"The good man is the builder, if he build what is good.
I will show you the things that are now being done,
And some of the things that were long ago done,
That you may take heart. Make perfect your will.
Let me show you the work of the humble. Listen. "
T.S. ELLIOT "Chorus from the Rock"
Virtue is declining as steeply as the worldwide workforce. If you know about one, then think about the other.
The moral tether of society labored for by men like William Wilberforce is snapped and the dogs are gnawing at the knees of little old ladies. There is hardly a better man to reference in our current age, one that fought ferociously for the freedom of all men. He spent his life on it - spent in the way they tell you not to spend, pouring all his eggs in one basket. But his solution was not merely legal or state driven. He looked to work in the hearts of men where true freedom was needed. He reformed manners.
If this were a women’s lit novel, this is where the chapter break time change would be because here we sit. Pandemic and social reform have withered our workforce as some retire early, others leave for home work, and the young lose sight of their place in society, refusing to enter entirely. And all of us - young and old a like - are not having kids to the loss of two billion fewer people in the next generation.
Conservatives are debating the merits of Boniface and Benedict asking whether we should chop down the proverbial oak trees or retire to establish our civilizations anew like the book people of Fahrenheit 451. Where do we put our work?
The Benedict model of cathedrals and monasteries is attractive and, to add to it, is needed to grow children and preserve . However, we are not limited like our forefathers were, preserving a handful of precious works, meticulously copying texts. We have our own limits, but at its core every household can do that kind of conservation.
The takeaway:
Things are going to die because of neglect.
We get to chose what those are.
The home preindustrially was the nexus of life and work, community and culture. It had heft and force in the shape and shift of the world.
We must look again towards the household as a place of work, a place that can contain worlds. In bringing work home, we centralize ourselves around the family, and the family will be critical going forward. We need kids and the kids will need both range and versatility.
Beyond my half cocked ideas of home hospitals*, I do think we should take a hard look at our homes and how we can create antifragile units that serve our community.
If we bring work home, we cull the labor needed to preserve and care for external spaces. This will mean work itself changes to fit the home's rhythms, but as the Lockdown Year showed - people adapt. Schools should move home or be interconnected with a church, intertwining children with the real world instead of maintaining a careful buffer closeted with peers. These children need skills, the kind you grow up with that give a respect for the last generation of craftsman and an understanding of a solid day's work. They need to function in society and not fear it.
Whatever the particular interests, hobbies, and adventures of the family involved, as women we need to get our heads around the immense task of managing it. Looking at a trajectory with wisdom isn't the same as saying panic because this is definitely going to fall out this way, but thinking about how we can be more effective in our work is useful.
So, where do we put our work? As women, where it always should have been - in our home. And in influencing our home, we influence the world.
Bibliography:
The Benedict Option
The Rule of Saint Benedict
The Household and the War for the Cosmos by CR Wiley
Range by David Epstein
Grit by Angela
Anti-fragile by Nasim Taleeb
Demographic Drought by EMSI
Amazing Grace by Eric Metaxas
Chorus from the Rock by TS Elliot
*This was the original thought of surgeons before the discovery of antiseptic, so it is not too crazy. For details read the Butchering Art
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