Janice Fiamengo pokes through the outpourings of Sophie Lewis:
But Lewis’s utopianism is undeterred by evidence or common sense. “To abolish the family,” she has stated reassuringly in interview, “is not to destroy relationships of care and nurturance, but on the contrary, to expand and proliferate them.” To prove this point, Lewis’s book includes a historical survey of Marxist and queer imaginings of new types of social-family.
Given that such ideas stretch far back into the nineteenth century, one is struck less by the radicalism of Lewis’s propositions than by their tired predictability and centuries-old lack of viability. Does Lewis ever stop to ponder why attempts to replace the family have never managed to sustain themselves, even on a small scale? […] Does Lewis ever ponder the fact that it is mainly Marxist-feminists and queer radicals who seek a world in which caring for children could be farmed out to acquaintances?
Ms Lewis and her fever dreams have of course been mentioned here before:
Supposedly, we would learn to love the “plural womb,” “radical disinheritance,” and “a world beyond propertarian kinship and work alienation.” The children we have will no longer be ours, it seems, and this will apparently make us happy. It’s a “queer, communist, speculative future.” A narcissist’s experiment. And we are to be the guinea pigs.
See also, inevitably, Laurie Penny, whose blatherings on the subject tell us more than she seems to realise, chiefly about herself.
Update:
In the comments, ccscientist adds,
Which, I think, rather tickles the nub of it. And so, we find a seemingly endless parade of preening, pretentious dolts telling us that poverty, and staying in poverty, never has anything to do with bad choices, including the choices that they themselves encourage. As, for instance, when telling us, emphatically, that “a couple cannot raise a child better than one [person] can.” And that the “diffusion” of the family unit – which is to say, absent fathers, hardship, and subsequent dependence on the state – “is one of the most exciting things to happen to the American social pattern since sexual liberation.”
Yes, divorce, estrangement and sudden-onset poverty. It’s all terribly exciting.
A less romantic, or less deranged, view of family breakdown, complete with data and statistics, can be found here. It turns out that the “abolition” of the family – its “diffusion” and disintegration – doesn’t in fact result in “comradeliness” or “the best available care for all.” More typically, it results in deprivation, misery, maladjustment, and quite a lot of resentment.
In short, bad medicine.
I think that’s one of your best. *hits tip jar*
children will be better off when they are raised by a shifting coalition of non-relatives
“Don’t make me tap the sign”
Thank you. If memory serves, it was fairly easy to put together, largely on account of Laurie’s self-satisfied obliviousness.
Bless you, sir. May your bathroom mirror remain free of particulate toothpaste.
We don’t need to end the family, we need to end the human race. We need to replace desperate men slobbering over women with men of self-respect, who don’t need to copulate and breed with females.
This would be a New World Order, the final world order before our race is extinguished. I am dedicating my life to establishing this, after our current era draws to a close.
children will be better off when they are raised by a shifting coalition of non-relatives
“Don’t make me tap the sign”
That is, of course, only a special case of their desire to fuck over all of us.
It is no more wise for a human to do a Marxist a good turn than it is for a frog to provide ferry service to a scorpion.
Bless you, sir. May your bathroom mirror remain free of particulate toothpaste.
[ Looks sideways at David. ]
Just what tooth-brushing technique results in that?
Laurie Penny, whose blatherings on the subject tell us more than she seems to realise, chiefly about herself.
And those who publish her blatherings also reveal more about themselves than they might wish.
An electric toothbrush and a lack of care will generally do it. Are you claiming never to have inadvertently sprayed the mirror?
Wait. Let me rephrase that.
Are you claiming never to have inadvertently sprayed the mirror?
Once. When I coughed. Twenty three years ago.
Are you claiming never to have inadvertently sprayed the mirror?
This would, on the other hand, be a frequent occurrence if I were in the habit of brushing while reading your blog.
She needs to up whatever medication she’s on.
Well, it isn’t so much “theory” as a pile of bald, obnoxious, often ludicrous assertions driven by some personal psychodrama. But I suppose that description wouldn’t impress her peers and students quite so much.
