Jeremy, first off, I don't think you followed what I was getting at with
Foucault. Here's an example. If we look at at medical instutions and the
practice of medicine from the 1950s to now in the United States, we can see some
distinct differences in the way in which doctors practice medicine (no more
house calls . . .), hospitals allow visitors (the clinical, sanitary, and
isolated patient versus the patient surounded by any available support group) .
. .  . There's nothing universal about these practices though there is something
universally human in the fact that  people get sick or get injured or get
otherwise and they either get healed--on their own accord or with help--or they
die. However, what counts as a sickness (alcoholism is now a sickness though it
was not always so understood) or an injury depends on the institution that
defines medicine, and the treatment given depends on the practices of that
institution. The change in birthing practices is a case in point--the midwife
versus the doctor, the culturally sanctioned trip to the hospital as opposed to
home birth, . . .  .

Foucault says the same for money, for sexuality,  . . .   . There's no
bambification here.

Jeremy says, 'Erotic love is a universal phenomenon because it is a biological
phenomenon.
It evolved because it is required for (or at least greatly assists in) the
raising of human children, who are helpless as infants, moronic as teenagers,
and self-destructive in between...
. . .
I don't think the man-woman attachment of the traditional family is a mere
accident of recent times, or shaped by the historical vagaries of "society". I
think we are rigidly programmed to make the mother and the father the nucleus of
any sort of family.'

Jeremy, I think that if you re-thought this statement you would realize how not
true it is: 'Erotic love is a universal phenomenon because it is a biological
phenomenon.' What's erotic has very little to do with what's biological.
Consider the plight of shepherds who have fallen for their sheep or sculptors
who have fallen for their statues .
 .  .   .

The critical positioning of your argument is the tie you make between a
biological drive and the raising of children. These two items have no necessary
association either historically, culturally, politically, . . .  . In fact, you
could easily analyze the political ideology of _Shane_ on just this basis.

As to your erotic-biological model, you pursue some interesting lines here, but
what happens when, as in Plato's works, biological parents do not raise their
own children; rather the state removes children from their biological parents so
that they can  be raised by surrogate parents in surrogate families? For Plato,
the state recognizes erotic love and the biological mechanism required to create
children, but the creation of families is not dependent on either erotic love or
any biological mechanism.  What about the family--or lack of it--that
Jean-Jacques Rousseau discusses in his _Confessions_, that Huxley depicts in
_Brave New World_, that Stanley  Kubrick depicts in his make of Anthony
Burgess's _A Clockwork Orange_, . . .  ?

As to families, by going to a universal family you have completely
de-historicized the argument. How do Native American Indians think of their
families? How do street gangs think of their families? How do Japanese Buddhists
think of their families? How do . . . ?

What makes you think that a father-mother-son family constitutes a universal
family? You have created "universal" at the expense of race, religion,
nationality, . . .  and history. Perhaps _Shane_ takes this stand as well, but
it's a critical point, worthy of question.  I wonder whether the "average"
American family in the 1950s meets the _Shane_ model. Surely, this model of the
American family is not common either to Mark Twain or to William Faulkner.

How does your conception of the universal family apply to the current-day
concept of the family in the United States? How does it apply to the conception
of the family in the 1950s, in the 1870s? How does the concept of family apply
to a king and his harem? I might as well start talking about groupings in
Deleuze and Guttari. What universal family?

Though I do not have much use for you universalist claims, Jeremy,  I think your
description of the Starrett family is quite good:

'In particular, Joe Starrett and his wife were pioneer-type settlers
("homesteaders") whose extended other family members were left behind
somewhere(s). We get the vague suggestion that Marian married "down", but
that that's OK because Joe's other virtues (strength, straightness, etc.)
compensate for his humble origins. Together, they form a mother-father-child
"nucleus", because the extended family has been stripped away -- Joe's
specialised skills are those of a farmer and staker of a claim. No one else can
follow him across such long distances, apart from his wife, who clearly loves
him.'

I think you have opened up a way to understand a homestead family, not a
"universal" family. I like the part about the removal of the extended family; I
would like to hear what you have to say here. I think you've gotten to the heart
of the drama with this statement, but what you have not explained is how this
artistic choice relates to the historical depiction. In particular, what makes
an 1870s homestead family a relevant to the 1950s? It's not "universality"--it's
a certain kind of ideology.

To return to my question, does the family depicted in _Shane_ match the actual
state of the family in 1950s America, does it match the state of the family in
1870s America, or is it a "universal family" in the sense that it is a Freudian
or dramatic model? What's the relationship between these areas?

One further question: How can a family be considered universal, even nuclear, if
it does not contain its own replica? A mother, a father, and a son is not a
universal family any more than a mother, a father, and a daughter is a universal
family. These types of families make for Freudian complexes. What is a family
any way--a grouping defined by an institution such as a church or a state? . . .


Thanks for the discussion,

JMC










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