Family and Identity

Interesting post at one of the sites especially useful if you feel like having some juicy thought but are yourself out of oranges, Left2Right. The post discusses the impact of biological parents, and raises some interesting questions about society and family.

The family values of conservatives amount to little more than prudery about sex; the family values of liberals can be summed up roughly as "All You Need Is Love" (or, as the saying now goes, "Love Makes a Family"). Of course, families have a lot to do with sex and love, but in my view they also have to do with consanguinity -- with ancestry and descent -- and these are the family values that are threatened by recent social developments.

The post goes on to discuss the greater influence of biological parents over societal influences (ranking biological vs adoptive parents' influences on person-hood).

Without so much mind to the sociological/psychological studies discussed, the post more puts me to thinking about my own sense of value towards family and community. Without disqualifying nor diminishing familiar (read, biological extended family and ancestorial past) circumstances outside the following framework, I recognize that I have strong affinity and appreciation for consanguinity. There is something basically human about our search for identity based upon the foundations of our familiar past. And I agree with the author of the post that our earnest use and seeking of identity based pon this is (not threatened, but) budervalued in society.

Not having read the author's further writings, and thus not knowing whether this is a departure or not, I do think community must (really, has to) be valued equal with consangunity. It seems to me that our familiar segment of self is bound to community. The family is not so meaningful if it is stripped (in terms of societal meaning) from the interrelations with community. This is a simple point, really--anything we express concerning personality/identity/self-hood only contains meaning when atteched to a societal seting. For instance, a recluse is only a recluse if a society outside the individual exists.

Our family, as it exists within a community(ies) in which we grow is very much what we are. This I think is fact. Problem is, if the post's author is correct, we do not embrace this fact. We don't much pay it mind.

Tangible consequences? Well, self identity has been a human problem since the invention of mythology. But more immediately, it is our familiar and communal bonds that are the greatest contribution to helping hands and civility. Perhaps the mean people that suck are simply out of touch with their self.