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Back: the prophetic 1947 classic that shows how the fate of the family determines the fate of civilization
. . .and that predicted the crisis facing America and other Western democracies today
Family and Civilization
by Carle C. Zimmerman
"The struggle over the modern family and its present
rapid trend toward a climactic breakup will be one of the most
interesting and decisive ones in all history. So much is at
stake." So writes Harvard sociologist Carle Zimmerman in his
1947 classic Family and Civilization. Sixty-one years later,
residents of Western democracies do indeed find themselves in
the midst of a climactic breakup of family life -- and few
books offer more much-needed insight into our current social
crisis than Zimmerman's remarkably prescient work.
(continued from above)
In this unjustly forgotten work Zimmerman demonstrates
the close and causal connections between the rise and fall of
different types of families and the rise and fall of
civilizations, particularly ancient Greece and Rome, medieval
and modern Europe, and the United States. Zimmerman traces the
evolution of family structure from tribes and clans to
extended and large nuclear families to the small nuclear
families and broken families of today. And he shows the
consequences of each structure for the bearing and rearing of
children; for religion, law, and everyday life; and for the
fate of civilization itself. Zimmerman also predicted many of
today's cultural and social controversies and trends --
including youth violence and depression, abortion and
homosexuality, the demographic collapse of Europe and of the
West more generally, and the displacement of peoples.
In permissive modern attitudes, Zimmerman recognizes the
emergence of "the idea of atomistic man as the only unit in
society" -- an idea whose cultural prominence can only mean
that "the Western world has entered a period of demoralization
comparable to the periods when both Greece and Rome turned
from growth to decay." Indeed, as he surveys life in modern
America, Zimmerman catalogues various forms of action and
thought identical with those during the high period of atomism
in Greece and Rome -- including:
- Increased and rapid "causeless" divorce
- Decreased number of children, population decay, and
increased public disrespect of parenthoods and parenthood
- Elimination of the real meaning of the marriage ceremony
- Popularity of pessimistic doctrines about the early heroes
- Rise of theories that companionate marriage or a permissible
looser family form would solve the problem
- The refusal of many other people married under the older
family form to maintain their traditions while other people
escape these obligations. (The Greek and Roman mothers
refused to say home and bear children.)
- The spread of the antifamilism of the urbane and
pseudointellectual classes
- Breaking down of most inhibitions against adultery
- Revolts of youth against parents so that parenthood becomes
more and more difficult
- Rapid rise and spread of juvenile delinquency
- Common acceptance of all forms of sex perversions
Scholarly yet readable, Carle Zimmerman's Family and
Civilization helps readers understand why the recent changes
in family life constitute a civilization-threatening crisis,
and shows how many of our most threatening social problems
originate in family disintegration. The accompanying essays by
modern commentators show how his argument has retained
relevance today, especially in the wake of the West's
demographic collapse.
"Dr. Zimmerman disdained his academic colleagues, who in
his view denied history because the facts led them to
conclusions they didn't want to accept. James Kurth, the
distinguished Swarthmore political scientist who edited the
new version of Family and Civilization, says that the book's
publication made one of the nation's premiere sociologists a
politically incorrect nonperson overnight. Why should we read
Dr. Zimmerman today? For one thing, the future isn't fated. We
might learn from history and make choices that avert the
calamities that overtook Greece and Rome." -- ROD DREHER,
Dallas Morning News
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