Am I the only one whos sick and tired of the family values discourse? This whole family is the basic building block of society thing is on the surface supposed to counter a Western notion that it is the individual which is the basic unit of society. (Asians are deemed to be more communitarian). But when the state gets involved (to the extent of inventing a Singapore Family Pledge), you know its not just some kind of cultural description but socio-economic prescription. Thus the family is encouraged to be procreative, because children are needed for the countrys labour and defence needs. The family is also defined by filial piety towards elders, so that the state can commit minimal social spending towards the elderly and welfare can be privatised. (This is apparently so important that filial piety has been legislated as the Maintenance of Parents Act.) Which is to say that family values in Singapore has been instrumentalised by the state for social engineering ends. More cynical exploitation: enter religious groups, who use the term family values as a code for their own religious values (in many cases as a front for a virulent anti-gay agenda). My family is greater than the sum of parents shielding children from moral erosion, wives supporting breadwinning husbands, children not sending their parents to old folks homes, or the contrived rituals of family time. My family is not an institution with family values as its constitution--to even discuss it in these terms cheapens the complex web of relationships between people bound together by time and space and fate. And love, difficult love, unquantifiable love, in its many shades, that sometimes lie beyond the visible spectrum, and which resists easy sloganeering and bureaucratisation.
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 08:29:03 +0000
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