Family/State paradigm
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The Family/State paradigm by W. Lindsay Wheeler
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The Family as a paradigm of State organization is found in the structure of the basic unit of the state; the family. The family is a miniature state. This idea can be seen through the Socratic/Platonic principle of Macrocosm/microcosm. Lower levels of reality mirror upper levels of reality and vice a versa. Writers in ancient and modern times have seen parallels between the family and the forms of the state. Monarchies and Classical Republics are mirrors of family structure and the basis of all is patriarchalism. This idea can even be elucidated in the individual as a paradigm of the state as Socrates does in The Republic.
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Ancient thought
Plutarch records a laconic saying of the Dorians attributed to Lycurgus. Asked why he didn't establish a democracy in Lacedæmonia, Lycurgus responded: "Begin, friend, and set it up in your family"; meaning that this man would naturally see that it is impossible for a family to operate as a democracy. In the principle of macrocosm/microcosm, the Dorians of Crete and Sparta seemed to mirror the family institution and organization in their form of government.9 As the family went, so does the state. In their political viewpoint, the politeia was a family writ large.
Aristotle writes that the schemata of authority and subordination exist in the whole of nature. It exists between man and animal (domestic), between man and wife, slaves and children. It is even found in any animal for it consists of soul and body, "which the former is by nature the ruling and the later subject factor" and even in things that do not participate in life, as he points out, show this pattern, as in the case of musical scale where the each mode is noted by its key-note. (1) He writes:
- "the government of an household is a monarchy since every house is governed by a single ruler".(2)
Later on he clarifies this that husbands exercise a republican government over their wives and over children monarchical government. Over slaves, he exhibits political office and over his family he portrays a royal office. (3)
Arius Didymus in Stobaeus, 1st century A. D. writes "A primary kind of association (politeia) is the legal union of a man and woman for begetting children and for sharing life." From the collection of households a village is formed and from villages a city, "So just as the household yields for the city the seeds of its formation , thus it yields the constitution (politeia)".
- "Connected with the house is a pattern of monarchy, of aristocracy and of democracy. The relationship of parents to children is monarchic, of husbands to wives aristocratic, of children to one another democratic."
He concludes his political philosophy with "The best constitution is some mixture of the good forms", i.e. monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. (4) (See Classical definition of republic.)
Modern thought
Louis de Bonald writes as if the family was a miniature state. In his analysis of the family relationships of father, mother, child, De Bonald relates these to the functions of a state as the father is the power, the mother, the minister and the child as subject. As the father is active and strong and the child is passive or weak, the mother is the median term between the two extremes of this continuous proportion. As the aristocratic principle in the family, the mother is the Golden mean between the extremes. He shows that his thought mirrors that of Christian religion:
- "(It) calls man the reason, the head, the power of woman: Vir caput est mulieris{man is head of woman} says St. Paul. It calls woman the helper or minister of man: "Let us make man," says Genesis, "a helper similar to him." It calls the child a subject, since it tells it, in a thousand places, to obey its parents". (5)
Louis de Bonald sees divorce is the first stage of disorder in the state (the principle of macrocosm/microcosm). Where there is license in the family, there will be violence in the State. He sees the deconstitution of the family brings about the deconstitution of state and The Kyklos is not far behind. (6)
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn draws a connection between the family and monarchy.
- "Due to its inherent patriarchalism, monarchy fits organically into the ecclesiastic and familistic pattern of a Christian society. (Compare the teaching of Pope Leo XIII: 'Likewise the powers of fathers of families preseves expressly a certain image and form of the authority which is in God, from which all paternity in heaven and earth receives its name 'Eph 3.15') The relationship between the King as 'father of the fatherland' and the people is one of mutual love". (7)
Politics and the family
George Lakoff has remarked that the left/right distinction in politics comes from a difference between ideals of the family in the mind of the individual; for right-wing people, the ideal of the family is of a patriarchial and morally upright family; for left-wing people, the ideal of the family is of an unconditionally loving family. They then apply these models to political behavior outside the family. As a result, both sides find each others' views not only immoral, but incomprehensible, since they appear to violate each sides' deeply held beliefs about personal morality in the sphere of the family.
See also
References
- Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, Bk I, §ii, 8-10; 1254a 20-35; pg 19-21
- Politics, Bk I, §ii,21;1255b 15-20; pg 29.
- Politics, Bk I, §v, 1-2; 1259a 35-1259b 1; pg 57-59.
- Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament, ed. by M. Eugene Boring, Klaus Berger, Carsten Colpe, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, l995. pg 530.
- On Divorce, Louis de Bonald, trans. By Nicholas Davidson, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, l993. pp 44-46.
- On Divorce, Louis de Bonald, pp 88-89; 149.
- Liberty or Equality, Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, pg 155.
- George Lakoff, What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't, ISBN 0226467961
- The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Plutarch, Modern Library, bio on Lycurgus, p.65.
Attribution
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Family/State_paradigm" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family/State_paradigm, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
