Relationships
Archived article from Dec 10, 1999
During the past year, Focus asked experts in areas ranging from education to the environment, from the arts to technology, to predict trends for the next century. This article, which looks at relationships among the races, between the sexes and across generations, is the last in the series.
Interviews by Media Relations staff
Race relations
David Dante Troutt, associate professor of law, Newark
How do we view our society in the next millennium? It will be about relationships: who we regard as being kindred and how much our information society empowers us to think differently and more deeply about those of us on the margins. It will be about thinking of people as related in some important fashion.
Can we see an improvement, say, in black-white race relations? Taking a long-view comparison over the last century, we look pretty good now in race relations. But there are some unfavorable signs. For instance, the races are not schooling together as much as we thought and not experiencing family hardships, milestones and family rituals together. In that sense, they are not developing the complicated, deeply human dialogue that builds lasting bonds that ultimately change how we think of racial difference. But, on the other hand, there is some cultural transmission and there is also a lot of curiosity about other cultures on the part of young people.
The idea of parallel universes is still quite real
in many aspects of American life, and we have to be guarded in our judgments about race
relations. So much over the past 15 years appears to be in flux. There's a balancing act occurring on the fault lines of race in so many areas.
War between the sexes
Lionel Tiger, Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology
Were present trends to continue with even mild consistency, a worst-case scenario could look something like this: More and more children will be born out of wedlock as women choose to lead lives without men. Many more women will simply assume that they will live their lives unmarried with their children, with other women or by themselves. Males, as we have seen and will continue to see, may stop contributing to the labor force, work fewer hours, retire earlier and earlier, and occupy their time with sports and pornography.
So society will be very different as children grow up without fathers around. Young people might come to realize that sexuality is very demanding and can lead to a whole series of commitments that they are not ready to accept or understand, like spending a lifetime raising children. This could lead to a serious decline in long-term intimacy and long-term commitment, resulting in a very wealthy population with few children: a kind of Zurich in sub-urban ranch houses.
In general, people will look elsewhere than to friends and family for relationships. They will continue creating vivid emotional experiences out of public experiences such as television, movies and the Internet. People will live more of their emotional lives in symbolic terms, with celebrities, for example, becoming surrogate family members.
The future of marriage
David Popenoe, professor of sociology and co-director, National Marriage Project
It is not possible accurately to predict the future. But it is possible to develop a picture of what will happen in the future if existing trends continue. If we do this with marriage trends in modern societies, here is the picture.
The institution of marriage will continue to weaken for a whole host of reasons, particularly its gradual dissociation from sex and reproduction. Assuming that women continue to have children, and that society remains convinced that fathers have importance to children (two assumptions that are themselves in serious question), marriage eventually will be replaced by, at best, a "parenting contract."
The typical life course of young adults will involve nonmarital sexual coupling with a variety of partners until such time as a child ensues. At that point couples would make a contract to be co-parents to the child, whether or not they chose to live together (in most cases not). As a prominent intellectual has recently stated, "We might formalize … and maybe make some beautiful ceremonies around the co-parenting contract."
continued...
Page 1 of 2
Next >
|
