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As part of an assignment, I was to analyze a number of songs.

 

All these songs concern themselves with intimate love

relationships; and relate that with the traditional rules/norms of

society that base marriage and family on sexual exclusivity between

partners. All reject these traditional rules/norms over

sexual/intimate behavior.

 

The subject of this loosely constructed message, is to share my

recent

realization that a major consequence of the rules we abide by today

concerning sexual exclusivity in marriage, is to uphold the system of

property ownership: without which there could be no rich or poor.

 

An essential task every society must do, is raise the next

generation. Institutions often form around fulfilling one of

society's basic needs. However, even before organized society

existed, nature had developed a way to continue the species and

ensure the next generation. Note that the act by a caveperson to

have and care for offspring did nothing to benefit his/her individual

survival; but did everything to benefit the future survival of the

species. Thus nature (or God) caused there to be a physical (bodily)

attraction between male and female, so that individuals would do what

otherwise didn't benefit them, -that otherwise was an expense in

effort and resources. So that the essential societal need of

producing the next generation already has a mechanism for being

fulfilled, even without the institutions of marriage and family. -So

that the 3rd, modern meaning of marriage (that is, for personal

fulfilment of the body and mind provided by nature/God) is not really

new, but is instead, ancient and existed prior to recorded history.

As civilization developed more structure and organization, perhaps

the institutions of family and marriage then took over the task of

supplying society's need to produce the next generation. -As ways

were found to slow the birth rate as run by nature, more resources

were left for the adults; hence arranged marriages for the purpose of

enhancing and preserving family property were the traditional way,

and represent a more traditional meaning of marriage -that of

pleasing society.

Since the authors of these songs are African Americans we must

realize they've had their culture -a natural culture, that of a

tribal community (reference 'survivor'), where the task of

reproducing the next generation came from the natural way developed

over pre history -that of bodily/physical attraction between the

sexes; and where the burden of offspring was born by not only the

couple bearing the children, but by the whole tribal community -

humans of prehistory developed as tribal communities, not as nuclear

families, like gorilla primates. -Their tribal culture torn from them

and western culture imposed on them as a result of their forcible

removal to the US. As slaves, the institution of family and

marriage, they were not allowed. So that for an extended period, all

they had was the natural way. And then after being freed, having to

endure the migration of their able bodied men to the North for

industrial work, away from their women and children, thus disrupted

families and extended families.

Instead of being ethnocentric and thinking that one way is

better than another because it is our way and is what we're used to:

Instead let us view the different ways objectively. In so doing we

can gain insight into our own ways. Looking at the task of producing

the future generation: since all of society is benefitted by its

successful completion, its reasonable to expect all of society to

bear the expense and burden of this task. However, the institution

of family, ties completely, the burden/responsibility for offspring a

couple bears, to that couple, and frees the rest of society from any

responsibility whatever. And this burden becomes especially intense

when the father steps out and leaves only the mother to bear the

whole burden.

This doesn't represent parts of society cooperating and working

together to accomplish a common important social task. Thus the

institution of family is not a part of the structural-functionalist

theory, at least not concerning the important (essential) social task

of producing the next generation. Females have and raise kids for

the benefit of society having a next generation, but the other parts

of society give nothing in return for this. The act to divide the

societal whole into parts, with each part assigned a task, doesn't

represent cooperation between the parts, but represents a shoving the

burden onto one group (which is exploitation); -when all parts should

be helping with an important task, in order to be in cooperation.

This represents a basic flaw in the structural-functionalist theory.

It is perhaps the foreignness of our culture's concept of focusing

responsibility for children onto the nuclear family unit, as opposed

to extended family, that these African American song writers are

expressing and rebelling against. This Western way isn't even

logical.

