Help me understand human nature

[regexcellent]

If you want something definitively postmodern look no further than Italo Calvino.

Personally, I read If on a winter's night a traveler and hated it but ymmv.

[Elok]

Postmodern faith has far more in common with the pre-modern faith that the Orthodox indicate that they have rather than the "we can reason out ALL the answers" of Modernity.

Yes, but postmodernism, or at least the postmodernism I encountered in college, is still grossly in error. I see no reason to be a "modern" or "postmodern" Christian. The Faith of the Fathers is sufficient.

[molly bloom]

EDIT: as you can probably tell, I don't see a lot of movies. Hazard of having small kids to watch. The most recently-produced movie I watched was the second Thor movie, and I suppose that's plot centered, albeit the plot didn't always make all that much sense. There certainly was a conflict to be resolved, and a straightforward series of events leading towards the resolution. And lots of silly special effects, but that's beside the immediate point.

There are excellent films directed at both children and adults- 'The Secret Of Roan Inish', 'The Amazing Mr. Blunden' and 'The Railway Children' to name but three.

was the second Thor movie, and I suppose that's plot centered, albeit the plot didn't always make all that much sense. There certainly was a conflict to be resolved, and a straightforward series of events leading towards the resolution. And lots of silly special effects, but that's beside the immediate point.

Uh-huh. Adapted from a comic too.

[molly bloom]

Isn't the quintessential play, "Waiting for Godot?" and yes, it's a characteristic of post-modernism..

You arse. Beckett was a modernist, and a sometime amanuensis and disciple of James Joyce- that other well-known modernist. His inspiration for 'Godot' and his only film, 'Film' and many of his other dramas and novels stems from his close reading of Dante's Divina Commedia and his love of Buster Keaton and silent comedies.

'Waiting For Godot' is a classic of the 'Theatre of the Absurd'- other exponents being Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter, Jean Genet and Boris Vian.

[Elok]

There are excellent films directed at both children and adults- 'The Secret Of Roan Inish', 'The Amazing Mr. Blunden' and 'The Railway Children' to name but three.

Sorry, what are you saying about these three, that they're character-driven? Hard to tell from the quote you responded to.

Uh-huh. Adapted from a comic too.

Sorry, forgot all about that rule. But, come to think of it, isn't basically every movie produced these days based on preexisting intellectual property? If you exclude those, you've got mostly small and relatively obscure movies, not so much big Hollywood numbers. Er, how about Ruby Sparks? It's all about character interaction, but I'd certainly say there's a strong narrative arc at work. Or Crazy, Stupid Love. Was that based on another work, and/or character-driven?

[C0ckney]

Re: Family being sacred, this is an ideal presented in cinema. In actual American life, single parenthood is rapidly becoming unexceptional, if not the norm. It's the natural, largely inevitable result of sexual liberation combined with American hyper-individualism, and we don't have a strong safety net to keep the attendant risks at bay (I hear it sort of works in certain Scandinavian countries where the government intervenes more). But since nobody wants to reintroduce sexual restraint (or is capable of doing so), and collectivism is wicked and un-American, our commercial art just ignores this fact. Hence we have a TV show called Modern Family that shows three modern American families, and I'm pretty sure (don't watch it) that there are two parents in all three. One's gay and another's interracial, that's it.

this seems to be true (i admit that my own exposure to popular culture is quite limited) and it is quite interesting, especially in the context of the debate about how modern society is influenced by popular culture (really here i mean entertainment, and not culture in the broader sense) and vice versa. it is quite rare to see families in entertainment who do not conform to the 2 parent model, and yet this is very much at odds with the social realities that most of us see in our every day lives. it's an example not only of a poor reflection of the real situation, but also of popular culture having a lack of influence on real life.

i would say also that there are other factors at work causing the rise in single parenthood. i don't think 'american hyper-individualism' is very important, as we see a similar rise in most western countries. i would say that, besides the sexual revolution, it's due to, in no particular order: the increasing economic independence of women; feminism (women's rights, the rejection of patriarchal models); the decline of extended family and community structures (atomisation if you will), and; the declining influence of religion.

[Elok]

I think all the factors you mentioned, aside from women's economic independence, are very closely related--as I've said before, I think a good part of our declining influence comes from ill-judged reactions to the sexual revolution. More later hopefully, naptime for elder son.

[regexcellent]

The statistics of single-parenthood are skewed heavily by the black community where it's true of 90% of families; it's still nowhere close to the norm for other races.

[Sava]

processing...

[Sava]

The statistics of single-parenthood are skewed heavily by the black community where it's true of 90% of families; it's still nowhere close to the norm for other races.

Not true.

http://www.actrochester.org/children-youth/family-support/single-parent-families/single-parent-families-by-race-ethnicity

In 2008-12, for all racial/ethnic groups, the region had larger proportions of families headed by single parents than the state and nation. Perhaps most notable, 73% of African American families in the region were headed by a single parent, versus 65% in the state and 64% in the nation. Within the region, Rochester's rate was particularly high at 79%.

For the other racial/ethnic groups in the region, 60% of Hispanic, 31% of white and 22% of Asian families were headed by single parents. Despite the fact that state and national rates were lower for all groups, what was more notable was the disparity between the region and the City of Rochester for most groups. In the city 70% of Hispanic, 53% of white, and 22% of Asian families were headed by single parents.

The 2008-12 figures are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

It took me a while to find the right numbers. Initially, I could only find the percentage of children living in single parent households, not the percentage of families.

But regardless, you're still wrong.

[regexcellent]

I'm thinking of children born to unmarried parents, which might have a different number. I suppose a lot of children with single parents have parents that were once married but have since divorced.

Also, that states that Rochester has unusually high figures for single parenthood which doesn't surprise me.

[Sava]

I'm thinking of children born to unmarried parents, which might have a different number. I suppose a lot of children with single parents have parents that were once married but have since divorced.

Ah. Yes, there are many ways to look at this issue.

[Elok]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?pagewanted=all

Now, this is perhaps not as terrible as it initially appears, because it includes teenage births--but those have been declining lately, IIRC. Not sure what percentage of the unwed are in long-term stable relationships but not married. That would come to the same thing in everything but name, of course. Still, not good.

[C0ckney]

I think all the factors you mentioned, aside from women's economic independence, are very closely related--as I've said before, I think a good part of our declining influence comes from ill-judged reactions to the sexual revolution. More later hopefully, naptime for elder son.

they're related in that they have shaped the world we see today, but their roots, development and effects are all rather different.

could you explain a little further what you mean by ill-judged reactions to the sexual revolution (the reactions, from whom, why etc.)?

[Elok]

I mean the two ill-judged reactions I've mentioned before: our withdrawal from mainstream culture and the formation of the Religious Right. But I was not alive at the time and may well have it all wrong. Feminism certainly had and has a good deal to do with sexual liberation, and atomization/the decline of the family strikes me as a natural consequence of sexual lib. But you also mentioned community structures, didn't you? What do you mean by that, and what caused it? I'm guessing the increased mobility of modern populations did some of it.

I assumed American culture was also a factor because I've heard that some European countries, and specifically the Netherlands, don't have the same problem with single parents despite an equally libertine notion of sexuality. Because, supposedly, countries like the NL have a stronger community ethos and there's much higher pressure to marry and settle down. But I get that from anecdotes by blog commenters. Was always too lazy to check it out, but a cursory check says France, at least, has the same problem. Again, I don't know what percentage are two-parent but not married, which is an important bit of data. Looks like it might be somewhat high in the States, at least.