*amelo14

On the Family and its Reflective Possibilities

THESE REFLECTIONS ARE PART OF MY BLOG FOUND AT: [link] (www.amelo14.wordpress.com)



Among the last words my dear father said to me, some months before his untimely death, the very last were that I still owed him two children. This post stems from a serious reflection on these words.

The family is by nature the unquestioned and generally unquestionable basis of every human society. There is a saying in Spanish that captures this dramatically, it goes like this: “los trapos sucios se lavan en casa.” (“The dirty laundry is cleaned at home” ). Such a stance is, in many respects, deeply perplexing. But what a family might mean, what it might stand for, opens the family's usually self-enclosed nature to question. For some ----- specially artists, political advisers and philosophers, and in general those in the humanities---- the question of the possible meanings of the family remains a serious necessity . This is of particular relevance in our times which has clearly, specially among Western democracies and their up-rooting presuppositions, suffered from a decline in relation to what the family previously stood for within a more clearly established natural and political order.

It appears some consider the family to consist mostly of the temporal-biological fact itself which lies at the basis of the members who share the same blood lineage. And, in effect, some closeness is achieved by the sharing of a name, by proximity and the passage of time, and by living a similar history in terms of upbringing and familial conditions, be these the best or not. Another way to put it might be this, the continued presence of the family by nature lies in the assured procreation of its members, members who can carry out the legacy ------in most cases a silent and, in well-off families, a property-related legacy----- of the family itself. Historically, it was usually the elder male representative --the very important first-born---- who was charged with such a symbolic responsibility. Being the first born came with an accompanying and generally assumed first burden. (Not that all first-borns actually lived up to the importance and dignity of this task.)

However, serious and deep reflection allows for some absolutely central questions which might guide us towards a better understanding of the possibilities within the family, possibilities that push beyond the temporal-biological legacy, towards a legacy founded upon a shared reflection in thought on the nature of the family in general, and of one's own family, in particular. If the family is primarily understood in terms of a foundational biological fact, then the legacy so considered is unjustly reduced. Moreover, reducing it thus, leads to dilemmas within the family structure that increase the chances of generating unhappiness to some (or most) of the members, which in turn ---specially in our times---- will lead to further deterioration. For one thing is to have children, another to have children well; or as Aristotle would have said, the purpose is not "living" but "living well". This is specially so for those families who have had the fortune to be brought up with the necessary material means to open the possibility of living well much further than those families who have to go on with the bare minimums. Poverty stricken families would seem to be much more limited in this respect; though perhaps they appear so only in our societies which link success and material gain.

One such dilemma that arises from the position which sees the legacy of the family primarily in what I have called the “biological-temporal fact”, is this. The fulfillment of the family, specially of its eldest members, the founding parents who as elders find themselves now nearing death, lies for many in the presence of the living grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will bear the name of the family for posterity within the community. This is particularly poignant nowadays given the disproportionate emphasis placed on children’s and youth’s rights over the ever-fading "rights" of elders. It is these children whom the elder members see as the potential bearers of a tradition which continues on after their death. It is a tradition of a shared private history which, when all goes well, even allows for the education in the public sphere of serious, free, liberally-educated (in the original classical sense of a liberal education) and active citizens.

One need not go so far as The Godfather to see these facts! One can just simply reread the passing of names in novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude in which in a truly Latin American spirit José Arcadio gives birth to José Arcadio who gives birth to José Arcadio, ad infinitum; or at least many families tend to think so. For it is odd to find "José Arcadios" living nowadays among us, thus making the name itself hardly eternal in and of itself! It is also, in this sense, that the family will become for some, like my dear father, in a certain sense, eternal. He himself named the children of his second family using his very own names, Alvaro and Mario. For him, by naming them thus, they were truly in a profound sense, part of himself. His desire in so naming them was to live through them. Likewise, in philosophical terms this important human tendency is very well related in Plato's Symposium, particularly in Diotima’s words dealing with the famous ladder of love and the emergence of law (209d). In this respect, the legacy goes beyond the finitude of its members; the presence of death is, in a sense, circumvented. Familial eros does away with unfamiliar and threatening thanatos.

But one fundamental question arises: does this manner of prolongation prepare its members, specially the elder ones, fully for death? In other words, does this manner of familial relation generate the conditions for the most complete health of the members of the family, primarily the spiritual well-being of the elder members who are day-by-day nearing their inevitable demise? The tenuous condition of those who enter the “golden age” ---which would be more appropriately called "bronze-age" in our modern market-oriented, youth-oriented societies---- becomes even more so because their own identity takes second place. The most dramatic of these portrayals in popular culture is without a doubt the grandfather as presented in The Simpsons.