 

Looking at the task of producing/rearing the future generation:

those who must do this task are prevented from attending to the power

struggles of the present generation. Because it is the women who

grow an embryo to a fetus and bear the children and are semi disabled

in being pregnant; because women have the equipment for feeding the

children; and have a mothering instinct: it is women who do more of

the task of producing the future generation than men. Over history,

this has left men free to dominate their present generation (while

the women are busy taking care of the kids). With men making the

rules, they became the order givers and women the order takers. From

this evolves a situation where one group (the men) enriches their

life by shoving the burdens of life onto another group (the women).

But it doesn't stop there. Half the population (the men) are still

fair game to be put to work for one's enrichment. The situation

where women are subordinate, just gave ambitious men a taste of what

it was like to have someone do for them and how good that felt. They

proceeded to subordinate as many as they could for their enrichment.

But in order to be dominant over others in more than just a temporary

way, the concept of property ownership must be established whereby

one owns things-and-people for use by themselves, but that others

aren't allowed to use. Without the concept of ownership; if people

need something, they just take it and consume it, so that one is

unable to store up great piles of wealth for themselves which may be

use to control many others. The rules promoting sexual exclusivity

allow for a nuclear family unit to be defined. With the burden of

raising a specific child relegated to a specific nuclear family: a

child would be prevented from expecting help from the society at

large. With Children (the next generation) not being allowed to take

what they needed from those who had, concepts of ownership could be

enacted. Otherwise if children took what they needed from everyone

and from those who had, then this would defeat the ability to be

dominant or to amass great piles of wealth because the concept of

ownership would be greatly violated. -(The expense of raising

children is real. Just look how it holds single mothers down.) And

the dominant cannot extract from children like they extract from the

rest of us. A society cannot say to an infant " pull your own

weight " . A religion cannot say to an infant " if you don't work, you

don't eat " . If they did, they would in one generation, vanish,

because they would have killed all their children and thus their next

generation. So who decided it is the nuclear family who is solely

responsible? It did not come from the natural method, as there in a

tribal community, the whole tribe shared the burden. It is true that

when women have kids, it places a burden on the whole society that

that society may not wish to have placed upon it. But note that if

that burden isn't placed upon it, that society won't survive -it is

an essential to society. So, the norms of sexual exclusivity from

which comes the institution of marriage; from which comes the

institution of family: serve the purpose to allow the dominant few to

maintain their place of dominance for more than just one generation.

Note that these structures of property and norms in marriage are

constructs of a symbolic interactionist type because they rely on

meanings in our minds to make the whole thing work. The songs by

these African Americans mostly do not share an adherence with these

ways of mind. By not recognizing sexual exclusivity, they prevent

themselves from being defined into nuclear families, but instead,

pull together as extended families. As extended families, they are

less subject to the specialization that has eroded much of modern

society in the pursuit of human greed.

 

 

I was in disagreement with most of my group on this issue. My group

mostly felt families who can't support themselves are not entitled to

support (by others), but are instead entitled to only a job, or a

limited time of support. My feelings centered around why are

families put in the position of needing support in the first place,

seeing that every family needs support by others because no family

supports itself alone but only as part of a group and a system. (thus

entitling needy families to a job).

I recalled that being part of a reward system had an effect on this -

that having families experience situations of being unable to support

themselves was useful in making them hungry: -that hunger being

useful in getting them to accept a meager place in the reward

system; -as the reward system always needs those who will generate

the economic reward for others and thus won't have much left over for

themselves. So that our social system doesn't allow us to say 'lets

help needy people', because that acts contrary to the workings of our

reward system. To not help needy families is destructive to their

lives, thus our social system requires we be destructive to others.

I see destructiveness as an evil and a folly, so my feelings are of

rejection of it and rejection of systems to the degree that they

require it. So yes, lets help people, especially those who need it;

is what I feel, in opposition to an organized societal reward system.

 

Note that the sexual exclusivity interpretation of the Bible we have

in the US today, has functioned to serve mammon (money), and has

furthered the purposes of mammon at the expense of being able to help

our neighbor especially a needy neighbor. We see the directives of

love, a central tenant of the Bible and God, being trampled upon by

the use of sexual exclusivity in an economic context as to who to

stick the burden of children, which is aberrant even from the natural

way of tribal care. The Bible says: you cannot serve both God and

mammon. So, I suggest: cast one out.

