WH Auden’s “The Age of Anxiety” is summarized on one popular retail website as being about “man’s quest to find identity in an increasingly industrialized world”. This seems an apt description of our time as well, with a slight change. We are now “post-industrial”, but we are living in an unprecedented time of anxiety. We’re all aware of news reporting the rise in use of antidepressants, and most people I know are also increasingly frustrated by the extreme polarization of our politics and ideologies. I believe that we are experiencing these things because we are living in an unprecedented time of change that is driving our anxiety and polarization. The unprecedented nature of the change is not so much driven by the pace of escalating change, in my view, as it is driven by three macro trends that are affecting all of us deeply at the level of family and gender. I don’t believe that ever before in history have we had the convergence of three such macro trends at the same time. So I’ve nicknamed our age “The Great Confluence”. A confluence occurs when rivers or streams merge, and is typically marked by turbulence and muddied waters. Extending the metaphor to the human level, we are living in a time when everything feels unsettled and it’s not easy to see clearly what is happening.
The first macro trend driving change requires a brief return to Sociology 101. Marx and Engels proposed the idea that the economic substructure determines the social superstructure. While I’m not a Marxist by any means, I think they did get that right. A good illustration of this principle might be found in a bridge. When a bridge is built to span a river, the contours of the riverbed and the bedrock below determine the dimensions of the bridge supports. That riverbed and bedrock might be considered equivalent to the economic base upon which society rests. The shape of society is first going to be determined by the ways in which we make a living and cooperate around generating our sustenance. What people have to do to survive and to make a living requires cooperation. When that cooperation takes habitual forms that are widely adopted they become social norms. Norms are like the pylons upon which the bridge rests – they take on the form required by the underlying terrain. Extending the idea of the economic substructure determining social superstructure, one can see that whenever the economic substructure changes it forces necessary shift in social norms.
The economic basis of human society was stable for many millennia. The early hunter-gatherer period extended for unknown period of time back into pre-history. Then came the transition to agricultural society, a condition that lasted many thousands of years. But as recently as 300 years ago, we saw the shift into the Industrial Age. And that has now transformed once again into the Information Age. For purposes of simplicity (admitting some inaccuracy), let’s say that we’ve undergone three transformations of the economic substructure in 300 years – one per century. And not all of society shifts at the same time. It was not so long ago that our small towns in America were mainly agricultural, as some continue to be, so we retain in recent collective memory the social forms associated with that. The Industrial Age reigned supreme until the latter half of the 20th century. Our ideas about the modern nuclear family are largely a product of social conditions that existed during that particular economic structure. We have now entered into a new economic substructure called the Information Age, and all these changes necessitate shifts in social roles and social forms both in the family and in the wider society. So we have had to reinvent and re-imagine our social forms and our roles every century for the last three centuries. All that change creates confusion at the individual level. We naturally feel anxious about what our role really is and what our life is supposed to be about. And we argue about it.
The second macro trend driving change requires a visit to the History Department. My favorite historian is Arnold J. Toynbee of Oxford University. He wrote a magnum opus called A Study of History. That life work contains a study of every civilization that has ever emerged into world prominence. In other words these are the civilizations that influenced the thinking and behavior of the majority of individuals living on the planet at the time in which they existed. Toynbee identified 22 such civilizations that had arisen in world history. His purpose in studying them was to understand what factors led to their rise, and what factors led to their demise. What he found caused him to go against one prevailing theory – historical determinism. A historical determinist believes that rise and decline are an intrinsically predetermined path every civilization is compelled to follow. I might nickname it “historical fatalism”. What Toynbee found through his study led him to believe that the reasons for a civilization arising or declining have to do with the response of its participants to challenges. He said that challenges are bound to arise for every civilization, both from within and from without. But he believed its continuation or decline was a product of how functional the response to each challenge was. I often quote his conclusion, “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”
I believe that we have passed the zenith of Judeo-Christian civilization, and that we are living in the age of its decline. There is a lot of anxiety around this change in America as the old values and ways of looking at the world are being challenged by new ones. As with any social change, reactionaries form the far right fringe of those who refuse to adapt and believe that the old form represents the only absolute way of being. This is not to suggest that Christianity and Judaism will disappear. If you look back in history to other world civilizations, it is apparent that both Rome and Athens continue to exist. Their influence on Western thinking has by no means disappeared. So I don’t believe that Judeo-Christian values will completely disappear. And I fervently hope that their best contributions to human well being and dignity will remain. But I do believe that Judeo-Christian civilization is demonstrably on the decline in terms of global influence in the war of ideas.
