http://www.randomhouse.de/book/excerpt.jsp?edi=196407&frm=true
Frank Schirrmacher
Minimum – The Fading and Re-emergence
of Our Community
© 2006 by Karl Blessing Verlag, a division of
Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH, München, Germany
We have become fewer....
The demographer Nicholas Eberstadt has forecast that in Italy within the next two
generations, three-fifths of the children will have no direct relatives of their own
generation. For other European nations the situation will be similar.
“Approximately 40 percent of the children in Europe will have no relatives in the
same age group. Less than one-sixth will have the experience of a brother or
sister and a cousin at the same time. The family structure in the less developed
parts of the world will not quite have reached this state of affairs by the year
2050. But it is just a matter of time. As a consequence of this birth rate, in one or
two generations a family composed of siblings, cousins, and aunts and uncles
will be an anomaly.� And the Economist prophesises: “... Baby number seven-
and-a-half billion will most probably be an only child.� ...
What happens to a society with such a low birth rate that fewer and fewer people
are related to one another? Who will provide help for whom when there are no
more families, or, more precisely, when families have become too small to be
able to respond in emergencies? What will happen when the fundamentally
accepted state of things is reversed, with society rewarding only those who go
their own independent ways – and then wondering why no one ever returns? ...
There is a reason for the lethargic way society responds to this. We habitually
perceive the causes that set off these demographic changes the same way we
regard changing crime rate, variations in foreign trade, or a drop in the
registration of new cars – that is, economically, socially, or politically. This
particular shift is also connected with fundamental biological processes:
reproductive behaviour strongly influences not only the basic instincts of all living
beings, but also the evolution of communities, societies, and cultures. Moreover,
these processes produce effects that are by nature no longer able to be
conveyed by statistics or be used in making the usual social prognoses.
Maybe this is why the consequences of these changes are so easily
underestimated. One other reason could be that these most vital and pertinent
questions of our social life are within the domain of a very dry science: population
demographics.
Far from there being educational campaigns about this trend, the decrease in the
number of children is actually seen by some as a way to trim the budget, through
closing schools or otherwise cutting back in education. We should instead be
doubling or tripling our efforts in supporting education, for children learn through
their peers and through the family. These two human factors have more
influential than school facilities, teachers’ pay or classroom size – as proven by
the Coleman Report in America from 1966. When children are diminished in
numbers, when there are fewer age-mates, and when families become a rarity, it
is the only child who must learn and think for a half-missing generation.
This foreboding population development will alter not only the generational life of
the family. It will also confront a generation with the dissolution of that
arrangement in which the state has been taking on not only the roles but also the
behavioural patterns of the family to the point of altruistic self-sacrifice. It will
suddenly dawn on the 40- to 60-year-olds today that they have waited too long to
make material and familial provisions for themselves. And there will come
generations that will be overburdened when the state suddenly re-delegates to
them the entrusted duties associated with the role of the family unit.
Quite different from how it was for us, when socialisation came about with very
little effort at all, it will no longer be an easy or simple thing for these children to
become socialised. They will probably have a very difficult time feeling
responsible for their fellow humans, and they will discover that social conscience,
altruism, and even love are rare and costly resources, ones no longer abundant
and readily available – not for the world, not even for one’s own society: at the
most, only for those who belong to the immediate circle of friends or relations. ...
And so we come to the core of the problem: the number of relatives is shrinking,
and along with it the interpersonal networks. Single people will receive help less
and less and so will be increasingly forced to rely solely on themselves. Yet it is
these very networks that people need for their own survival, just as much today
as a hundred years ago in the snow-blocked Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada
mountains. The more developed these networks are, the longer people will
survive. This is true for modern society to such an extent and effectiveness that,
if it were pharmaceutically measurable, families and close friendships would be
wonder drugs. Large families reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease; people
whose social networks are alive and evolved have lower pressure and an
increased chance of overcoming cancer. Such medical effects are causally
related to familial love and attention. In a study of cardiovascular health of ten
thousand public employees in Israel, the mathematically unquantifiable love of a
wife and family members has been shown to aid in faster recovery from heart
attacks. When this affection is lacking the risk of a recurrence increases
dramatically. ...
The task of many families in the future – and soon of society itself – will be to
newly define the parameters of biological family relations, step relations, and
friendships. Marriage, divorce, living together, remarriage, children from first,
second, and third relationships, with their various legal statuses – all these have
created an enormously multifaceted, unmanageable, and diffuse array of half-
and step-relations.
“The consequences that these new familial relationship structures will have on
human behaviour have to a large extent yet to be studied,� according to an
official publication of the National Research Council of the United States. “And
neither is it known what this means for life in a common household or other
structures of shared living, or for the distribution of resources. We desperately
need to develop methods for measuring these new forms of relationships and for
estimating what effects these have on human behaviour.�
Indeed we can already see a difference between blood relatives on the one hand
and friendships and half-blood relations on the other. Friendships must ultimately
demonstrate a balance of give-and-take, something evolutionary psychology
calls “reciprocal co-operation� . Relationships between people biologically related,
in contrast, are able to operate with an imbalance of reciprocation. Though there
might be an ongoing struggle between relatives concerning such one-sidedness,
studies have shown that such imbalances are tolerated through a lifetime only by
close blood relatives. ...