As an avenue for possible reconciliation and healing, I will try now to drive the elements of my argument closer by drawing up a map of possibilities for the family. This is a spatial map which is itself made up with spatial metaphors based upon the use of the most spatial elements of language, namely, prepositions. Prepositions are so called because they relate objects to the world in which they are; prepositions allows us to find the where of our motions, allowing us the possibility for locating who we are in the context in which we move. The relevant prepositions and their relevant connection to the family are: 1.the "downward view" of the family, 2. the "upward view" of the family, 3. the "outward view" of the family, and finally, 4. the "inward view" of the family. I will end this post by pushing for the creation of a fifth preposition which I will call the ‘roundward view”. In this respect, one could summarize these tendencies by saying that there are at least five prepositional forms which the family can take, or better yet, five tendencies which will provide its identity. Let's look at each in turn.

The first is the “downward form” which sees, as we argued above, the prolongation of the family in the birth of its youngest members. This tendency monopolizes our understanding in modern Western democracies given their radical stance on the protection of children's rights and our, very important yet overwhelming and monopolizing concern, with issues such as child abuse in labor, family, military and sexual relations. The second form, which has been mostly lost to us Westerners, can be called the “upward view” of the family. Under this perspective the family’s bonding element lies precisely in the elders themselves seen as founders. It is under this view that one can come to understand why certain tribes offer the best cuts from a hunt to the elders, not to the young. The elders, in some sense or other, deserve the best and claim to deserve it so.

The “downward form” can be seen as a purely modern phenomenon in that modernity seeks a radical break from the narrative that has gone beforehand. In this respect, Medieval Age is seen –from the modern perspective--- as the Dark Age. In contrast, the “upward view” holds true particularly of pre-modern societies. One need only recall the role of elders in ancient culture, or look at non-western societies such as the Japanese. The ‘upward view” is also that held by the Bible and the crucial divine commandment “thou shall honor thy parents” based on the idea that God is THE truly founding father, the Creator. It was also deeply held by the Greeks and Romans; for instance, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations begin thus: "Courtesy and serenity of temper I first learnt to know from my grandfather Verus". Each path, the “downward” and the “upward”, has its own limitations and dangers, and each age has had a tendency to tilt the balance one way or another, many a time to excess. As Saint Augustine recalls -----while praising the Roman's deep love of the Earthly Republican City and admiring the qualities of Cato---- there is also the story of one Torquatus (CoG, V, 18) : who “ put his son to death because he had fought, not against his country, but for his country, yet in defiance of the command issued by his father, his commander … his father killed him, for fear that the evil of the bad example of contempt of orders would outweigh the glory of the victory over the enemy.”

But one could also see the family in terms of two other spatial prepositions, namely, the “outward” and the “inward”. The “outward perspective” of the family is that of the Republican tradition where the family , though of central importance in the creation of a virtuous citizenry, nonetheless sees its members as working for a greater good, namely, that of the Republic or political community of which they are a part. In this respect, one can think of Aristotle’s Politics that represents for many the foundation ---a questioning foundation, that is---- of all Republican thought. There the discussion of the family quickly gives way to the consideration of the political per se. The good life requires the political, thus moving beyond the privacy of each family, though it might not be limited to the political alone. Or to put it more bluntly, within the family alone the good life is not possible. Lacking a city, families turn against each other (a la Romeo and Juliet) reducing the possibility of the political and the conditions for a truly good life in the Aristotelian sense of the term.

In contrast, the modern notion of the family can be seen to be directed more and more inwardly towards the intimate confines of the private sphere. This “inward tendency” goes hand in hand with a more emotional charging of the role each family member in the development of their own narratives. Such change is wittily traced by Charles Taylor in his Sources of the Self where he tells us that the surge of the modern understanding of the self goes together, is actually held together, by what he calls “an affirmation of ordinary life”. Such affirmation stands in direct contrast to the affirmation of the super-ordinary life which infused the tradition of Classical Political Thought. As he puts it:

“The transition I am talking about here is one which upsets these hierarchies, which displaces the locus of the good life from some special range of higher activities and places it within ‘life’ itself. The full human is now defined in terms of labour and production, on the one hand and marriage and family life, on the other. At the same time, the previous ‘higher’ activities come into vigorous criticism.” (SotS, 213; see also, 211 and 278-301)

But now, how can this four-fold division aid us in our reflections on the contemporary crisis of the family; a crisis which is more clearly seen by those in the humanities and in the arts as they rarely find within the family the conditions of their full potential and their own happiness? It allows, I hope, at least to let us first see where we might stand, and at the same time open our eyes to other possibilities and tendencies, generating a healthy balancing of our own excesses. For instance, the modern Western democratic tendency to uproot the young from the extended family and a connection to its elders, might be somewhat moderated by acknowledging the role an “upward view” of the family plays in other societies, both historical and contemporary. Canada, as an immigrant country, is full of such diverse presence and consequently is the ground for much tension and at the same time the ground for many possibilities; at the very least, it offers the possibility for us to actually see the complexity and conflicting demands surrounding the issue itself.

