Comunidades y Viviendas, Monologue 2
where does the family fit in to my thinking about communidades y viviendas...?
it's almost impossible to read or watch anything over tv, the tubes, in mainstream or even alternative media these days without seeing the word "family" used in some context... googling the word "family" gets you 789 MILLION hits, among the first three of which include disney family.com and james dobson and focus on the family's "family" website... there are a ton more, left and right, liberal and conservative, wingnut and moonbat, and all of them share one common assumption: that the family is the sine qua non, the absolutely essential building block of human society, and that an analysis of societal structures will inevitably and universally take you back to that irreducible unit... i think that assumption is flawed and, in fact, is the source of much of the social polarization, societal anomie and sense of personal isolation that seems to define much of today's world, and i would like to propose what, to some, may be a radical notion, that COMMUNITY is the fundamental building block of society...
stop and think about it... what are communities composed of...? well, certainly, one of the first answers that springs to mind is families... no argument here, but what else...? THIS is where is gets interesting... IF families are seen as the fundamental building block, social structures that don't fit that category are either marginalized or rejected outright, and isn't that exactly what's happening...?
we hear ad nauseam about how diversity (and, i gotta tell ya, i have come to HATE that word, not because of the concept it implies but because of how i have seen it used in the corporate world) is essential to healthy communities, and i don't think too many of us - with the exception of those who live in and swear by homogeneous gated communities - disagree with that... so, IF that's true and IF community is seen as the fundamental building block of society, then it would stand to reason that families would be just ONE part of that diversity, right...? this would not only open the door, it would also seek to include the mildly retarded adult who is just capable enough of managing her life to have her own apartment and hold down a job as a shelf stocker in the local grocery... it would legitimize the gay couple down the street, the life-long bachelor who obssesses over his flowers in the summer, and all the others that are all too often pushed to the sidelines today...
so, what's new about this, you ask...? nothing, that's just the point... community has been the fundamental building block of society for thousands of years, and it has only been recently that we have seen family pushing community aside... what does putting family into that key position do... well, we already know that it creates exclusion rather than inclusion, exclusion for anyone who does not fit into that neat category... what else...? my belief is that holding family up as the cornerstone of society drives us apart from each other... when families occupy center stage, all of the focus is on them, a la dobson, and the infinitely much richer web of community fades into the background... if family is the cornerstone, it may very well be that the family must stand alone, the final bulwark against the vagaries of the outside world... on the other hand, if community moves front and center, there is an inherent assumption that a family within that community is part of that larger support structure...
as i hinted at in earlier posts, for the purposes of what i am thinking about, i have a very specific definition of the word "community" in mind... in our current society, "communities" form around almost everything - the workplace, hobbies, volunteer work, church, children's activities, travel, you name it... part of the reason i chose the spanish term "comunidades y viviendas" to headline what i'm proposing is because it captures the specific kind of community i have in mind - the place where we LIVE...
there aren't many close-knit communities of that type kicking around any more, and those that remain are battling the same divisive forces as the rest of society... it used to be that small towns and rural areas were spared from the ills that plague higher density urban areas, but those days are long gone... thanks to satellite and cable television and the internet, kids in small-town argentina and macedonia often have more in common with kids in kansas farm country and the russian steppe than they do with their parents... five blocks from where i sit right now in my little place in buenos aires, there are ciber-cafes packed with young kids and adolescents, playing the same video games, drooling over the same new nike gear, and chatting with their friends all over latin america and around the world, just like kids in hundreds of other countries... now, don't get me wrong... i don't see anything wrong with that... many of these kids are more technologically savvy and more keenly aware of global goings-on (albeit in the popular culture vein) than any generation that's come before... but what's missing...? when they walk out of that ciber-cafe and finish hanging with their friends, they go back to that FAMILY... there's no community where they live, although i do have to say they have it somewhat better than many u.s. kids because of the focus on extended family... there's always an uncle, an aunt, a cousin, a grandma, or a grandpa in the picture somewhere, and, usually, a sister or brother-in-law and lots of nephews and nieces as well... but, in the barrio...? nah... it isn't there, any more than it exists in the suburban, bedroom community that my son, his wife, and my grandsons call home in nevada...
my belief is that the lack of the "communidades y viviendas" type of community in this world is killing us by degrees and that we desperately need to bring it back... but it can't be recreated in the mold of the past... it has to be a radically new approach, one suited to the realities of today... in subsequent posts, i'll talk about how i think that might look and how we might go about doing it...
in the meantime, comments are appreciated...
