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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Customer Comments
rcronk has commented on (2) products
Family and Civilization
by
Carle C. Zimmerman
rcronk
, April 09, 2008
Post script to earlier comments: I failed to note that this is an "abridged" edition. In fact over 500 pages and half of whole chapters were omitted. The 'editing' obscures Zimmerman's observations and leaves out what may be problematical from the ideological framework of the editors. Get qa copy of the real book. This ain't it.
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Family and Civilization
by
Carle C. Zimmerman
rcronk
, January 01, 2008
I have seached for 20 years since I let out my copy of this book; the one given to me by Professor Zimmerman, "Family and Civilization". Having reviewed the new edition I am caught in mixed reaction. The work of the historical-empirical tradition is brilliant and devastingly unforgiving. It is pure science and sociology. It grounds this study in notions of "sacred" and "profane" from Durkhiem, the institutional notions of Parsons, and the dynamic methods of Sorokin. His concern is for the future of civilization, not just for 'the family', and this motivates his thinking. My reading of the historical connection that he follows across the centuries can be found in the institutions of the family, religion and the state. These complex relationships and trends in historical development revealed a vision that deeply distrubed the Professor. His overarching conclusion is that the institutions of the church and of the state have been in conflict and competition over which will 'determine' the fate of the family. The family, as an institution in it's own right, has lost it's powers, it's functions and it's structures to the new 'civic' institutions of Greece and the 'religious' institutions of Imperial Rome. The family institution retained economic power and social responcibility which has now been taken by the market and economic institutitons. Today the family retains the responsibilities with little power. The family is now a servant of the real institutions providing: Tax payers and soldiers to the state and civic institutions, tithes and personnel to the religious institituions and consumers and workers to the economy. The bonds between family and the key social institutions have been severely bent, if not broken. All this in 1947 forecast the 'postmodern' individual and world, and he blinked. Professor Zimmerman experienced these as my grandparents would have in the late 1940's. I was born in the year this volume was first published. I see the world of the family much as Professor Zimmerman did, but with a very different affective response. He was the very best of the 'old school'. No student of the family, especially the sociologists out there, can pretend to academic competency without knowing this book and it's contents. Even a deconstructive reading of this amazing assembly of data can only be instructive. Sociologists have clung to St. Merton's ideas of 'mid-range theory' as their theoretical salvation. Well they should. A survey of family study journals and research on the family finds paltry and obscure descriptions of theoretical models and vague nominalistic ideas about what a family even is. Zimmerman provides one of the more recent, 60 years not withstanding, comprehenisve theoretical discourses on the family as a sociological concept and it's manifestation in the Parsonian 'institutition'. His use of Sorokin's methodolgy for apprehending social dynamics across cultural and social systems is well conceived and deployed. Professor Zimmerman and this book served as a foundation for 30 years of family study and work for me. I am somewhere between amused and bemused on one hand, and appalled on another. Professor Zimmerman is getting a lot of attenion for this new addition and I find most of it on very 'conservative' and/or Christian web sites. The articles appended to this volume sound NOTHING like Carle Zimmerman. His views on religion as an 'institution' that has, and may, play a significant role, is to my knowledge, not based on a particular faith or religion. I spent many hours with the Professor and his interest in faith was 'sociological' and Durkhiemian. The blatant hairshirt and prayer attached by Kurth at the end is an ill-fitting postscript and an insulting mis-reading of Zimmerman's work. He would be embarrassed, I am certain. Angry? Perhaps. Using the dynamic methodology of Sorokin, Zimmerman would point out that the 'cultural values' of a society move in all it's elements and can be observed across institutions. A Christian reading is of no more value than a Shinto reading. The values objected to in the conservative web sites that harm the institution of the family are the same values they support in the economic sphere and civic institutions. It is this kind of 'culture splitting' that Zimmerman fears most. The value of religion is to provide institutional mediation for the application of values and the consistency of values across institutions. Here the conservatives are usurping the 'religious' institutions and affectations for their 'political' purposes and the needs of the political institutions. They continue to play the family card in the institutional antagonism and competition between the church and the state and the market. The 'family card' is really just the football; a means to an end. So is Zimmerman in this sad case. Professor Zimmerman would take them to school and see if they 'really' read his book or are willing to accept interrpretations by evangelical politicians. I see rank attempts at hijacking Zimmerman's work. Nowhere in any of his writing did Zimmerman ever suggest the 'cure' was 'prayer' or 'faith'. That is a gross and self-serving misinterpretation by current editors and under assistant west coast promo men. I hope serious readers will free Professor Zimmerman of this belated interpretation, long after he could correct this hijacking. As a student, collegue and friend of Professor Carle Zimmerman I urge a professional reading of long neglected and easily (apparently) misunderstood empirically grounded theory of the 'family' in 'civilization'. A full theory or complete theory, not some muddled 'middle theory' that is really only a verbal description of the research model used to avoid the fact that a study really has no theoretical basis. As a theory it calls for challenge and research and growth. It is the product of sociological thinking in it's finest sense and should not be reified into a 'belief system' or seen as any reason whatever to return to 1947. In 2008 we have learned to read deconstructively. Many of the traits that Zimmerman saw coming into focus have emerged into everyday life. Institutional powers have followed the trail Zimmerman predicted. For many it is not the end of the world. The postmodern individual, whatever their ailments, does not dispair with our editors. These are the happy nihilists. Zimmerman's prophetic eye's were keen but unable to provide what that would 'mean' 60 years later. In short, the most respectful scholarship, a full theory that is grounded empirically and excellent for a deconstructive reading. Zimmerman shared more than he knew he was sharing at the time. That 'more' is not some right-wing Christian political justification. It remains for me to find out how the rights to such outstanding scholarship can fall into their hands. Do not be mislead. Read this book and you will learn more about the familiy institution than any single volume I can name.
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