I myself must confess, as son of a Colombian and a Canadian, that the very structure of the family in both worlds is at odds in many respects. Once a girlfriend in Colombia invited me to meet her family; the Canadian in me was flabbergasted upon entering a room in which about 100 people were gathered. Two hundred eyes staring at the new boyfriend, that is what I call extended! On the other hand, deeply religious and hierarchically structured societies where the “upward movement” oversteps its bounds might be able to find some elements of moderation for their negative tendencies. Think, for example, in terms of the possible abuse of children in the private sphere, in war and in labor. Western organizations such as The Right to Play link come to mind in this respect.

Perhaps this reconsideration will allow for the presence of a new reflective understanding of the family itself. This more holistic approach, hopefully healthier approach, I want to call the “roundward view” of the family. It is not simply achieved by a perfect balance of the “downward” and “upward” tendencies by means of an Aristotelian mean. For this mean would truly lie nowhere and leave all parties discontent. Rather, the “roundward view” is a type of movement, not so much of action, but instead of reflection. It gives birth, but in another domain. It gives birth in the domain of political ideas which arise from the very practices that ground our complex lives and which, upon birth, might transform those very practices we find are in need of some type of dynamic reexamination and resurgence. For unlike what many heads of families believe, reflection is a kind of legacy, perhaps the primary form of forging a legacy that might become eternal.

Do recall, my father's last words to me were, you owe me two children. The "roundward view" cannot simply dismiss those words, but rather takes them with utmost seriousness. It takes them so seriously that it seeks to understand the basis for them, as well as tries to understand why it is necessary to go beyond such limiting considerations as those involving “owing” and “ paying back” to those who have given us life and whom we have come to love as the narratives of our lives unfold. In this respect, I myself consider that the greatest benefit one can have for a family, and more specifically to its elder members, the parents nearing death, is to take up the challenge of reconsidering the narrative which has been created ------with all its clairvoyance AND all its blindnesses and silences----- in order to achieve a happiness that requires a reflective understanding on and BY all those members (at least to varying degrees).

There appears then to be the possibility, or better yet, specially given the radical collapse of the family in modernity, the necessity for a reconsideration of what a legacy for a family might mean, The true and deepest legacy of a family lies in its self-reflection, preferably before the death of its founding members, though the conversation will continue even after their passing away. Reflecting on the conditions of its possibility, the family becomes aware of the real nature of its members beyond a shared biology of temporal proximity. How can one be certain that this is so? Take the case of our elders and the cases where the heads of families are approaching death. Under the “downward view” of the family goes so far as to provide our own parents with the grandchildren who will eternalize them. But one should ask seriously; what does having grandchildren have to do with carrying out a dialogue with the elder about THEIR demise and THEIR soul? Or, take the tendency from the “upward view”: how is one to engage in a critical dialogue –even on the question of the divine---- with the elders approaching death, if they alone are the guarantee of wisdom and of the correct unquestionable standard of those fundamental issues dealing with our souls and our mortality? (One can here think of Socrates’ radical questioning of Cephalus in Republic I, remembering that “Cephalus” in Greek actually meaning “the head of the family”; cf. The Laws). Or take the “outward view”; how can the city itself come to grips with the personal loss which comes about with the loss of this specific and concrete father or mother (or brother, or sister)? (One can think of Sophocles’ Antigone, and of those families in my dear Colombia who have had their loved ones suffer a death still in life after being kidnapped for years by the infamous, anti-family Guerilla, the FARC). And finally, when reconsidering the “inward view”; how can one do justice to one’s parents if one simply records their doings in intimacy, when true political immortalization lies in our recording the actions and words of our elders beyond the private sphere? Must one not seek to have families where one’s family becomes THE example for other families in the public arena? (As regards the challenges of the public life for the family one need only consider documentaries such as My Dad is into Terrorism, or the complex life of Robert Macnamara as portrayed in The Fog of War.)

The constant presence of these questions is the main reason why I believe there might be/must be another possibility, of particular importance for those engaged in seeking a veritable friendship with their parents. It is in seeking to understand the history of the family itself, and opening its closed silences to a careful but fruitful scrutiny, that we can try to reveal ---however faintly and incompletely---- connections not seen by the members on their own. Only thus can the family, and specially the relation between children and their parents, be opened to a friendship which in turn alone can provide a serious consideration of what it means to honor one's parents beyond simply having met a debt to them. Only a philosophically-minded understanding of life, which initially appears to disrupt the family ------and therefore is not highly regarded by those members who have no inkling of the humanities, and specifically of a Socratic approach to life as presented by Plato and Xenophon---- can actually bring about the conditions for such a possibility. Only such an approach can moderate the family’s excesses and its inner solipsistic tendencies.

Such a politically-inspired understanding of the family would be able to signal the paths to take within the map of our lives, and orient those interested members by using and displaying in action the movements of prepositions such as upward, downward, outward and inward. In doing so, we could gain insight into the needs and dangerous desires each member has and asks the family to fill for him/her. By meeting these dangerous needs head on, there appears on the horizon a bridge which reflection opens offering the possibility of achieving a greater serenity and balanced happiness within. This serenity, of particular importance as the elder members might be approaching death quickly, might also allow us to come close to the happiness of the wisest among us.

It is in this respect that I will always remember my father’s last words to me.