Some patriarchal thoughts
We never got around to painting the walls in our new house … which is just as well, since Samuel has been drawing on them with crayons.
I read somewhere that the “terrible twos” are a myth. Parents think that their two-year-olds behave worse than at other ages. Their observations confirm this because they already believe in the “terrible twos.” It’s a self-fulfilling hypothesis.
Let the debunking begin, I said. I was ready for Samuel to disprove the myth or at least move the needle in the opposite direction.
Alas, he has not done so.
To his credit, he improves in this or that respect every week. I tell him to put his blocks away, and he does. I tell him to move away from the TV and sit in his chair, and he does. He didn’t use to.
To his discredit, he finds new ways to misbehave. Indeed, he is openly rebellious.
I wonder what example he is setting for his brother.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I was reading Locke’s First Treatise – his withering response to Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha – when I noticed that Peter Laslett’s editorial references to the latter are to an edition prepared by himself. That edition isn’t easy to find. The most readily available edition, not counting super-old scanned ones, is the Cambridge one; its back cover says:
(Locke himself, who considered Filmer’s patriarchal argument to be an apology for near-universal slavery, thought that three-year-olds should be put to work.)
And yet, everyone in the household found something like contentment, or meaning, in his or her role.
(Of course, many in the household may have hoped that they, too, would climb the pyramid, becoming bakers or bakers’ wives.)
Viewed one way, the communal ethos was oppressive. Viewed another, it enabled freedom and fulfilment.
I daresay, the picture is pretty MacIntyrean. The book is called The World We Have Lost.
I read somewhere that the “terrible twos” are a myth. Parents think that their two-year-olds behave worse than at other ages. Their observations confirm this because they already believe in the “terrible twos.” It’s a self-fulfilling hypothesis.
Let the debunking begin, I said. I was ready for Samuel to disprove the myth or at least move the needle in the opposite direction.
Alas, he has not done so.
To his credit, he improves in this or that respect every week. I tell him to put his blocks away, and he does. I tell him to move away from the TV and sit in his chair, and he does. He didn’t use to.
To his discredit, he finds new ways to misbehave. Indeed, he is openly rebellious.
I wonder what example he is setting for his brother.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I was reading Locke’s First Treatise – his withering response to Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha – when I noticed that Peter Laslett’s editorial references to the latter are to an edition prepared by himself. That edition isn’t easy to find. The most readily available edition, not counting super-old scanned ones, is the Cambridge one; its back cover says:
Recent years have seen a great explosion of interest in women’s history, and in the history of the family and patriarchal attitudes – not least in seventeenth-century England. At that time patriarchalist thinking shaped English ideas not only about the family but also about society and the state. Many thinkers argued that the state should be seen as a family, and that the king held the powers of a father over his subjects. Fathers, they claimed, were not accountable to their wives or children, and the king was not accountable to the people. …I don’t know if Laslett came to write about Locke because of a prior interest in Filmer; virtually every other scholar proceeds in the opposite direction. But Laslett does try to interpret Locke’s Treatises as a unified polemic against Filmer. And though I previously associated Laslett with Locke above all else, I learned today that his main achievement was a book called The World We Have Lost: England Before the Industrial Age. It begins with a discussion of seventeenth-century bakeries. The idea of the baker’s household or family and the idea of his bakery were nearly coextensive. Fathers ruled all. Workers not related by blood to the patriarch nevertheless received the same treatment his family members received. The baker’s young children were regarded as workers.
(Locke himself, who considered Filmer’s patriarchal argument to be an apology for near-universal slavery, thought that three-year-olds should be put to work.)
And yet, everyone in the household found something like contentment, or meaning, in his or her role.
(Of course, many in the household may have hoped that they, too, would climb the pyramid, becoming bakers or bakers’ wives.)
Viewed one way, the communal ethos was oppressive. Viewed another, it enabled freedom and fulfilment.
I daresay, the picture is pretty MacIntyrean. The book is called The World We Have Lost.