>On 27 août 08, at 19:43, shag wrote:
>
>>>No, it is because "homo commonus" is the only way to raise children
>>>until they can be relatively independant (speak, and open the fridge
>>>themselves, about 2-3 years or age). All the rest is about fighting
>>>the contradiction between "commons" life in the family and what the
>>>rest of society tells us the "best way" is.
>>>
>>>Jean-Christophe Helary
>>
>>no, we currently raise our children homo oeconimus. teaching people
>>to become homo oeconomus starts from the beginning.
>
>We raise them to face the contradictions outside the family circle. If
>adults in the family itself were not sharing resources and considering
>the very long term, they could/would not have children in the first
>place. Because that is not at all an economically rational choice.
>
>I think you are confusing communities and families. I am not
>addressing communities here at all.
>
>Jean-Christophe Helary
your proposition was that, because we have families, we are teaching them to value interpendence. sure. so? we also teach them to become homo oeconimus. as you said, we perceive it as a difference, a contradiction.
and in fact, the idea that civil society -- the realm of the family, little league, church, etc. -- was something separate from and in contradiction to the polity and economy, and for which we had to raise people to deal with contradiction, emerged with capitalism.
adam smith wrote an entire treatise on it: Theory of Moral Sentiments. It was an ideological legitimation of the contradiction, a claim that, in order to temper the potential excesses of homo eoconimus, we must maintain and strengthen the world of civil society (family, etc.) as a bulwark against the negative effects of the wealth of nations. yadda.
i wrote awhile back about how people think the family has to do with mommy-daddy-me, monogamy, nuclear, etc. but that's not what really ties together the family that gives rise to homo oeconomis. rather, it is the very thing celebrated here, that the family is a thing separate from the rules that govern the economy.
you will hardly get much agreement on whether mommy-daddy-me, monogamy, etc. is the best way to have family. but what you will get universal agreement on is this: that it is wrong, horrible, detestable, sad (but def. not good) to marry for material reasons -- money, status, etc.
and yet for a long ass time, that is precisely what humans have done -- even as they grazed cattle in a commons.
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