Their viability is based on this dynamics.
The struggle between the value of life in the civilization of
literacy and that of illiteracy can be seen in hospitals and
nursing homes where the aged are treated on machine-based
analogies, abandoned or entrusted to specialists in the care of
the dying. While aging and death cannot be eliminated, the
market provides ways to avoid them as long as we can afford to.
It used to be that the new generation continued the family
work-farming, carpentry, pottery, law, business, banking,
publishing. This happened in a context of continuity and
relative permanence: the work or business remained relatively
unchanged. Literacy was appropriate for the transfer of know-how,
as it was for the maintenance of family-based values and
successive assumption of responsibilities regarding the family,
moreover the community. These pragmatic elements no longer
exist the way they did.
Today, even within the same generation, the nature of business
evolves, and so does the nature of the values around which
family is established. In addition, ownership changes as well;
businesses are more and more integrated in the market; they
become public entities; their shares are traded with no regard
to the object those shares represent. The consequence is what we
perceive as lack of family continuity and bonding. The new
nature of the family contract is such that its basis of affection
is eroded.
Pages:
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573