Just finished reading, so you don't have to. ๐งต
It's a short book, but dense with latinate leftist jargon. You can skim this wall-of-text to get a flavor - the whole book is like this. Great efforts to situate herself in the great circle jerk of academic prog onanists 2/
First, she establishes that the family is bad. You may love your family, but that's a false consciousness. 3/
She admits that her own family-of-origin was bad. And those she interacts with. Happy families are rare, and are not the ideal, but like the freak desert plant that barely holds out despite the bleak conditions. 4/
She then goes on a side quest/apologia to make sure we understand that, that POC family dysfunction is _simultaneously_ the fault of the white/capitalist/colonialists and a brave FU to the oppressive system. Nonetheless, brown families have to go as well. 5/
A whole chapter follows with a history of family abolition, starting with Socrates. But she doesn't have much time for the ancients. She spends the bulk of this chapter on cranks like Fourier. 6/
My favorite in this parade of degenerates is the "messianic feminist" Shulasmith Firestone, early proponent of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. 7/
LOL. 8/
You'll never guess how her story ended. 9/
The chapter includes a history of LGBT efforts at family abolishment. Turns out gay men are eager to take over child-rearing responsibilities. Whodathunk? 10/
But all previous efforts to abolish the family have failed. So what to do? The last chapter is supposed to answer that, but doesn't. Lots of sterile talk about terminology. 11/
The real reason I read this book is to understand what she saw as replacing the family. But this is literally the last line in the book: 12/
So nothing. But I want to point out a subtext running through the book. And that is Care. Capital C care. Care is referenced 68 times in this short book. 13/
We must understand there is a critical shortage of care. She brings that up a half dozen times.
It's because care has been "privatized". 14/
It's because care has been "privatized". 14/
At the same time, delivery of care is a huge burden. Women are literally chained to a duty-of-care, and it's killing them.
But when she confronts this contradiction, this is what we get. It's a bad question. Don't ask. 14/
But when she confronts this contradiction, this is what we get. It's a bad question. Don't ask. 14/
How the de-privatization of care is going to expand the supply of it is just another one of those leftists squared circles we must contemplate. fin/
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