Not entirely unrelated, this.
Being pregnant or with a baby means that a mother really really needs help. A husband can be that help. Oh, I know, a radical idea. Unworkable probably.
Also, if anyone has stayed up all night with a sick child, they will agree with me that you would need to be paid a lot to do that for someone else’s kid.
Children need a feeling of safety, of security. Being passed around to random people does not provide that.
I don’t think that realism, or indeed coherence, are Ms Lewis’ strong points.
Children need a feeling of safety, of security. Being passed around to random people does not provide that.
Marxists think of other people not as human beings but as tokens in a game.
Well, that or livestock. And it’s worth quoting this from the piece on Laurie Penny and her bewildering advice:
A telling omission, all things considered.
I visited some communes and flop houses back in the day. The children were NOT given care and affection or even decent food. The exception was when the mother provided the care in spite of the surrounding chaos. I know, small sample size.
The greatest risk of child abuse or death is from the unrelated boyfriend of their unmarried mother.
It’s all coming out now.
[ Rummages under bar. Fires up tape recorder. ]
“Corrective killing”
And there we have it, right out there in plain sight.
“Don’t make me tap the sign”
personal psychodrama
I think in this case it’s more the latter than the former. Sailer’s Law of Female Journalism.
Dear Ms. Lewis,
I’m told Karl Marx is an old, dead, white male. They’re not to be listened to, or something. But I’m an old white male so don’t listen to me.
“Corrective killing”
And there we have it, right out there in plain sight.
Marxists are, increasingly, not trying to hide it anymore.
Marxists are, increasingly, not trying to hide it anymore.
All the drooling over the chance to assume total control by big tech and politicians is really getting disgusting and messy. Digital Currency from the central bank!! Social Credit System! Abortion up to birth!! Remove banking from oil companies and gun dealers!! Shut down Twitter!! Just puddles of drool. And all the kissy face with tyrants (China, Venezuela, Iran) is unseemly.
I don’t recall perfectly now, and can’t find it by performing one or two searches, but didn’t it emerge that Sophie Lewis herself had a rather imperfect family background herself?
Family: making a successful family requires one to do things out of love. You take care of your kids because you love them. You give to your spouse out of love. You may have to take parents to the hospital. None of this is comfortable for narcissists. It isn’t about them. It is about the other people.
Only a Marxist-feminist could pledge with a straight face that children will be better off when they are raised by a shifting coalition of non-relatives
Children raised by anyone = children raised by no one.
You may be tickling the nub of it.
And so, we find a seemingly endless parade of preening, pretentious dolts telling us that poverty, and staying in poverty, never has anything to do with bad choices, including the choices that they themselves encourage. As, for instance, when telling us that the “diffusion” of the family unit – which is to say, absent fathers, hardship, and subsequent dependence on the state – “is one of the most exciting things to happen to the American social pattern since sexual liberation.”
A less romantic, or less deranged, view of family breakdown, complete with data and statistics, can be found here. It turns out that the “abolition” of the family – its “diffusion” and disintegration – doesn’t in fact result in “comradeliness” or “the best available care for all.” More typically, it results in deprivation, misery, and quite a lot of resentment.
In short, bad medicine.
And speaking of bad medicine…
Parenting and education are areas in which the contortions of progressivism become quite hard to miss. In this example, one of many in the archives, do note our Guardian columnist’s willingness to lie, even about things one can easily discover.
Stay with me here as this is likely to sound crazy but… I’d venture to say that whatever medication that she is on is a big part of the problem. Not that there isn’t significant stupid there to start with but perhaps…just perhaps…whatever drugs she’s on, and most likely legal ones prescribed by an even bigger but more “responsible” idiot, are amplifying the problem.
What Sophie Lewis fails to realize is what goes around, comes around – that is, in her senior years, she can expect an ice floe with her name on it. It’s all fun and games until the State or the Community sees you as a useless eater.
That’s that bugger sorted.
That’s that bugger sorted.