 

 

 

 

 

In the writing below, I will show how the pursuit of human greed

has caused much of our problems we face today.

 

 

In considering what is the problem concerning the issue of

poverty, it makes a difference from who's perspective one is

looking. To the poor person, the problem is: not having enough for

basic survival needs. To the government, the ruling class, or the

larger society; the problems with poverty may be quite different. To

be blunt, poverty serves a purpose and has a function. One

possibility of dividing up the economic goods we produce, is to

divide them equally. However, in order to generate big rewards which

are useful to motivate the masses to chase after them by doing the

ruling class's bidding: one group must accept less than the equal

share so another group can be enriched and receive a big reward.

Those who must accept less, (that is the reward given for menial

labor), are understandably displeased. But to get them to accept the

menial reward in spite of this; a more dire alternative is shown

them -that of abject poverty. Poverty serves the purpose of

motivating those designated to receive the menial reward, to accept

this their place, in spite of its lack of luster. So for the ruling

class, the problem with poverty in the US today is that there isn't

enough of it; as our current reward system depends on a certain

amount of it to help it run. Hence poverty persists in the US, more

than in other industrialized countries like Canada and Western Europe

even though these countries are less wealthy than the US.

When a person is unable to work, perhaps because they are

disabled, sometimes a society will pay for their living expenses,

although not every society may do this. And if a person is mentally

unable to take care of their own needs, our society commits them to

institutions which provide that care. And all expenses are paid by

the state, where everyone who is able is taxed and they help pay for

the benefit of someone else. (Just like the rich benefit from the

labors of the rest of us.) All of us when we were young went through

a period when we were infants. Infants are people. And these people

are unable to work. Note that if a society did not have some

mechanism whereby these infant people received the labor of others,

then that society would cease to exist in one generation. In our

society, the organized effort we extend to disabled people is not

present for the infant people, and infant people are treated as a

special case where the sole expense of caring for them is placed on

the parents of infant persons.

And if the male partner steps out, our societal norms then place the

burden for the care of these infant people solely on the mother,

freeing the rest of society from any responsibility whatever. This

comes very close to a society refusing to help, at all, these infant

people who can neither work nor survive without being spoon fed:

which if were to occur, would result in the inhalation of this

society in one generation. This lack of help, and lack of LOVE,

shows an extensive erosion in this society's commitment to the

Biblical directive, Jesus' directive, to LOVE.

 

 

 

 

The most traditional meaning of marriage is that it is an

institution from God, and maintained by God. -that God has authority

over all family matters, as administered by church officials; and

that the wants and needs of the individual person are secondary to

what God (as represented by church officials) wants.

The next traditional meaning of marriage is that it is an

institution with norms and expectations to the social group -to

society. Authority is rooted in one's kin group and overall

community. Here the emphasis is on upholding a respectable image in

society by conforming to the norms of one's specific community.

The most recent meaning of marriage is that its purpose is for

personal fulfilment -that is, doing what feels good to one.

Authority over the meaning of one's marriage resides in oneself and

what one wants.

These all exist in our society today -a pluralist array of

structures.

I would discuss that the institutional goal of family/marriage

is procreation. -That procreation of humans is an essential to

society -otherwise the society and its traditions would end in one

generation. Whereas, sex isn't an absolute essential for the

individual human as they don't die without it. In today's world

where children have gone from being an asset (in farm labor) to being

an expense: if a society is to survive, there must be some

inducement, some reason to get a couple to have and raise kids,

because procreation fulfills a deep need of society.

Some have taken a historical perspective, -looking at how the

modern family doesn't fill the functions that families of old, or

traditional families, did.