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it's almost impossible to read or watch anything over tv, the tubes, in mainstream or even alternative media these days without seeing the word "family" used in some context... googling the word "family" gets you 789 MILLION hits, among the first three of which include disney family.com and james dobson and focus on the family's "family" website... there are a ton more, left and right, liberal and conservative, wingnut and moonbat, and all of them share one common assumption: that the family is the sine qua non, the absolutely essential building block of human society, and that an analysis of societal structures will inevitably and universally take you back to that irreducible unit... i think that assumption is flawed and, in fact, is the source of much of the social polarization, societal anomie and sense of personal isolation that seems to define much of today's world, and i would like to propose what, to some, may be a radical notion, that COMMUNITY is the fundamental building block of society...
stop and think about it... what are communities composed of...? well, certainly, one of the first answers that springs to mind is families... no argument here, but what else...? THIS is where is gets interesting... IF families are seen as the fundamental building block, social structures that don't fit that category are either marginalized or rejected outright, and isn't that exactly what's happening...?
we hear ad nauseam about how diversity (and, i gotta tell ya, i have come to HATE that word, not because of the concept it implies but because of how i have seen it used in the corporate world) is essential to healthy communities, and i don't think too many of us - with the exception of those who live in and swear by homogeneous gated communities - disagree with that... so, IF that's true and IF community is seen as the fundamental building block of society, then it would stand to reason that families would be just ONE part of that diversity, right...? this would not only open the door, it would also seek to include the mildly retarded adult who is just capable enough of managing her life to have her own apartment and hold down a job as a shelf stocker in the local grocery... it would legitimize the gay couple down the street, the life-long bachelor who obssesses over his flowers in the summer, and all the others that are all too often pushed to the sidelines today...
so, what's new about this, you ask...? nothing, that's just the point... community has been the fundamental building block of society for thousands of years, and it has only been recently that we have seen family pushing community aside... what does putting family into that key position do... well, we already know that it creates exclusion rather than inclusion, exclusion for anyone who does not fit into that neat category... what else...? my belief is that holding family up as the cornerstone of society drives us apart from each other... when families occupy center stage, all of the focus is on them, a la dobson, and the infinitely much richer web of community fades into the background... if family is the cornerstone, it may very well be that the family must stand alone, the final bulwark against the vagaries of the outside world... on the other hand, if community moves front and center, there is an inherent assumption that a family within that community is part of that larger support structure...
as i hinted at in earlier posts, for the purposes of what i am thinking about, i have a very specific definition of the word "community" in mind... in our current society, "communities" form around almost everything - the workplace, hobbies, volunteer work, church, children's activities, travel, you name it... part of the reason i chose the spanish term "comunidades y viviendas" to headline what i'm proposing is because it captures the specific kind of community i have in mind - the place where we LIVE...
there aren't many close-knit communities of that type kicking around any more, and those that remain are battling the same divisive forces as the rest of society... it used to be that small towns and rural areas were spared from the ills that plague higher density urban areas, but those days are long gone... thanks to satellite and cable television and the internet, kids in small-town argentina and macedonia often have more in common with kids in kansas farm country and the russian steppe than they do with their parents... five blocks from where i sit right now in my little place in buenos aires, there are ciber-cafes packed with young kids and adolescents, playing the same video games, drooling over the same new nike gear, and chatting with their friends all over latin america and around the world, just like kids in hundreds of other countries... now, don't get me wrong... i don't see anything wrong with that... many of these kids are more technologically savvy and more keenly aware of global goings-on (albeit in the popular culture vein) than any generation that's come before... but what's missing...? when they walk out of that ciber-cafe and finish hanging with their friends, they go back to that FAMILY... there's no community where they live, although i do have to say they have it somewhat better than many u.s. kids because of the focus on extended family... there's always an uncle, an aunt, a cousin, a grandma, or a grandpa in the picture somewhere, and, usually, a sister or brother-in-law and lots of nephews and nieces as well... but, in the barrio...? nah... it isn't there, any more than it exists in the suburban, bedroom community that my son, his wife, and my grandsons call home in nevada...
my belief is that the lack of the "communidades y viviendas" type of community in this world is killing us by degrees and that we desperately need to bring it back... but it can't be recreated in the mold of the past... it has to be a radically new approach, one suited to the realities of today... in subsequent posts, i'll talk about how i think that might look and how we might go about doing it...
in the meantime, comments are appreciated...
Labels: Comunidades y Viviendas
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posted by profmarcus at
9/02/2007
