I am begining to wonder if the concept family is past its use by date.
The Families commission has just released a report showing just how horrible and dangerous family life is. Especially for women, one in three will be assaulted by her "partner" But men don't escaped unscathed either, one in five will be assaulted by his "partner".
We don't need families to perpetuate the species any more.
With modern science we could set up a Ministry of Reproduction. This ministry would collect genetic profiles of all New Zealanders and determine the optimum genetic make up of the next generation. The Ministry boffins could match a particular female to a particular male, they wouldn't have to meet. A letter would be sent to the male first telling him to report to the closest Ministry clinic for sperm collection, likewise for the woman who would report to her local clinic for egg donation.
After fertilization in a petrie dish, the egg would be implanted in one of the Ministry of Reproductions low level employees, the Birth-Mother.
A Birth-Mothers job description would be the gestation and care of infants up to one year of age.
When the infant becomes a year old the Birth-Mother would hand it over to a Ministry of Child Development home where it would be raised in an environment where it could be steeped in the values of the Modern Liberal State and groomed for whatever function the State determined most appropriate for this particular child at the time they had ordered its conception1.
The cycle could then begin anew for the Birth-Mother.
All this is feasible with modern reproductive technology and family violence would be a thing of the past.
Why are we waiting?
(1) Discipline in these homes would be firm, loving and appropriate - not a smack in sight.
The Families commission has just released a report showing just how horrible and dangerous family life is. Especially for women, one in three will be assaulted by her "partner" But men don't escaped unscathed either, one in five will be assaulted by his "partner".
We don't need families to perpetuate the species any more.
With modern science we could set up a Ministry of Reproduction. This ministry would collect genetic profiles of all New Zealanders and determine the optimum genetic make up of the next generation. The Ministry boffins could match a particular female to a particular male, they wouldn't have to meet. A letter would be sent to the male first telling him to report to the closest Ministry clinic for sperm collection, likewise for the woman who would report to her local clinic for egg donation.
After fertilization in a petrie dish, the egg would be implanted in one of the Ministry of Reproductions low level employees, the Birth-Mother.
A Birth-Mothers job description would be the gestation and care of infants up to one year of age.
When the infant becomes a year old the Birth-Mother would hand it over to a Ministry of Child Development home where it would be raised in an environment where it could be steeped in the values of the Modern Liberal State and groomed for whatever function the State determined most appropriate for this particular child at the time they had ordered its conception1.
The cycle could then begin anew for the Birth-Mother.
All this is feasible with modern reproductive technology and family violence would be a thing of the past.
Why are we waiting?
(1) Discipline in these homes would be firm, loving and appropriate - not a smack in sight.
Actually, they would try to set that up, waste billions of dollars and fail.
ReplyDeleteSo they would subcontract child raising to external providers, adding another layer of managers to manage the contracts between the Ministry and external providers.
When a particular external provider was found to be failing to abide by the "general principles of agreement" the Ministry would fire said contractor and move the asset to another contractor, following a long and expensive tender process.
When the system was faced with endemic failure, they would announce a new programme of restructure and start it all over again. Taxes would increase to ensure the funds for restructure could be effected to bring about the required cost savings.
Of course no family is perfect, so if the Families Commission want to put some effort into identifying what is wrong then they are probably just doing their job. Hopefully some suggestions to help fix some of these problems are provided in due course.
ReplyDeleteThey could also try defining what is right. That would make a change. It might also provide different food for thought. We only tend to gather statistics on bad things. This is why we will never get statistics on how many good families also might smack their children.
ReplyDeleteThe referendum told us, but some-one will flippantly suggest that "bad families" are on the rise, and it's all in the NO vote.
All they are defining is justification for how much money they need to start advertising campaigns, which will do little.
The other tendency for such programs is to work out ways to make it easier for families to separate, rather than provide programmes designed to keep them together.
I'm sure they are pushing to the THX-1138 plan...
ReplyDelete