So what is on the ascendant in America? A lot of people seem to believe that the ascendant civilization is Muslim. I don’t see that. A civilization is noted by the wide acceptance of its ideas. Its practices are adopted when they capture the imagination and effort of individuals. The civilization that I see on the ascendancy is an Asiatic civilization. I believe that ideas which have their origin in India have permeated the Information Age. Some of these ideas are Hindu-variety and some are Buddhist-variety, both Indian-born religions. I say Hindu or Buddhist “variety” because I’m not referring to religious dogma. Hinduism and Buddhism have undergone many permutations as they spread throughout Asia, giving rise to philosophies and practices influenced by their doctrines. It is those practices to which I am referring. The kinds of things that I see widely accepted in society today are things like meditation, mindfulness, breathing, Yoga, martial arts, Feng Shui, Reiki, Tai Chi, acupuncture, and the list could go on – all products of Asian culture. I see widespread acceptance of and fascination with these ideas in the West today, although America lags behind Europe in drifting away from its Judeo-Christian roots. It is also true that, though these things are contributing to the richness of Western society, the old norms and reasons for doing things are increasingly being challenged by new viewpoints, and it is fueling a widespread sense of decline in values and morals. Things in America are nothing like they were just 60 years ago when almost everyone was at church on Sunday, and Catholic and Lutheran were considered different religions.
The third macro trend or stream of change I see driving our current anxiety and polarization is something that I believe has never happened before in history. It is a condition unique to this age. People have been speaking about and writing about this change for 5 to 10 years now, and there’s been some attempt to grapple with the implications, but by and large I don’t think we have come to terms with the import of this fundamental shift. The historic occurrence I’m referring to is that economic power in the new economy has shifted to the female, and it is affecting our families at a deep, deep level.
The sociologist, Constantina Safilios-Rothschild, wrote that, “The bases of family power are a reflection of culturally defined gender ideologies and gender-segregated resources in the wider society in which a family is embedded.” Translating that into basic English, the way power is distributed in a family has to do with first, what people say a man and a woman should be and what roles they should play, and second, by the access that both men and women have to economic resources in the wider society. We are living in a time when access to resources in the wider society is increasingly shifting to women. According to Pew Research Center, in 1970 only 4% of wives had income higher than that of their husbands. In 2007 that percentage had increased to 22%. Also in 2007 81% of wives were as well educated or better educated than their husbands. Women are now the majority of college graduates and we’ve recently seen in the news that women have also become a simple majority of the workforce. There have been numerous reports of boys falling behind girls academically, so even at the same level of education boys are under-performing compared to girls.
Old stereotypes about gender behavior and roles are increasingly challenged by these changes. We can no longer take for granted that a wife and mother will be the primary caretaker of the children. But what is her role, if not? Even in hunter-gatherer societies the women had primary care of children until boys were old enough to go hunting with the men. In the Agricultural Age, husbands and wives both worked in the home, cooperating in the production of goods consumed by their own household, and jointly overseeing the children. In the Industrial Age, fathers moved outside the home and the genders specialized. Mothers were the unpaid overseers of the household and children. But none of these models fit the new conditions. If women are now the best “information marketplace” workers for the family, what does this mean for husbands? What does it mean to be a man, if the old definitions of protector and provider no longer apply? We are a confused people, wondering who we are, and what we’re here to do. It’s a strange, new world we’ve never been to before. Reactionaries insist the only place for a wife and mother is in the home, and claim that God designed men to be the leaders. On the extreme opposite end are those who seem to feel that men have become irrelevant at best, or are a kind of natural evil at worst.
To all the turbulence of the Great Confluence, add that modern birth control methods have allowed a complete decoupling of sex from marriage, and you have the perfect recipe for the family fragmentation we’re experiencing. We’ve all read the statistics. 4 in 10 babies are being born outside of marriage, and if you break birth rates down along ethnic and educational lines, you find some subgroups in which the rate may be as high as 96%. I have heard stories from more than one school teacher reporting children in their classrooms who have never even heard the word “marriage”, and are amazed to learn of the institution. And among those who do know of and believe in marriage, the divorce risk continues to be around 50%.