 

In earlier days in history, in traditional societies, needs were

met by local and extended family people. Back then, people were born

in the home, died in the home, cared for as children by extended

family in the home. Now the supplier of all these functions have

been replaced by bureaucratic organizations.

Functions the family traditionally filled:

economic -today, the factory and office fills this function.

education -today, the school system and the day care facility fills

this function.

prestige and status -the family name doesn't mean that much today.

protection -police, firemen, hospitals, and other social programs

fill this function today.

religion -professional clergy fill this function today.

recreation -TV, movies, and sports leagues today fill this function.

affection and procreation -today's family still fills this function,

but competition from outside 'agencies' are close by: and if a

government gets a cloning program into gear, then this function also

may be lost. However, I would think most governments would prefer to

continue receiving the free labor in this area they get from

the 'birds and bees'.

In today's modern scene, we have the appearance of this 3rd

meaning of marriage (that is, for personal fulfilment). In the past

the purpose of marriage didn't include this meaning and was for the

two previous traditional meanings. Some suggest that this newer

meaning of marriage is a breakdown of morals and that it has been the

cause of the disintegration of the family functions previously

listed; and that we should go back to the traditional meanings of

marriage as a way to restore the family to its traditional place and

bring back the good life of old (the good old days), eliminating all

the modern ills.

However, just because 2 events are correlate together, doesn't mean

one caused the other -(that event 'A' caused event 'B' (often because

event 'B' caused event'A', or neither caused each other)). Consider

that it is because of the changing nature of work over this same

period, from farm based to dual earner with requirement to put the

children through college so they can find a decent job; which has

changed the value of children from being an asset to being a large

expense: which has brought about the changes in the meaning of

marriage we see today. -Seeing that the unmistakable function of

family and marriage is procreation of the next generation.

 

Before Moses: before Noah: before tradition: before recorded

history: people existed. There had to be something to get people to

procreate and keep the human line going -to get individuals to act

for the good of the (future) community (in having / raising

offspring) even before much of a community organization even

existed. Some traditions have announced that sex is for procreation

only and not for fun. However, the reason sex is fun is solely for

the purpose of procreation. The reason animal genetics and biology

have caused sex to be fun in individuals, was so that individuals

before organized society existed, would act in the benefit not of the

individual but in the benefit of the species (the whole group, as in

its whole future); by procreating.

Because the procreation of a new generation is a benefit to all of

society -in fact it is an absolute essential because all societies

would be completely (but non-violently) anhialated within one

generation without their women procreating.

I submit that the cause of much of the specialization,

fragmentation and disintegration of family function of our modern

world today, is caused by human greed -by an economic system which

desires to subject one group to the economic service of another.

When bureaucratic organizations can position themselves to replace

what the family used to supply, they then have people over a barrel

and can extract economic subservience in exchange for their services,

according to how much they charge. And when they have the monopoly

position of being the only source of what they provide, then they

charge plenty.

Because the human animal, even the U.S. human animal, depends on

producing certain essentials (that is, food, shelter, and clothing);

the human animal can be coerced into all manner of economic servitude

in exchange for these essentials. The story of giving a man a fish

vs. giving him a fishing pole is so often used in speaking in

capitalistic economic situations. It applies here as well. The way of

producing ones survival reward by doing what a reward giver tells one

to do in a job, is like giving a man a fish, because the person here

never gets any closer to the actions which actually/directly supply

ones survival reward. The other way of producing ones survival

reward -which is doing the actual actions which directly supply one's

survival reward, is the fishing pole in this story. But in order that

many

people may remain under the control of, and dependent on, a

privileged few; this way is made unavailable to most of us.

 

Concerning the economic function:

In the past, in traditional societies, families were

economically self sufficient, and they followed their productions

from beginning to end. A large part of work was agricultural plus

there were from 20 to 30 major craft trades. Work was hard, but

people had complete control over their day, and rarely saw a

bureaucratic official.

In today's modern economy however, there are 20,000 different

jobs (notice the specialization), and few produce their own food,

houses or other things they consume, and everybody is very dependent

(interdependent) on each other.