Brain researchers believe that the talent of women for making even strangers
part of the family is related to the social mobility of women, a mobility they have
been subjected to for ages. In practically all cultures, daughters move in with the
families of their future husbands, whereas sons most often remain their whole
lives within the circle of biological relatives. According to Simon Baron-Cohen,
professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Trinity College of the University of
Cambridge, “Men possibly were not compelled to the same extent as women to
train their empathic abilities, because they didn’t need to invest nearly as much
effort in the procurement and maintenance of relationships. Good relationships to
non-relatives require greater sensibility concerning reciprocation and propriety,
since such relationships are not taken for granted.� ...
“At some period on the way to becoming human,� according to Eckhart Voland,
“something occurred that has anthropologists perplexed: a significantly increased
lifespan and its consequence of placing the role of the helping grandmother in
centre stage.� Grandmothers, so it seems, are by their very nature “altruistically�
constructed (which doesn’t necessarily mean they are altruistic as individuals).
They help the daughters in raising the children; by so doing increase their own
chances for survival. Studies in Africa and India reveal that the presence of
grandmothers, or of older women, can decisively influence the health, size and
intelligence of the grandchildren. ...
In the process of becoming reorganised, our shrinking society, whether it likes it
or not, will increasingly need to make use of these advantageous qualities of
women, not only in social networking and the media (where this process had its
origins) but also at the very centre of our institutions. Women will be desperately
sought out as qualified workers; they will be needed existentially as mothers and
later as grandmothers. Thanks to their social competence they will fill a large gap
in a world in which families are at a premium.
This process of reorganisation has been taking place for a long time. It is being
accelerated now by the decreasing birth rate, which is exerting a strong influence
simultaneously on the biological, social, and cultural systems of our society. This
situation could become so taken for granted that the contemporary ironic and
incognizant discourse on generational issues will soon become as senseless as
the feudal nostalgia of the refugee Russian nobility following the October
Revolution. ...
This birth-rate curve has clearly been falling continuously for thirty years. If within
a decade the desire for children by those under thirty sinks 15 percent among
men and five percent among women, the “moral economy� , the social resources
of altruism, will likewise decline. This may sound moralistic, but it is simply a
matter of translating this into numbers and reciprocal formulas. Those who will
suffer most from this regression are the people who, in the dependency of
advanced age, must rely on social services, but will be unable even to buy the
care and attention they truly need.
UNVERKÄUFLICHE LESEPROBE
Frank Schirrmacher
Minimum
Vom Vergehen und Neuentstehen unserer Gemeinschaft
Gebundenes Buch, 192 Seiten, 13,5 x 21,5 cm
ISBN: 978-3-89667-291-9
Blessing
Erscheinungstermin: März 2006
Warum man Freunde gewinnen muss – und was es kostet
Unsere sozialen Beziehungen werden in den nächsten Jahrzehnten einer großen
Belastung ausgesetzt: Sie werden knapp werden wie ein kostbarer Rohstoff. Schon heute
bewegen sie sich in Teilen des Landes auf ein historisch nie gekanntes Minimum zu. Als
Ergebnis der unumstößlichen Schrumpfung unserer Gesellschaft und aufgrund vielfältiger
Globalisierungseffekte wird es eine Reduzierung unserer kleinsten Welt, der unserer Freunde
und Familien geben. Diese Revolution wird sich in allen Lebensbereichen Geltung verschaffen:
in der Politik wie in der Kultur, in der Wissenschaft wie im Alltag.
Wer ist da, wenn niemand mehr da ist? Jeder hat gelernt, dass er für die Zukunft vorsorgen
muss. Wir sollen sparen, Geld und Vorräte anlegen. Aber kann man eigentlich Kinder sparen,
die man nie geboren hat? Zu den knappen Rohstoffen der Zukunft wird etwas gehören, das
man nicht sparen kann: Verwandte, Freunde, Beziehungen, kurzum das, was man soziales
Kapital nennt. In den kommenden Jahren wird sich unsere Lebensweise radikal verändern. In
vielen Ländern Europas wird eine wachsende Zahl von Kindern in ihrer eigenen Generation
wenige oder gar keine Blutsverwandte mehr haben. Künftig sehen sich ganze Landstriche, wie
heute schon Teile Ostdeutschlands, mit einer Wanderungsbewegung junger Frauen konfrontiert;
zurück bleiben Männer, deren Chancen, eine Partnerin zu finden, immer geringer werden.
Frank Schirrmacher zeigt, dass unsere Gesellschaften auf diese Entwertung ihres sozialen
Kapitals nicht vorbereitet sind: Der Wohlfahrtsstaat zieht sich in einem Moment als großer
Ernährer zurück, in dem sich das private Versorgungsnetz aus Freundschaft, Verwandtschaft
und Familie auflöst. Kann es in diesem Umfeld Uneigennützigkeit und Altruismus, selbstlose
Hilfe und Unterstützung für den anderen überhaupt noch geben?
Der Zusammenbruch unserer sozialen Grundfesten zwingt uns, unser alltägliches
Zusammenleben von Grund auf umzuorganisieren. Dabei werden Frauen eine alles
entscheidende Rolle spielen.
"Wenn du einen Jungen erziehst, erziehst du eine Person, wenn du ein Mädchen erziehst,
erziehst du eine Familie und eine ganze Gemeinschaft - ja, eine Nation."
(JAMES D. WOLFENSOHN, EHEMALIGER WELTBANKPRÄSIDENT)
UNVERKÄUFLICHE LESEPROBE
