Howard Zinn on families as “pockets of insurrection”
In a chapter discussing the rise of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s, Howard Zinn writes:
In the problem of women was the germ of a solution, not only for their oppression, but for everybody’s. The control of women in society was ingeniously effective. It was not done directly by the state. Instead, the family was used—men to control women, women to control children, all to be preoccupied with one another, to turn to one another for help, to blame one another for trouble, to do violence to one another when things weren’t going right. Why could this not be turned around? Could women liberating themselves, children freeing themselves, men and women beginning to understand one another, find the source of their common oppression outside rather than in one another? Perhaps then they could create nuggets of strength in their own relationships, millions of pockets of insurrection. They could revolutionize thought and behavior in exactly that seclusion of family privacy which the system had counted on to do its work of control and indoctrination. And together, instead of at odds—male, female, parents, children—they could undertake the changing of society itself.[Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present, Revised and Updated Edition (New York: Harper Perennial, 1995), pp. 503-4]
Zinn’s insights here are helpful in thinking (rethinking?) the Catholic understanding of the family. As Catholics, as Christians, we are used to thinking of the family as the basic building block of society. As Zinn points out, in the United States and elsewhere, as the basic building block of society, the family has been used in many ways as an agent of “control and indoctrination.”
From a radically Catholic perspective, since the central social reality is the Church, and not the state, it is more helpful to think of the family as the basic building block of the Church—the new society—rather than the basic unit of the state, or of society. Indeed, in Catholic circles you sometimes hear it said that the family is the “domestic church.” If, as I believe, the Church is (also) a political reality, an alternative social body and way of life that will always be at odds with the societies in which it finds itself, then the family, as the “domestic church,” will also be a revolutionary society that resists indoctrination into the system of domination and violence, or, drawing on Zinn’s terms, an ecclesial “pocket of insurrection.”
Very thought-provoking post. The idea of the “domestic church” as a “pocket of insurrection” is very appealing to me.
I have to disagree with Mr. Zinn, however, on a few points. In America, the individual, not the family, is the basic unit of society, which contributes to our rootlessless. In both Chile, where I once lived, and Korea, where I now live and raise a family, it is acknowledged in the constitution that the family is the basic unit of society (something very different from the State).
Of course, there is the potential for “control and indoctrination” in the family (Abusus non tollit usum), but the greater danger we face is from the atomization that accompanies individualism. In both centralized Socialism and Capitalism, the “little platoons” Edmund Burke spoke of (family, guild, Church, etc.) are obliterated and it is just the individual vs.the State, as in the Huxleyan dystopia.
That’s definitely a good point. Perhaps what we have in the U.S. is a tension between what you rightly point out as an emphasis on the individual as the basic unit of society and a “conservative Christian” (for lack of a better term) emphasis on the family as the basic unit of society. The former option is stressed by liberals, libertarians, and individualist anarchists. The latter is emphasized by the religious right who, in merging their version of Christianity with “being a good American,” merely use the family as part of this structure of indoctrination.
While I think Zinn, from what I have read of him, would fall more to the individualist emphasis, he is no libertarian, and you can see in passages like this one some helpful insights that could contribute to a radically Catholic understanding of the family that neither deconstructs the family’s importance nor understands it as existing in service to the state.
As a libertarian/conservative, I find that the best approach is to synthesize the individualist and family-centered approach. The family is the fundamental unit of society, but insofar as individuals freely come together to form their own families and are kings of their own castles, so to speak, we must allow the individual the freedom to raise a family on his own principles and in accordance to his own beliefs. Libertines who ignore the family and the so-called Religious Right tend to miss this point where the family and the individual meet.
True left-libertarian, as well as Christian principles (do not Lord it over one another) would suggest that kings in castles and “raise a family on his own principles and in accordance to his own beliefs” are problematic ways of looking at it. “His own principles” suggests male dominance. True autonomy sets us free for social relationships that are determinative without domination. This is modelled on the blessed Trinity where none is afore none is after. It is also modelled on the praxis of Jesus with his community. In other words, we become social beings in patterns other than those imposed by empire.
I don’t understand your comment, Bill Carrol. Male dominance is a very rigid way of looking at what I wrote. Writing that a man is king of his own castle doesn’t mean that man should be able to rule his castle oppresively.
John – I read your statement the same way Bill did, I’m afraid.
I can’t help it if both of you are looking for oppresion where there is none.
Maybe we should just leave it at that, John.
Everybody on earth dies and goes to heaven. God comes and says, “I want the men to make two lines. One line for the men that dominated their women on earth and the other line for the men that were dominated by their women. Also, I want all the women to go with St. Peter .”
With that said and done, the next time God looked, the women are gone and there are two lines. The line of the men that were dominated by their women was 100 miles long, and in the line of men that dominated their women, there was only one man.
God got mad and said, “You men should be ashamed of yourselves. I created, you in my image and you were all whipped by your mates. Look at the only,one of my sons that stood up and made me proud. Learn from him! Tell them my son, how did you manage to be the only one in this line?”
And the man replied, “I don’t know—my wife told me to stand here.”
i’m so glad you sent this along. i need to mull over this for a while, but i can see, as a woman, that this was the norm in our not so distant past. i think that there has been a major break down in family in our society and therefore individualism has flourished, and i think that it stems from the fact that before feminism, men, women and children were expected to know their place. i think now these relationships are much healthier and much less oppressive…and therefore less externally oppressive. but i think that this new individualism is equally as oppressive. if people do not even feel tied to the other people they live with and are related to, then they certainly won’t feel tied to much of anything or anyone else, and as long as they are content with their own “its just me” world they won’t stir anything up much of anywhere else, and then the state can do whatever they darn well please. just put a starbucks on every corner and make things that look nice cheap enough, and people are content. and yes, the other option is the family unit of conservative christianity, which in my experience is pretty indoctrinating and oppressive itself, even if those involved don’t realize it.
so i certainly agree that in many different ways a catholic home is certainly revolutionary…a “pocket of insurrection” and this home now needs to battle the power struggles and violence AND the individualism.
so my question is…where is such a family to turn when the Church is failing, and not upholding this revolutionary family model? i’m sure (or hope) that this is not universal in the Church, but it is of some concern that the Church as an institution, or organization, focuses only on family planning as the basis of support for family life. and brings christopher west in for their one and only family life event of the year. i think that it is of utmost importance, in rebuilding the family structure, to find support and guidance, and most of all, community. what is offered is pretty scarce. any tips?
oh, and feel free to link to my blog, you feel so called.