In traditional societies, people/families were economically self

sufficient. Since the way of life of directly obtaining one's

survival has been eliminated (traditional ways are no longer

available), that leaves only the indirect way of doing what

management wants as a way to produce one's survival. Because today's

methods are much more efficient, this means there is more to go

around; yet most of that extra is used to supply the rewards to the

fat cats, leaving those selected to generate the reward of the reward

system, little better off than they would be under a traditional

society; and now they have lost control over the work they do.

One reason labor has been divided into component tasks and each

person given a task, is because it is more efficient, as in the

assembly line and mass production whereby large quantities of goods

can be efficiently manufactured.

Another reason the division of labor (ie specialization) has

progressed to the furthest degree possible, I feel, is because it

supports a means to control workers. The more one specializes in what

they produce, the less useful that product is to anyone but the owner

that puts all the parts together into a useful marketable product.

Because of this and because each component part is so dependent (not

self sufficient), the owner can dictate how hard people work and how

they live their lives.

Even entire countries can befall this set-up. When a third

world country grows exclusively coffee to export, then they lack the

established means to directly generate other needed items, and are

thus dependent on others (multinational corporations) to provide

these things, -at the multinational's price. -They are forced to

accept the multinational's price paid for their specialized

production which they use to buy other items, because all other

traditional less specialized productions have been eliminated -

replaced by this dependent specialized way.

When a car is put together from component parts coming from all

different countries, then no country in itself has a product they can

sell to the public, then they are all at the mercy of the

multinational corporation in determining how hard they should work

and how much they should be paid.

 

 

Concerning the education function:

 

To describe education it helps to view it from an historical

perspective. When people were self sufficient economically back in

the traditional society of our past, there was little or no

education. People started helping with chores or went into

apprenticeship at an early age and soon learned the complete

knowledge of their trade. But as people specialized more and more in

their work, education became more prominent. For most of history,

education was thought to be for self betterment, but only after WWII

was it considered essential for career advancement. In the recent

past, a high school diploma was enough to get a decent job, but now

that requires a bachelors degree, and even that is often not enough.

As there became a division of labor, and loss of self sufficiency,

and as technology has increased, so has education and the need for

education. If you think about it, education is an incomplete task.

The work students do in school is never used in any production but

only builds up a component part of what the student will use in their

job. In recent times then, we educate ourselves for the benefit of

our future employer. Aside from the basics, little of the stuff we

learn is useful to us individually outside of the industrial, job,

setting.

Intelligence then is one of those fragments of the division of

labor that when put together with all the other components, creates

products in today's free enterprise system. And discovering and

developing intelligence, is the business of schools and education.

But intelligence is itself the problem, because by itself it is

worthless until it is combined with other component parts. It is

today's definition of what education is using (only) intelligence,

that is the problem. In the past, a person's educational achievement

wasn't even formal but it was complete. It included not only

abstract concepts of intelligence but also putting those concepts

into practice in the physical world. There was a balance between the

concrete real world and the abstract.

So that today, even if you do well in school and build up a lot

of the abstract thing called intelligence: if you don't get connected

with the other parts of the division of labor owned by the employer,

your intelligence is unusable. This is convenient for the capitalist

reward system. If they decide not to use you, then they have wasted

your time. You could have spent that time developing something to go

into business for yourself, but instead you have nothing usable, so

you don't give the system any trouble with any competition in the

market place. Thus your achievement remains low and perpetuates the

inequality and starvation that is supposed to make you hungry enough

to accept the menial reward.

 

One can see that the functions filled traditionally by extended

family have been replaced by bureaucratic organizations, all to

uphold the power and place and economic servitude towards the rich;

and that unless that is changed, extended family functions aren't

coming back. -That the problem is far deeper than a claimed moral

weakening in modern times; which itself is just a reaction to the

intense specialization driven by human greed: -the desire to usurp

the labor of others through subjecting them to economic subservience.