Since every year someone makes an "I hate Christmas" thread on how they have to put up with their relatives, I thought I should make this.
I hate our society's perception of family. However, I don't mean by that what you might think I mean. I have no problem with marriage, having kids, visiting parents/grandparents for Christmas, etc.
What I mean is this tribalistic idea of "the pack" - where everyone has to stick together for some arbitrary reason determined before your birth (usually blood), where constructive criticism of its members is discouraged (which happens in no other social group), where the "us vs. them" mentality is promoted in regards to other humans. I find the the stronger those characteristics are:
Really, why do we let the ***hole uncle or bigoted grandma get away with so much "because they're family"? Why do some of us spend all year avoid the family members we hate only to feel obligated to give them first priority when stuff goes down? Why do we demonize those who say they don't love their parents and just assume everyone had a loving mother/father? Why didn't the adoption taboo go away until relatively recently in human history? And then there's the third cousin you saw twice in your life, who everyone expects you to donate to his cause "cuz he's family". It's Orwellian to the very core.
And everytime you try to bring this up, there's always that *****ebag who goes "Oh, you don't love your parents?" "Oh, you don't want your wife and kids?" Because hating a social structure is the same thing as hating the individuals within that structure.
So is financial stability the answer to all this? If so, what exactly would happen to the ***hole uncle (just an example) if technology ever advances to a point where financial stability is no longer an issue? What if, for example, everyone has a robot working for them 100 years from now?
In more primitive times it made sense - hell, even in primitive times people still lived in larger communities - but there's so much more we know now about the science of human bonding. We no longer live in tribes, but in complex societies. We know family bonding has less to do with blood and more to do with experience and what titles like "mother" "father" "brother" emphasize to you. We know every single organism on this planet traces back to a single root, and are all made of the same matter. We know vulnerability brings people together, to the point two people taking care of each other at Ground Zero could potentially trigger a lifelong friendship. Finally, we know there's a correlation between more more intelligent/open-minded and being less callous towards the human race.
So isn't it about time we changed our definition of "family" and "loved ones" to something a little different? Maybe a little more humanitarian? Maybe something a little more open to those not in "the pack"?
At the very least can we stop pretending it's "wrong" to not care for some family members, or act like it's a crime when the gay community tries to form their own "family of choice" after being rejected by their homophobic kin?
Can someone walk me through the logical answers for those questions? Or hell, maybe I should wait till next Christmas to get a more passionate reaction out of ya.
I hate our society's perception of family. However, I don't mean by that what you might think I mean. I have no problem with marriage, having kids, visiting parents/grandparents for Christmas, etc.
What I mean is this tribalistic idea of "the pack" - where everyone has to stick together for some arbitrary reason determined before your birth (usually blood), where constructive criticism of its members is discouraged (which happens in no other social group), where the "us vs. them" mentality is promoted in regards to other humans. I find the the stronger those characteristics are:
- The more groupthink there is within the family.
- The less empathy there is towards other people.
Really, why do we let the ***hole uncle or bigoted grandma get away with so much "because they're family"? Why do some of us spend all year avoid the family members we hate only to feel obligated to give them first priority when stuff goes down? Why do we demonize those who say they don't love their parents and just assume everyone had a loving mother/father? Why didn't the adoption taboo go away until relatively recently in human history? And then there's the third cousin you saw twice in your life, who everyone expects you to donate to his cause "cuz he's family". It's Orwellian to the very core.
And everytime you try to bring this up, there's always that *****ebag who goes "Oh, you don't love your parents?" "Oh, you don't want your wife and kids?" Because hating a social structure is the same thing as hating the individuals within that structure.
So is financial stability the answer to all this? If so, what exactly would happen to the ***hole uncle (just an example) if technology ever advances to a point where financial stability is no longer an issue? What if, for example, everyone has a robot working for them 100 years from now?
In more primitive times it made sense - hell, even in primitive times people still lived in larger communities - but there's so much more we know now about the science of human bonding. We no longer live in tribes, but in complex societies. We know family bonding has less to do with blood and more to do with experience and what titles like "mother" "father" "brother" emphasize to you. We know every single organism on this planet traces back to a single root, and are all made of the same matter. We know vulnerability brings people together, to the point two people taking care of each other at Ground Zero could potentially trigger a lifelong friendship. Finally, we know there's a correlation between more more intelligent/open-minded and being less callous towards the human race.
So isn't it about time we changed our definition of "family" and "loved ones" to something a little different? Maybe a little more humanitarian? Maybe something a little more open to those not in "the pack"?
At the very least can we stop pretending it's "wrong" to not care for some family members, or act like it's a crime when the gay community tries to form their own "family of choice" after being rejected by their homophobic kin?
Can someone walk me through the logical answers for those questions? Or hell, maybe I should wait till next Christmas to get a more passionate reaction out of ya.