W.B.2 - Economy of Households

"The conventional public opposition of 'liberal' and 'conservative' is, here and elsewhere, perfectly useless. The 'conservatives' promote the family as a sort of public icon, but they will not promote the economic integrity of the household or the community, which are the mainstays of family life. Under the sponsorship of 'conservative' presidencies, the economy of the modern household, which once required the father to work away from home--a development that was bad enough--now requires the mother to work away from home, as well. And this development has the wholehearted endorsement of 'liberals' who see the mother thus forced to spend her days away from her home and children as 'liberated'--though nobody has yet to see the fathers thus forced away as 'liberated.' Some feminist are thus in the curious position of opposing the mistreatment of women and yet advocating their participation in an economy in which everything is mistreated." (P. 122-23)

There is a lot here that is strange and new to our 2008 eyes. Berry understands that historically (before the industrial revolution ... at least in the rural setting) the household had its own economy. The father and mother and the children all worked together. Even if the father was a cobbler or a blacksmith, his children were around pretending to be like dad and the store and the house were usually the same thing. That world is behind us (his "economy of the modern household" where the dad must go away to work ... sometimes even miles away, to return on the weekends or late in the evenings). Now both parents do this journey and there is less and less anything that could really be described as a home or community.

I can't remember if it was him or Fox-Genovese that made the comment that the women's liberation movement was very profitable for Wall Street ... effectively doubling our work force. She said it goes beyond that because it brought with it a greater degree of separation, indeed, willingness to travel and work away from home because there wasn't one anymore.

NOW, I realize that these are larger trends and are not true of every modern household. On my street (with both Christians and non-Christians, in the city of Atlanta) all the mom's stay at home. I also realize that while it might be nice to have this kind of life, it is not possible for some people ... poor families have always had to have both parents work. But I think Berry's comments (and he has plenty more to say ... I am a mere 7 pages into this essay) are worth hearing out as much as we can.

It also makes an interesting point about the appearance of choice we have between "conservatives" and "liberals". Another wild thinker who I am still not sure how to take is Chomsky. He says that this is typical of American propaganda. We have the appearance of choice, when really both sides are saying the same thing in two different ways. Berry says a little farther down on page 123 that while conservatives attack homosexuality, abortion, and pornography, they don't usually oppose sexual promiscuity, because "sexual discipline would reduce the profits of corporations, which in their advertisements and entertainments encourage sexual self-indulgence as a way of selling merchandise." This may seem far to skeptical for some ... it is coming from a farmer who has seen first hand the physical and communal devastation of the modern economy.

I think we ought to listen and try and take it into account as we think through our own choices.