Twenty more and it will be time for the Friday Ephemera’s bar mitzvah. Got anything special planned?
Come to think of it, the blog turns 16 in February. Pretty soon it will be going out drinking and wanting to borrow the car keys.
What Sophie Lewis fails to realize is what goes around, comes around – that is, in her senior years, she can expect an ice floe with her name on it.
As a good Marxist, she should feel honored to die in the service of the State.
It’s all fun and games until the State or the Community sees you as a useless eater.
Of course, all Marxists are useless anyways.
Ben Sixsmith recently pointed out that he’s been reading this blog for “almost half” of his life. I had mixed feelings about that.
An amusingly clumsy attempt at creating a fake hate crime.
do note our Guardian columnist’s willingness to lie, even about things one can easily discover.
They’re shameless.
As if the Camden School for Girls, a voluntary aided school favoured by well-heeled lefties, and with a list of celebrity alumnae, were somehow terribly rough and proletarian.
See also Zoe Williams, another Guardian regular, who would have readers believe that her time at Godolphin and Latymer, which of course she omitted to mention, and where school outings include trips to the Sinai Desert and a week in Barbados, was just like being stuck in any bog-standard comprehensive.
No more so than the White House.
Twenty more and it will be time for the Friday Ephemera’s bar mitzvah.
Bar mitzvah? Bar mitzvah?
Are you assuming it’s gender? Not a bat mitzvah if it identifies as female or a b’nei mitzvah if it’s pronouns are they/them and it is bi/poly/DID/etc.?
Educate yourself. do better.
Are you assuming it’s gender?
Why yes I am. The only gender changers I recognize.
Blatant lies: I have noticed that certain people, including some politicians and journalists, have no concept of truth being a real thing. They will say anything and could probably pass a lie detector test while saying it. US sec Mayorkis (sp?) says the border is closed and secure (yeah, if you come in by plane…). Al Gore showed a world drowning in sea level rise that simply isn’t happening (even the IPCC says 8 inches by 2100). We hear that inflation isn’t real, was not caused by gov spending, and is good for us. We were told that the covid shots would totally protect us, when in fact all it does is reduce the severity and is less effective than getting covid. Jan 6 is called an “insurrection” when the clowns were let in by security, took selfies, and left–some insurrection. But the biggest lies are about “systemic” racism sexism etc. Where? Please show me.
The list is infinite.
Bar mitzvah?
Well, we have the “bar” part down, at least.
Now a real mitzvah would be to ship all the Marxists to Antarctica…or North Korea.
I’d venture to say that whatever medication that she is on is a big part of the problem
The widespread normalization of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds is having knock-on effects. I’ve seen a couple of multi-million dollar projects crash because the executive in charge was on anti-anxiety meds and his ability to evaluate risk was impacted.
Those meds were intended for people who needed them to function at all because of the side effects, and they’ve become like candy for anyone who doesn’t have the self-discipline to manage their own equanimity.
We were told that the covid shots would totally protect us, when in fact all it does is reduce the severity
In fact they make you more susceptible to the virus and make the symptoms worse, and they bring severe (potentially fatal) side effects of their own. Part of the problem with “truth” is, as Mark Twain opined, the things we know that ain’t so.
Of course, all Marxists are useless anyways.
Exactly. And marxist states are unsustainable. When your ideological premise is that your people must change for your system to work then your system can never work.
The whole reason they prattle on about the family in the first place serves two marxist purposes. The first is: to destroy the existing order so the new order can be ushered in, and the second is: marxists really believe they can change human nature and getting rid of the family allows them to control the re-education.
A marxist state may survive a couple of generations but the hopelessness of living a lie eventually crushes the state under the weight of its own people. Even when a state rejects the economic tenets of marxism, like China mostly has, the improved conditions lead people to seek more i.e. freedom, wealth, leisure etc. The result is definitely not marxism.
Speaking of Marxist utopia…
♪♫All the leaves are brown,and the sky is gray;
California thieving, on such a winter’s day.♪♫