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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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From Freddie's linked article:

"Yes, Marx and Engels took their stab at the family, including in The Manifesto, but everything about post-revolutionary life under communism is a little underdrawn, and if we’re going to go to the mattresses for anything the Papas Smurf argued for, I would prefer it not be the family. Because I like the family! And so does almost everybody else, of any gender, race, ideology, or circumstance."

I'll admit that he never said "families are good," but I think you're misrepresenting him.

Not only did he never say "families are good," he said

I understand that there are cogent critiques of the nuclear family or the traditional family or similar.

Furthermore, from Freddie's linked article, immediately following the bits you quoted:

To be anti-family really does strike me as looking for the thing that will piss the most people off, for the least possible political gain. I would prefer it if the most influential socialist press would not casually engage in this kind of useless leftist posturing, when we have so many more important and realistic goals.

His clearest concern is certainly not, "families are essential ingredients of a functioning society." His clearest concern is, "this argument makes the glorious revolution look bad." Furthermore, the "when we have..." is a really interesting qualifier. If he did not have so many more important and realistic goals, would he still regard these arguments as useless posturing? I don't get the impression, at all, that Freddie would stand up for families at that point--in part, because he gives no particular defense of them here. His point is never, "families are good." His point is always, "abolishing the family is, for now, a losing issue."

I will grant that he notices, for example, that

Shulamith Firestone . . . suffered from schizophrenia and likely starved to death in her apartment. Her body wasn’t found for a week. She was a giant of second-wave feminism but she died completely alone. I would suggest that this was a person who could have used more family.

But not, apparently, a nuclear or traditional family? His position is clearly underspecified, but I don't think it is a misrepresentation to observe that nuclear and traditional families, at least, are on the chopping block from Freddie's perspective. But--those are the kinds of family that matter most, on my view! All other arrangements are (deliberate--and often important!) imitations of the traditional/nuclear family, imitations so close we even call them "family," but they seem to just be less stable over a lifetime--so giants of second-wave feminism die alone and unnoticed and icons of gay rights can't even get burial costs covered by the law firm that used them to change the nation.