Family & Economics Piece

Here's an interesting post--some good bits, some meh:

Carl Zimmerman, a Harvard sociologist in his Magnum Opus “Family and Civilization”, discussed three kinds of family units: the trustee family, domestic family and the atomistic family. The trustee family is a close-knit, tribal like (in local lingo this would be something like the kampong); the domestic family centres on the nuclear family and maintains ties with the extended family; the atomistic family has attenuated ties with the extended family and views everything through the lenses of an economic entity. In his book, he discusses how all three forms exist at any time but moves from the trustee family to a predominantly atomistic family. The atomistic family, when in the majority, leads irrevocably to the end of the civilization.

Is this not what we are doing today, with our valuation of people as economic units; with our view of education not as a means to truth but as a tool for economic leverage? When medical treatment is given with inequity, favouring the rich over the promises in the Hippocratic Oath; when the legal field becomes an industry over its office of jurisprudence; when media outlets sell equivocation, bigotry and hatred for money; when religion sells itself out into a numbers game; when science falsifies results for the sake of its patron; when everything can be reduced to marketing and advertising. When we allow these things to happen, we elevate money to be the central focus of our life and sanction every moral as fair game to be shot down towards that end. This un-quenching craving for money is the result of the atomistic family in ascendancy. The traits that make humans human are slowly sent up in smoke as the sacrifice of ‘necessary evils’ to fulfill a ‘useless good’.

Not sure the author's post holds together at all points, but in the main, he's striking out in the right directions. I've always been skeptical of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Yes, food, water, etc. are the key things for bodily existence, but we do not always put them first. Ever hear of the starving artist? Look at the martyrs for philosophy, for faith, for nation. The hierarchy does not hold.