What are we to do? Change is upon us, whether we like it or not, and no amount of hand-wringing and polarization will make it go away. What I propose instead is that we need to begin a national dialogue on ways to navigate ahead as wisely as possible. I have made a diagnosis of our times, and I’m sure there will be those who disagree, but we are all familiar with the statistics on the family. Anyone who is a sincere reader of social science and history will agree that family breakdown on the scale we’re seeing is a social ill. Yes, it’s true that plenty of single parents do a fine and heroic job of raising great kids. (I’m one, after all.) Yes, it’s true that divorce is a very great good for unbearable family situations. However, when we get to the current prevalence of family breakdown, it’s time we agree that we have a collective problem.
To start the conversation, we have to accept the f act that old solutions cannot be blithely applied. We cannot carry the day arguing from a moral or religious standpoint on the value of marriage when those arguments are steeped in the views of a waning civilization. Still, every society has understood the need for stable families, however various those stable forms may have been across cultures. America, too, needs to have a way of valuing and forming stable families. The old economic marriage contract based on dependence of women and children cannot be resurrected as women increasingly move into the provider role formerly occupied by men. Yet we cannot escape our mutual need. Even from a purely biological standpoint, men and women cannot continue to exist as genders without mutual intercourse. So unless we intend to commit collective suicide, we must continue to produce children. And if our children have parents that are missing, uninvolved, destructive, or antagonistic toward one another, they will suffer.
In upcoming posts, I will propose some rules for this new road we’re traveling. In the meantime, I’d love to hear the buzz of a national conversation beginning. How can we effectively reverse the trend of family breakdown? How can men and women value each other in a new way now that former religious and economic arguments have lost their power to persuade? And what boundaries are reasonable to place around individual and couple happiness for the sake of the greater good?
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Things change so much over time. I know that growing up, my mother did not work because she had eight children to take care of. Like Brooke, I have never been to a day care as a child, only because we simply could not afford paying for day care. My parents immigrated to the United States after the Vietnam war. To them, the change was coming to the United States. I think it is hard for them to see how second and third generation children are changing and losing their roots. I see that change can be good and bad.
I think it is great that women are going to school to get their education. It is never too late for your education and can be a way to better your life.
Hi Molly, Thanks for your comment. Changing cultures and countries multiplies the upheaval in the family, for sure. More education is an important part of improving the lives of women in many areas of the world. I think you have an advantage in being able to see the good and bad in both the old and the new. I hope you are able to pick the best of both worlds.
This article has many strong points on the change in society. We have to remember that it is not our children that have changed but the society they live in. The exposer to what is defined as “adult subjects”. Women have been forced to take on responsibility that was considered a man’s job.
I personal had never been in a day care as a child. Out day care was grandma’s house. Not all families have that security of family members that are able to help. Remember the saying “It takes a village to raise a child”. In our society there is so much diversity. I personal think that is of great value to this generation. We need to stop bombarding our kids with video games, food, and TV. The TV is responsible for the shaping of many perspectives in the U.S as to what is society acceptable.
This article is very thought provoking on today’s society and past societies. I think the best approach to reversing the breakdown of the family is for it to be taught. If children are not able to get this from their parents or guardian, it needs to be a part of the education curriculum. This is vital for the growth and development of our youth. You will get out of it what you put into it. We need to take time to enjoy life and family time. We live in a fast-paced world and if we do not take in those special moments, they will pass by.
People should not be valued for power or money, but seen as equals. Isn’t raising your children and teaching them every day values more important than being the bread winner? If the wife is the one financially supporting the family and the husband stays home to raise the kids, who is to say that is not correct? Men and women should play an equal role in shaping their children’s environment. After all, this is the reason we procreate.
The last question on placing boundaries on individual and couple happiness for the sake of the greater good can have many interpretations. If it means that both the husband and wife work their life away and never get quality time with their children so they can afford the best house possible, that would be a very sad situation. There needs to be a balance between work, family, and material items. This question could also be interpreted that we need to do all we can to help couples stay together and value marriage. There is a line between staying together for the kids’ sake or divorcing but co-parenting together. It may be more harmful to stay together and have the children raised in a negative, fighting environment.
These are just some of my thoughts and reactions to the questions raised.
