The "Family Man" (or "Community Man") Versus "The Christian Man"

-- By RobLaser - 17 Feb 2010

[Disclaimer--I am speaking from my personal experience as a man growing up in the South (which is why I left the gendered language), however, I feel the discussion is equally relevant to all genders and regions.]

Introduction of the Christian Man and Family Man

What I was Taught

Where I come from men are trained to be two types of individuals that are considered the same, the "Christian Man," and the "Family Man." However, these two conceptions are in direct opposition to each other. We are told the Christian Man loves all people as God does, equally. The disciples left families and communities to travel the Middle East to educate the masses about God. This sets the paradigm of the Christian Man. The Christian Man should attempt to act in the interests of each member of humanity equally, whether his mother or a child in a Chinese province they have never seen or know the name of.

The Two are Actually in Conflict

Even though we were told both are the same, the Family Man is distinct from the Christian Man. The Family Man can still care about the interests of each member of humanity, but gives higher value to the interests of his family. I use the term "family" here very broadly. For the purposes of this discussion "family" means the people that a person chooses to deeply care about and build their community around. We are social beings and build communities with others that are much smaller than the community of humanity as a whole.

Embracing the Family Man

The Family Man should be embraced rather than the Christian Man for two reasons. First, the Christian Man is a myth. Second, even if we allow the hypothetical Christian Man, the Family Man is more useful to dynamically make change for the better.

Christian Man is Mythical

Due to the inevitably of assigning higher value to the community you choose to identify with, the Christian Man does not exist. As social beings who create communities smaller than humanity as a whole, we inevitably establish emotional connections with and learn to rely upon those within our communities. These ties naturally cause us to assign higher value to the people within our communities than to those outside of them. This is why Arnold talks about the dichotomies that are used to create animosity against groups in the first part of the Folklore of Capitalism. In order for us to claim that we should care about our interests more than the interests of the Afghanis or Iraqis is because the they belong to another community (the community of "Freedom" versus the community of "oppression"). The same with the "Communist" community versus the "Capitalist" community. Growing up in the South, this was how overt racism was justified, by the claiming a "Black" community that was distinct from the "White" community. This was used to assert that all the white people should not care as much about what happens to non-whites because they are not part of the community. I was told by many racists that the "Blacks" only care about the "Blacks" so why should white people care about them.

Even if He Did Exist, Not More Effective

Nor does the Christian Man (accepting for arguments sake that he exists) create any more change than the Family Man. In fact, he is spread too thin to have significant impact on any specific community. There is too much injustice in the world and the life of a human being is too short to make significant change for all who suffer from it. Instead, in order to make as much significant change as possible in our life, we should focus on the community/communities that we choose, rather than trying to help every single person in the world equally.

What it Means

No Objectively Right or More Moral Community to Choose to Make Change In

So far this all should seem painfully obvious (but few I know, particularly in the South admit as much), but where it becomes most controversial is what it means for many of us. Many of us will choose not to care as much about the impoverished, or the children in Darfur being drafted as child soldiers. Many Family Men will choose to care about (aka build their communities around) their families and close friends above all others, even though the injustices that are suffered by them are likely considered by most less egregious than those suffered by others in the world. Working for human rights China is not a bad thing, if that is the community you choose, then that is where your work should be.

Choosing to Focus on a Community Does Not Preclude Caring About Many Causes

Also, you can still support all sorts of causes against injustice. For any cause you can be a Thoreau, or at the very least, one of the one or two people per town. You can speak out against the atrocities of the world or provide financially to the efforts to end them. However, you can only be a John Brown for one community, because to be a John brown you have to give yourself entirely. For John Brown, his community was the enslaved. The reason Thoreau did not do the same as John Brown was not because he was less of a man, but because he had chosen a different community.

Choosing Your Communities

The John Brown Method

I can identify situations where I would kill or be killed. Those situations mostly involve my family, but my community can expand. When you identify what situations you would be willing to kill or be killed for, you have identified your community. None is objectively more valuable than another.

Arbitrariness is not Effective Counter-Argument

Many would say your family is arbitrary by birth. Yet, it is arbitrariness of birth that causes someone to suffer without human rights in China. The interests of one community should not be higher valued than another by basis of this birth. The lawyer who had chosen the community of Austin could have saved Stack. Should the pain of Joe Stack and be ignored because they were born in the US with at least some civil rights? Lawyers are needed everywhere, because there is injustice everywhere. Where you choose to make your stand depends on the community you choose.

Takeaway

The takeaway of this discussion is that we should stop thinking the right thing to do is find the cause in the world that is the most objectively unjust and do our best to fix it. Instead, we should identify our communities and do our best to prevent injustice in them.

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