hard to make the money they have. They gained some virtue in this, and probably inspired other people along the way. People with money tend to be the leaders in their communities. People look up to the rich and rich-er. They are “in the spotlight,” so to speak. So when these people use their money to live selfish, lazy lives, paying for nannies etc., they basically cash-in on the virtue they had previously acquired. And all the people who have been so inspired think selfishness is the way to success. I’m not blaming the upper-class for the sins of the multitudes, or not entirely. Nobody has any excuse to sin against their own children. But the upper class could help by setting the right example.

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