Last week was a very difficult week for me, for various reasons. One of the reasons involved the subject material I had to study for my college courses. I knew when I took "Sociology 1010" that I would get into stuff that I would disagree with, that was a given. I guess I was a bit naif, however, about just how much I would disagree with it. One of our discussion topics asked the question: Do you agree with the Functionalist view that the "nuclear family" (husband and wife living together, husband as bread winner and wife at home caring for children) should still be the ideal given today's economic and social conditions? As you can imagine, 90% of the class said that the Functionalist "nuclear family" is outdated and no longer the ideal. And as you can also imagine, I was one of 2 dissenting voices...well actually I was shocked that someone else was first in saying that she thought that the "nuclear family" is the best format for raising healthy and well adjusted children. Some of the others said that mothers must work outside of the home to make ends meet, and how boring it is to "stay home with the kids" and that "I just couldn't do that"....and that it's perfectly ok to be a homosexual "family"....sigh....
....and I could hear the infamous Rodney King's voice ringing in my head: "Can't we all just get along???"
Yeah, well, I guess that we all wish we could always "get along" without putting up an argument about every little thing, sigh. But being salt and light also means telling why we believe what we believe, especially when we are the lone dissenting voice, that "voice in the wilderness".
So I talked about what an "ideal" is. I talked about why the "nuclear family" IS the only perfect model, even if none of us could attain to this ideal, that the nature of an ideal is to be a model for the perfection to strive for. I talked about why not one of us would ever fly on a plane that was piloted by a pilot who took a "How to fly an airplane for dummies" class, because he needed to "do it the right way" or I'm not getting on that plane... and how is that any different when it comes to our families and our children? Shouldn't we strive for that perfect model to protect and raise our children right?
So when it came time at the end of the week to turn in my "Reflections" assignment for the week (an assignment in which I had to answer a few questions about what I learned that week) this is what I wrote:
What did you think about, feel and visualize while participating in this session?
What I thought about during this week's lessons is that the curriculum/textbook is pretty slanted towards making the feminist and conflict theorists agendas the “more correct” position, than the traditional point of view. Statements such as:
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Sexual control, in the form of enforced female monogamy ensured that his ( the husband's) property would be transmitted only to his offspring. Engels conluded that only the elimination of private property and the creation of economic equality, in a word, communism, could bring an end to gender inequality and the traditional nuclear family.” (page 301)
I understand that the text tries to portray a “neutral” position by saying that communism isn't the answer to ending gender inequality, HOWEVER, most of the text supports things like abortion, divorce, daycare and other services to take over the duties of parenting, etc, so that the “neutral position” is really not credible when compared to what I actually read throughout the rest of the text.
What attitudes, skills and concepts have you gained from participating in this session?
What I have learned has only strengthened and reinforced my already established thoughts on these matters, however, it deepened it with further understanding of what the issues are, and how the numbers get skewed to support an argument. I have found several computational errors, such as when the authors take information from a graph and incorporate it into their assertions within the text. An example of such an error is on page 320 where it asserts that the poverty rate of a two parent family in Sweden is 1/10 that of the US rate when according to table 11.5 it is 1/5 when computed out. Another example is where the text says that Native American test takers comprise 43% of the national average representation of the US population as a whole, is not what table 12.2 says at all. It gives the actual percentage to be 143% (yes, one hundred and forty-three percent!!) when compared with the national representation of Native Americans. (page 349). This type of skewing of the facts is inexcusable. Who checks their figures??? Terrible disinformation, in my opinion. How can I truly trust the rest of the “facts” that are given by these persons who have an obvious agenda?
What did you know before; What did you want to know, and what did you learn this session?
I learned that there truly is an agenda to destroy the nuclear family, and to set up “whatever feels good” as an adequate alternative to a true ideal. It takes away the meaning of the word ideal, which is a high expectation, and a symbol of something that is perfect and very difficult if not impossible to attain to. The ideal is what would be the most effective and highest and best way, a highest benchmark to strive for. If it is changed to “whatever”, it is not actually a true “ideal”. The fact that even homosexual partners often have a more feminine and more masculine partner in the relationship itself reveals that subconsciously they still desire this ideal, although they try to go against the grain by attacking the nuclear family model in their rejection of it and their perversion of how they choose to alter the design. This concept of “ideal” goes much further than I realized before, and is actually an anchor and a source of stability that is being removed by the rejection of it. By replacing it with other “ideals” the government can become more of a “parent” in how it is taking over the raising of our children. It can indoctrinate them into socialization policies which fit in with their globalist agenda, and take away more of the role of what used to be under the control and leadership of the nuclear family and the church. I see this more clearly than I ever did before. I had a vague sense of it before, and thought that some might have been overreacting to the facts of this agenda being carried out. Now I know that they were not overreacting, but that I was under-reacting and not understanding the problem at all.
What did you learn in this session that you won't forget tomorrow?
I was really depressed as I was reading much of the information of the last two chapters, and I do understand that we will continue on this perilous path, and it makes me a little sick thinking about it. I learned that I need to keep my eyes wide open to see what will happen next. I honestly do not believe that I can halt the serious decline that we are in. I do believe that I have to be in prayer about it. I see the feminists and the conflict theorists mostly made up of atheists who want to get “religion” out of their face, for the most part. That would require that it be relegated solely to the area of private spirituality and which has nothing to do with education, or any other public contacts and day to day functioning within our society. It actually makes it more of a myth or private hallucination of sorts, this way, which is what atheists believe Christianity to be. A Christian's spirituality actually does involve every facet of his or her life. It is the air we breath, and everything we do or say is touched by the fact that it is based on our spirituality. Atheists want to believe that belief in a “god” is whatever a person wants it to be. A Christian is aware that God is what He is no matter what each individual privately wants to say He is or is not. God is much greater than all of the misinformation we can concoct about Him. The fact that there are those of us who strive to understand what is that which placed in us the ability to be moral, and ethical, and spiritual, and that there are those that wish to squelch any reference to the Author of our morals and ethics, tells me more about the truth of Him than anything else, in my estimation. I see the lines being drawn, and as page 343 of our textbook states that “the two contradictory social processes of secularization and revival are likely to persist for some time to come, resulting in a world that is neither more religious nor more secular, but one that is certainly more polarized.” I certainly agree with that statement, and wherever that truth takes us, I pray that I will be ready to face the consequences of that fact.
What was the most significant factor in how you learned?
This week, the fact that I saw that my position was in the small minority actually gave me a feeling of strength. It helped me to see that it is always good to state the truth, especially when in the minority. Just because the majority says something doesn't automatically make it true, and I sometimes feel intimidated to go against popular opinion. This week I grew, in that I spoke as my conscience directed me, and I felt stronger for it.
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Let us never fear being that "Lone Dissenting Voice".
