{"id":28404,"date":"2015-10-24T01:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T05:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28404"},"modified":"2015-10-14T09:33:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T13:33:29","slug":"qotd-the-role-of-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/10\/24\/qotd-the-role-of-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The role of the family"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>I don\u2019t follow libertarian family policy (never mind conservative family policy, liberal family policy, or even Shining Path Maoist family policy) too closely, though I know some very smart people who\u2019re involved in it. Anyway, the conversation turned to the claim made by many libertarians, as well as folks like Al Gore (wolfsbane to libertarians), that modern society has changed so much that it is only right and rational that family structure change, too.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s my problem with this sort of thinking, which I don\u2019t think is unreasonable on its face. Some institutions endure because they are, well, enduring.<\/p>\n<p>The whole point of certain institutions is that they are insurance policies against the unknown future (picture G. Gordon Liddy talking about gold, only replace it with \u201cthe family\u201d). The phrase \u201cyou can always count on family\u201d may not be literally true, but it is more true than \u201cyou can always count on your old college roommate.\u201d When times are great, the demands of family (or religion, or good manners, or thriftiness, or a thousand other institutions, customs, and habits of the heart that we can throw under the bulwark of \u201ctradition\u201d) might often seem like too much unnecessary baggage to carry around. But when things hit the fan, family is there in a way that other people aren\u2019t. Not because those other people are bad, but because your family is your family.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s important to keep in mind that the family &mdash; or the Bill of Rights, or good manners, whatever &mdash; isn\u2019t a catastrophic insurance policy. The value of these institutions is best understood during a time of crisis, but the influence of these institutions is constant, even in times of calm luxury. The fact that these institutions exist forecloses certain options and avenues for reformers who yearn for a blanker social slate.<\/p>\n<p>The family, like marriage, is an institution that predates our Constitution and the very concept of democracy, never mind modernity. That is not to say that it hasn\u2019t evolved and changed or that conservatives should never, ever contemplate further changes and greater evolution. It is simply to say that we should do so carefully, reservedly, humbly, in full knowledge that tomorrow may look as little like today as yesterday did.<\/p>\n<p>Jonah Goldberg, &#8220;The Goldberg File&#8221; email newsletter, 2011-04-25.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t follow libertarian family policy (never mind conservative family policy, liberal family policy, or even Shining Path Maoist family policy) too closely, though I know some very smart people who\u2019re involved in it. Anyway, the conversation turned to the claim made by many libertarians, as well as folks like Al Gore (wolfsbane to libertarians), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,73],"tags":[431,262,968],"class_list":["post-28404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotations","category-randomness","tag-conservatism","tag-culture","tag-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7o8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28405,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28404\/revisions\/28405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}