Between the Alterations of Modernity and Family Disintegration

Dr. Michel E. Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches

The moment I received a tape of an exhibition of satanic drawings and images in the European Parliament last month, my first reaction upon viewing the tape was disgust. My reaction was that of an ordinary person who sees what disturbs sight, conscience and soul.

I gathered the curiosity and courage of the researcher and the social activist, and went back through this book of misery, two, three, four and more times, and analyzed these pictures and drawings until I ended up on the shore of sadness and pity.

I told myself what a sick soul can produce such art, allowing myself here to make normative judgments that are forbidden to us, social researchers, who are supposed to analyze phenomena with complete detachment and objectivity, and to deal with facts as if they were things, as Emile Durkheim, one of the fathers of sociology, said.

Sadness and pity invaded me because the main question that came up to my mind was, "In what family environment did these people grow up so that they have endured being prey to this terrible human, psychological, social and artistic fall?"

What kind of childhood did these people go through, and with what kind of recollection of their adolescence did they live so that they came to reach this level of self-hatred before they came to hate society, as well as before it rejected them?

This exhibition is a model, the tip of the iceberg, of the countless ills that the media and social communication frustrate us with.

Modern society, the culture of modernity, is built on freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of unleashing the imagination. Modernity is based on innovation, initiative and creativity, but is everything permissible?

Everything in excess becomes a burden to human beings!

Society is the framework within which the individual grows in the path of socialization that is nurtured in the family first, then endorsed by the school, then by the university, and the workplace. This process of social upbringing has proceeded in a “natural” manner, and has come to embrace the human race, as it were, for thousands of years. Human society produced a system of values that regulated the rhythm of man in his relations with society itself first before coming to control his actions and stances. Our social togetherness was beautiful and progressive, until growing social disruption began to spurn it with its horn thus leading it to slip into risky steps plagued with unavoidable endings.

The media surrounds us daily with news about things that we consider outrageous in our culture and civilization, and even disgusting, not only to us as Levantines and Arabs, but also to large segments of the people of advanced industrial societies fighting them.

We are witnessing new forms of intimate relationships that were not familiar, new forms of families, new choices regarding the biological identity of people, new forms of faith, worship and rituals, as well as new forms of abolitionist extremist political and ideological affiliations that drown modern man with that which he cannot bear.

What was in the past a defect or a rejected criterion, has come to be accepted today, and there are even those who defend it under the pretext of upholding individual and public freedoms!

I accept to stand up with people who have trodden wrong pathological paths because they are my brothers in humanity, and I love them and say about them what the incarnate Master said: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”. I say this in the figurative sense of course. I do not condemn them or judge them. Rather, I am ready to embrace them with all the love that the Master has taught me to show, but I will not accept the fact for them to want to impose what they themselves cherish on the rest of society, because their approaches have grown hostile, as they want to put society in a state of submission to their will, their whims, their beliefs, and their rituals.

By what right do some countries allow satanic prayers to be held in schools, where children wear clothes that portray demons and gather around a sociopath who teaches them what will inevitably lead them to destruction? I do not by saying this refer to social nihilism and refrain from getting into the metaphysical realm in my analysis and this despite my professional identity which allows me to do so.

What we are witnessing today is the disintegration of the family on the one hand as well as the complete incapacity of the media to exert any social control.

The Internet has uncovered all forms of mental disorders, stupidity and ignorance, thus allowing anyone afflicted with these scourges to express his opinion and thereby spread his hallucinations around, just like allowing any scientist who has spent his life in scientific research for the good and prosperity of humanity to express his at the same time.

This double complex, the disintegrated family and the loose media, have unparalleled synergistic strength, as one supports the other in a sustainable manner.

We grew up on certain, clear-cut family values that differ somewhat from one region to the other, as well as from generation to generation, but the radical alterations that humanity has been experiencing for the past few decades are cause for concern. I write of alterations, rather than of a reversal of social and family values. It is true that some of these misfortunes or behavioral reprimands are as old as the human race, however they were formerly considered as anomalies that prove the rule, while many of them have turned into a rule today.

I do not dare to name or mention any of them because , like what satanic images, they arouse disgust and anxiety in me, and I am sure that you have heard of them and read about them and most of them strike family values at their very core.

The family is the basic cell of society, and if it perishes, society perishes.

We in the Middle East Council of Churches, the faith, social, educational, developmental, dialogue institution, have been defending human rights since our founding, as we are on the threshold of our fiftieth jubilee. We have established an advanced program that deals with human capital, with social cohesion, and human dignity. We defend and establish awareness and advocacy programs for the rights of the family, women, children, and all the heavy-laden and tired people whom the Incarnate Master spoke of, in the various regions of the Antiochene East, as far as we can, and we will defend and embrace everyone who needs any form of psychological, social and economic support. However we are defenders of the safety and peace of society and this with all our energies and resources for upholding unity. We fight pests, and we do not fight those infected with them. With us they find a loving heart, a listening ear, and an outstretched hand.

The family is a red line, because the safety of society is a red line, and we consider whoever tries to harm this basic cell, guilty of social crime, that is, a crime against nation and society.

We are very sure that families have their problems, and the family may go through a dysfunctional crisis and turn into a destructive entity for the individual at times, but this is not a reason to abandon it or yearn for its abolition. Rather, it is necessary to establish institutions that improve its performance and fortify it against falling into increasingly multiple life pitfalls .

The preparation for marriage, which nowadays is fortunately of a religious nature, must turn into a societal preparation for marriage leading to the creation of a coherent family that contributes to the immunity of society, just as family counseling must become part of the culture of society as well as that of the state in order to prevent the disintegration of the family leading its members into social fragmentation, thereby becoming a prey of various forms of social ills and thus driving the homeland into corruption.

However, we cannot overlook the economic issue, which is to be considered as one of the most important pillars of society as well as of the family.

The economic issue enjoys the same importance as education and socialization in preserving the family, as poverty, deprivation and unemployment also constitute basic causes for its disintegration . The balance of these two dimensions is essential in preserving the cohesion and continuity of the family. The economic dimension may support a weak family situation from the relational point of view, and the relational psychological dimension may also support an economically incoherent family situation, but we must always remember that the flexibility of each of these two dimensions has limits in its role in preserving the family. Therefore, we should not, even not for a moment, disregard the role of the state in establishing social justice as well as securing the proper distribution of income and wealth.

Ignoring this matter and throwing all the load on the psychological, moral, or relational dimension exposes society and the family to most severe types of pressure that may lead to family and social disintegration. Studies in economic sociology have shown how much economic fluctuations and crises lead to the disintegration of families as well as to the collapse of social cohesion. What we are experiencing today in Lebanon, and in the rest of the afflicted regions of the Antiochene East, is the best proof for that. Our experience is unique in portraying the combination of the attack of the economic consequences of political disruption with the cultural-media negative impact that is sweeping the world. Poverty leads to cultural alienation.

I must conclude briefly by saying that the media and the economy constitute the biggest challenges to the family in my country, and that we, as the institutions of civil society or rather of civil society itself, can be “the pebble that supports the jar”, but the jar will remain in a state of fragile stability unless it is identical with the state, the Great People’s Assembly, which frames the energies of civil society.

The fortification of society, at family level as well as at other levels of the social structure, is a coherent and sustainable undertaking that requires the concerted forces of society, both official and civil. Herein lies our biggest challenge.