[lbo-talk] National Journal: Do 'Family Values' Weaken Families?

[Alan Rudy]

Of course, conflating stability with "family values" aspirationally is
farcical because, as Stephanie Coontz pointed out (I think on Doug's show),
the more stable families rarely reflect the ahistorically nostalgic
"traditional" family's values.  What these folks need to aspire to - if they
want stability - is the gloriously contradictory cosmopolitan, professional,
overworked and overscheduled, if democratized, communicative and
participatory, family of the more liberal coasts... given the state of the
present economy, though - with Obama slapping down Black fathers during the
campaign - it would appear that the whole of the polity impedes advancing
the translation Doug so clearly described in the last sentence below.

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


>
> On May 11, 2010, at 6:20 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
>  this was brought up here during elections wasn't it? the argument was that
>> it was, in part, that family dissolution in red states was connected to the
>> fact that poverty and job instability correlates with higher family
>> dissolution.
>>
>
> Garance France-Ruta put it nicely a couple of years ago, when she said that
> "family values" are aspirational. Stable families are a feature of the
> better-off, so the worse-off members of the working class think that
> stability is the cause of prosperity, and not the other way around.
>
> Doug
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319