The Great Confluence
I enjoyed this article. I think it had some good insights to some very important underlying issues that societies are facing today. I also felt as though it was a very powerful way of expressing that what the world needs is to be brought back to earth and shown that we can still move forward without having to sacrifice our morals, ethics, traditions and each other to do so. I believe that is what technology should be built upon. After-all, is this not the Information Age, so let’s use it to the Best of our abilities and Not “forget”, hypothetically and literally speaking.
I believe, in a world where every tribe, culture, and society has always fought to be the better, more superior beings, that our global decline in certain civilizations is disturbing and comes from the lack of motivation driven by a fear of not being “good enough” that lies in our men. It is this fear of submission that, I believe still causes the wars of the world. Although in many cultures throughout the world, women have always been the “bread winners” and “makers” as well as the stable bodies and foundation of the home. Men have fought for the independence and rights of nations and women have always been there to support them. Appreciation and respect go both ways and goes very far when utilized within the foundations of a home built together. I believe, that today’s world has produced a woman that has recognized a need to step up and be the initiative inside And outside the home as a means of being complete within herself in order to complete the relationship(s) she wishes to support, whether they be with herself or shared with a partner. A woman’s strength has never ceased but has only grown outward and upward. She has always been the back-bone, the brains, the heart, and the embodied power that has reached out her arms and embraced nations around the world. Whether it be to love, to encourage, to support, or to say “here I Am”, it is this whole-bodied spirit that, I believe, needs to be nurtured in return. In the home, the workplace, in places of worship, and in each other, we need to embrace every moment as an expression of a love that we should not take for granted. We do need each other, men and women, yes, as with conflict and resolution, we should all take a learning approach to each other, teaching what we learn in constructive virtue. Family dinners may be a thing of the past but they don’t have to be. We just have put our hearts on the table first and be open to communication, free of technology, and held by one-on-one communication with each other.
The Earth needs all elements of earth, wind, fire, and water to sustain life as we too need all elements of humanity for the same reason. We should not forget the one thing we live ON is a miracle and a gift given as a gift by the one Being we all are living IN, whomever our “higher power(s)” may Be. We all must continue educating ourselves and instilling values and virtues of “old” into our children and the future generations to come if we are to see ourselves ever moving forward into a world worthy of itself and the gift it really is.
I really enjoyed reading what you had to say in your blog. It really made me think about things that were happening or already did happen in my life. I elaborated off your questions; I hope you enjoy my feedback!
I think we can reverse the trend of family breakdown by educating more people/kids about the aspects of a good marriage, how to keep going through a marriage when things are not the best, and even about having children when you are financially ready. You see all the talk about family planning services and how they can help with not getting pregnant, then why are so many teenagers pregnant? I think parents need to be there for their kids so they feel comfortable talking to them about having sex. Birth control for kids who don’t believe in the whole sex after marriage would decrease the amount of teenagers getting pregnant at such a young age. This would prevent some of the family breakdown because most of the time you don’t see the parents staying together when they get pregnant that young. Personally, I don’t think kids should get married just because they are pregnant. My parents did this and look where they are right now. Out of the 20 years they have been together, my mom cheated on my dad for four out of the 20 and she was telling everyone for the longest time that my dad kept her barefoot and pregnant so she couldn’t do anything. It is not a very healthy relationship. I see why the divorce rate is so high.
For your second question, I think both men and women should respect each other for their contributes to the family. Even though women are starting to be the ones who are making more money than the men, the men should appreciate that there is more money coming into the household to help the family out. Men should not take it so personal if their wife is making more money than them. The way I was raised was that the man in the house should provide and protect like you were saying in your blog. I think this all depends on if the mother stays home and does all the house work and takes care of the kids. My mother got a job though and she was never home and our family never saw any of her income go toward anything like bills or groceries. I do not think this was right of my mother to do to our family. It put a lot of stress upon my dad and all of us kids.
For the last question, I think some boundaries for the current day situations would be things like maybe if you are the guy do not look at your wife’s paycheck if it makes you that upset, if you are the wife you should contribute to the family if you have a job, and maybe think twice before you have unprotected sex! There so many more boundaries or things you need to think about before starting your grown-up life to help keep happiness alive in your relationships now days.
