On Sat, 27 Apr 2002, Gordon Fitch wrote:
> Uncle Karl, in the _Manifesto_, thought the traditional
> institutions were already gone or giving way well before
> Hitler or Stalin were born. All that is solid melts into air,
> all that is holy is profaned, and all that; but man, instead
> of being compelled to face with sober senses his real condition
> of life and his relations with his kind, put on a colored
> shirt and began beating the other man, and vice versa.
>
> -- Gordon
Yes. And it's interesting to step back and see a very important trend in human social life over the past 20,000 years: families are becoming a less and less important social institution. Many of the social functions fulfilled by families in hunting & gathering societies--religion, education, medical care, child care, work training--have been partially or completely usurped by other social institutions in industrialized societies. It's pretty clear we can't blame Stalin or Hitler for that.
Miles