The War on Marriage and Family is Nothing New

Commie pus-bubbles have been at it a long, long time

Solomon said “There is nothing new under the sun.” We find that more true every day. Each time you think, “This has never happened before in history . . . .” Well, think again.

Recently I had a discussion with yet another conservative who thinks that “this time it’s different.” At least in the Civil War, he said, the two sides prayed to the same God. Well, maybe, but vastly different views of the same God. Then there’s the modern transoid/homosexual movement that threatens to destroy natural order and marriage. Unique, right?

Tell that to Robert Owen. Son of a Welsh textile manufacturer—-and, as with most elite clodknockers, rich—-Robert Owen (1771-1858) was an early “utopian.” At his mill at New Lanark, England, Owen tried to create an early utopian community for employees. It didn’t take. Levels of drunkenness, theft, and other vices did not diminish, while sanitation and other living conditions were neglected. And, like all utopians, Owen concluded that his progressive ideas were not to blame. Nooooo. It was the location. If only he could get a better location, all his great utopian ideas would work just fin.

In 1817 he embraced a version of socialism, though most think that the first actual use of the term didn’t come til the 1820s when it was Owen who coined it. He argued for a “new view of society,” in which things would be shared communally, but (of course) always overseen by an elite with proper education and outlook. Naturally, he had himself in mind.

He persuaded President John Quincy Adams to give him a grant of land at New Harmony, Indiana, for another go at a socialist utopia. Upon arriving he declared his war on the “Three-headed hydra: God, marriage, property.” One student of the Owenite movement wrote that “The attack on the family . . . could not be shirked [because] it was central to the whole communitarian position.” So-called “Free Love” was essential to destroy the family, and destruction of the family essential to remove all distinctions among individuals. You see, if people inherit family genes, then that ain’t fair. Some will get better genes than others—-you know, the whole Charles Murray thing.

One can argue if the IQ-related inheritance is genuine or not, but one cannot deny that every single one of the utopians, save slave-praiser-in-chief George Fitzhugh—-favored destruction of the family because they believed that genetic, especially IQ inheritance, was real. There could be no true “equality” as long as some people got better genes than others.

To Owen, as well as to Marx and all his minions, marriage was just one more “bourgesoise” chain holding man down from unfettered liberty to be part of the hive. I know, it doesn’ t make sense. Marx and his ilk seldom do. But once man and woman were liberated from their “roles” as men and women, they could be . . . whoever they wanted. And while the medical technology wasn’t available to give them the superficial appearance of the other sex as they are today, well, at least it was a good start from Owen’s point of view.

Of course, in the end, New Harmony (like every socialist utopia ever created) consumed vastly more than it produced; kids ran wild with no parental super vision (because if the kid doesn’t belong to you, why would you take the time to discipline him or her?); and the whole colony collapsed in about five years. Historians (particularly Arthur Bestor, in his Backwoods Utopians) estimate that the colony ate up tens of millions of dollars before collapsing.

In addition to proving, yet again, that socialism creates nothing but consumes everything (the ultimate “consumer culture”), Owen’s efforts laid out a game plan for modern Progressives to attack marriage and the family. Or, as Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Special credit to my Arizona State University Master’s Adviser, the late Prof. Robert Loewenberg, for his great insights on these piddledumpers.

Larry Schweikart

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