I concur that the Industrial Revolution [IR] is the cause of the factors you identify:
<< mobility of their members>>,
and two, resulting in Specialization,
<<complexity of societies >>
<<centralization of societies >>,
as well as the breakup of traditional sexual and family mores, and the current aberration of sex and violence, esp. in the young, that I suggested. There is also truth that many factors enter in, that the factors interact with each other, acerbate each other, and prevent the use of old solutions.
MHO is that the cause of the breakup of the old family way is the direct, if diluted, cause of excess unnatural behavior in the youth, Further, that leverage on the family issue will moderate judiciously all the above side effects, while most positively affecting the behavior of the young.
I also concur that <<the support system offered by small rooted communities is lost>>, and preindustrial solutions are out, since they are a package deal, and that society is gone. Integration of <<old agrarian virtues>> has only been talk, but impractical.
I postulate two methods. One is indirect and legal, the other direct and cultural.
The breakup of the village community was the first byproduct. Partial restoration of that milieu might be possible by law: require domicile within ~5 miles of workplace. Yes, this is odious, loopholed, and complex, but the negatives to the economy, employers, and workers may be only transitory. The intended benefits, are a community built around the workplace--a model not unusual in history. A side benefit could occur with informal, community interactions eventually taking the place of today's legal requirements. Restoring some macro-community would set the stage for the reworking of the family issue.
The centralization and complexity you mention, I see as very much a problem not from specialization, but from communities based on the individual, "Random" basis. These are not communities at all, at least not when the only common thread is similar income. The above example becomes a community with a purpose, employment--not none, without form, like now, and not geography/tradition, static, as of old.
With any community, the individual's desperate self- reliance lessens. The extended family broke up when the nuclear component had to leave because the old farm community was too specialized. With a large and varied community , and similar communities nearby, atomizing of the family need occur less. With even some community support, family breakups need also not cause atomization as much.
The point to the community reinstitution is that extended family can now again reoccur. A child and spouse of ~16, can function as a family within a family. [This is literally gaining a son/daughter!] Legal requirements and expectations remain as now: Schooling, obedience, etc. The essential difference is that now one lives as an adult couple, biologically [and perhaps with children], while completing their own cultural minority.
The only reason to consider the arrangement odd is our own short memories. There is no reason for it to interfere with the advantages gained when nuclear families left the farming communities, or the advantages that broke apart ancient villages. |
