The Family Religion
I dreamt of a 19th century rural mother and her teen-age son. The mother was proud of how he had developed. I somehow intuited that her primary project was spiritual, and that all of her activities — as a mother and farm wife — was in service to her religion. Mindfulness would make her a good mother; she was to weigh each of her statements and actions by the effect it would have on the well-being of the family. She would remain attentive to the weather, the state of plants and animals, and react accordingly to maximize the output of the farm. The men in the family would remain attentive to changes in business climate, economic opportunities, advances in technology, and so forth. This attentiveness and reactiveness would make the family successful economically and socially — and most importantly, spiritually. One may not prioritize personal desires when attentive to environmental conditions, nor when reacting to them for the benefit of the family. One transcends personal imperfection though discipline and through successful integration in God’s creation.
I saw that feminism would be a non-concept to such a woman. This mother was not a repressed person, but a cog in an otherwise functioning machine. Family prosperity would lead to the acquisition of more land, better food for children, leading to more surviving children, who would have access to better marriages, and so forth. The family was an object of natural selection. Feminists who refused to participate in that system would be under-represented in the next generation. Famliies had an interest in suppressing gender equality. The “patriarchy” was merely a way of abstracting over individual family interests.
In a future world in which a hard-working and mindful person has little hope of achieving more prosperity than the previous generation had, that game would be over. Obedience and privilege would matter most.
In such a future world, individualism could be promoted because it is, in essence, the prioritisation of personal desire. Individual desire is contrary to collective action of any kind. It is the engine of consumerism and of debt. Individualism is therefore key to mass control and mass obedience.
Increased technology would be used to increase mindlessness, which would be promoted by means of ever-present entertainment possibilities. Technology would also distance people from the exigencies of reality, thereby limiting nature’s lessons. Mindlessness is key to keeping people from understanding their conditions and formulating solutions.
I was at once chilled to see the future from this past perspective. From this perspective, increased individual freedom and the increased convenience of technology were dark developments. This mother would in no way be envious of that state of spiritual poverty.
No one who has researched life in the 19th century would think of these as the good old days. The story of the Lowell mill girls showed how keen women were to escape their family situations; the mills were no vacation resorts. The point is that if that version of the patriarchy was unpalatable, it in no way justifies all versions of a capitalistic future.