Family Planet
The strange Family designator is by no means confined to religious organisations. What the British call a General Practitioner is in the United States called a Family Physician. So where do singleton Americans go for their first-line medical consultations? And cannot families receive treatment from a specialist? On one level, these are silly rhetorical questions; on another, the usage is no doubt trying to tell us something useful about the American concept of family.
So too in the corporate world. A Microsoft director once proudly announced: ‘Families all over the world have tested [Vista].’ One wonders whether single people were also allowed to test it. Perhaps that is why it was so astonishingly slow; the testers were all changing diapers, cleaning spills and separating fighting children while an application was loading, and so never noticed the speed. This is a paradox, because, had our ancestors believed in Hollywood family-values orthodoxy, they would have spent quality time with their wife and kids instead of discovering fire and the wheel, much less the computer.
Writes the FCC, in the summer of 2006: ‘Millions of parents, as well as Congress, understand what CBS does not: Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ was indeed indecent.’ Oh, so the arbiters of public morality are two in number: parents, and Congress. The opinion of non-parents carry no weight. This provokes the question: Do non-parents matter even when they are also Senators and Representatives? And what is the separation of powers within this moral government; who has the veto, and can Congress impeach a sitting parent? Enquiring minds want to know.
One Response to “Family Planet”
the arbiters of public morality are two in number: parents, and Congress.
That’s the most frightening thought I’ve seen in quite a while.
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