[Buddha-l] Re: S. Pinker

[Stanley J. Ziobro II]

On Sun, 3 Jul 2005, Richard P. Hayes wrote:

> On Sun, 2005-07-03 at 14:19 -0400, Stanley J. Ziobro II wrote:
>
> > However, I agree with you that the break up of the family, nuclear and
> > extended, primarily for reasons of economic viability, is an important
> > factor in analyzing this sociological phenomenon. Whether it is the
> > most important one seems to me open to question.
>
> I'm not a sociologist, and I don't know how to think like one, so I'm
> happy to leave it to those who know what they're talking about to answer
> this open question.

I find myself much in the same situation as you in this regard.  That
said, I note that any number of us here on Buddha-L, though we are not (to
my knowledge) political scientists, have important insights into the
present U.S. political scene that are fruitfully shared and sometimes
debated with all the requisite objectivity, intelligence, and
compassionate intentions of bodhisattvas.

> Actually, one person who does address some of these issues is Steven
> Pinker, the man after whom this thread was named. One of these days I'd
> like to discuss some of his ideas.

This would be welcome.

> > It may be the case that, in this matter, philosophical persuasion and
> > ideologies have followed economic realities, but even that may be open
> > to question.
>
> Admittedly, my principal philosophical interests have been in classical
> India, so I don't claim expertise in Western philosophy. I have,
> however, worked for my entire adult live in the company of students of
> Western philosophy and religion, and I have never heard anything about
> philosophical persuasions that pose a serious challenge to the viability
> of the family. What I have read in the work of some sociologists are
> reflections on why the extended family has ceased to exist. And I do
> know some Western Buddhists who have argued, rather convincingly, that
> the nuclear family is incapable of providing the sort of nurture that
> the old extended family used to provide in my grandparents' generation.
> The nuclear family is a very weak social unit, and it is not obvious
> what is available to replace what it used to provide, aside from cults
> and gangs.

Maybe some of the URLs I gave in my previous post will at least provide
an indicator of some philosophies/ideologies that some may reasonably
judge to be antithetical to the well-being of the traditional nuclear
family (instantiated in a greater extended family, which in turn is
instantiated in more greatly diffused spheres of social and cultural
groupings).  This would be a fairly contentious area of inquiry, I
suspect.

> > The present economic realities are the fruit of earlier ideologies,
> > and so what is currently the articulation of a present economic
> > reality follows from (or responds to) the earlier underlying
> > philosophical or ideological suppositions.
>
> True. As early as 1690 the merchants of Boston began making
> representation to church elders and complaining of all the ways that the
> severe ethical norms of Puritan Christianity were impeding their pursuit
> of profitable trade. In a bid not to alienate the merchant class, on
> whom the church had already to some extent become dependent, church
> regulations were relaxed considerably. This led Cotton Mather to write
> "Religion gave birth to prosperity, and then the daughter killed her
> mother." Then as now, religion may have guided the American people, but
> the traders and money-lenders guided the clergy. There were few
> exceptions to this, because exceptions tended not to survive more than a
> decade or so.

Presently, this history of American religion is an area of which I am in
need of study.  I can at least see anologies to earlier European religio-
economic realities, especially with regard to Catholic synodal canons
against usury.  These were basically ignored or gotten around by
tolerating and utilizing the talents of Jewish moneylenders.  We've other
sorts of analogies in the religio-economic landscape of the great temple/
shrine complexes in medieval Japan, as well as the ideological and
societal transformations of the late Tokugawa and early Meiji eras where
Shinto as a distinct religious entity was conceived and propagated for the
advancement of the rising modern State.  Perhaps our Japanese scholars can
speak with greater clarity and coherence here?

I'll have to close here for now.

Stan