I think this was a truly great article. I think our world is very relying on medicine now days. Like you were saying about anti depresents. People now days do not try and figure things out on their own. They run straight to the doctor at the first sign of a runny nose. They cannot as some people would say get out of their own funk without medical help. I think with all the technology now days people cannot see the world clearly anymore. They feel unsettled like you were saying. They cannot see they beauty of the things around them because they are relying to much on their phones and other electronics. Also as you were saying about cooperation for society to function I think that is a great point. A lot of people see themselves as just small person when really they are part of society. If all of the people that felt the same way about a certain cause came together they could make a giant and great impact on our world, But that also leads into social norms. People do not want to step outside of what they know and what they are used to. They want to stay within their safety zone. Which makes it harder for people to come together and change things. I think your article was great and i really enjoyed it.
I liked this very much. It’s very informative for those people who have no knowledge of the world. It’s a wake up call to those who don’t want to open there eyes and see the world for what it is.
I’d have to verify with you here. Which is not one thing I often do! I take pleasure in reading a post that may make individuals think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!
First, I would like to say to you how much I enjoyed your piece on this topic. You are very creative with your words and really know how to draw in a reader, I was fascinated.
I would like to say that I do believe that many families are struggling but I do not believe that one of the reasons is that women are now starting to take on the role of being the provider. Going out to work is no different then staying home and maintaing order in their children and home. These families are struggling because there is not enough jobs and the ones that are available just barely pay what is needed to keep their heads above water.
Men are not better then women or vice-versa. A man should be helping out by being out in the workforce and helping at home with his family, just the same as women. We are all equal and should take on the responsiblities we chose to take on when we decided to have the family.
If the families would just take sometime to sort through their hectic life and be there for each other, they could be a stronger family. Many people just have seem to lost their ability to communicate outside of the workforce, they are too tired, or too busy, when in reality this is part of life. WE ALL need to take a step back and realize that our lives could be that much better if we all worked together, not just in the individual family, but the whole community.
We are the only ones that are standing in our own ways to being a better person and having a better life. We let the day take it’s toll on us and now we have become introverts who are just always made at the world.
I really enjoyed reading this blog, I also was unaware of the decline in some civilizations and did not realize how accepted Hindu and Buddhism cultures were. As far as woman working on outside of the home i think its great, woman have wanted equality for years and seeing that woman are doing better education and finance wise is a great thing. That is not to say woman are better than men or that men are becoming useless, in my opinion we still expect our men to provide for and protect us. So we still need our men, but instead of showing spite or feeling useless some men should just be proud of their womans accomplishments.
It is very unfortunate that the divorce rate in our times is as high as it is, i feel people need to really make sure they are with someone they know they want to spend the rest of their lives with before making such a commitment. I know people who have just gotten married because their lives were so routine it “just seemed like the right thing,” they were very unhappy with each other and ended up getting divoreced. Not saying this pertains to every marriage/relationship. Or if couples are feeling detached because they are both working outside of the home, planning one day a week just to spend an afternoon or evening together could help rekindle the marriage as tough as that could be. Good quality time together could be all some couples need, which might also prevent a person from straying out of the marriage.
I think the biggest reason for the family breakdown is not because there is more women in the workforce, but because they are being forced to work to help pay the bills. Until the latter half of the twentieth century, women stayed home, actually spent time with and taught their children. While this was not really mentioned in the blog, it was a stable part of almost every society throughout history. I’m not sexist, and certainly not saying the woman’s place is in the home. I also agree that there are many changes going on in society right now that are not easy to deal with. These changes are forcing women out of the home to work, to help pay bills. It is only a few generations into this new role for women, and we can see every day the toll it is taking on families. I think people just need to sit down and think for a few minutes about what is best for them and their families, and discuss as a whole. That is how things used to be done, before the last few generations. If families think about their situations together, they will be stronger and stay together more.
This was a great blog to read! I did not realize that certain civilizations, such as Christianity, were declining. Also, it was very fascinating to read about the gender difference. I am proud to see that women are just as good as men, and some even better. We work hard, and it’s good to see that there are facts about how hard we truly work.
Possibly, to help with the family breakdown, schools across the states should have to have a required class that teaches you everything you need to know about marriage and having children.
Hopefully there is a change in the near future so gender does not matter and families stay closer together.
Thanks for the compliment. I think education in our schools is a key part of the solution too.
[...] increased age of women is the true anomaly. Why might this be happening? In Susan’s post, The Great Confluence, she discusses a number of social factors causing a shift in gender roles and family [...]
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