Family in the context of relations between freedom and responsibility: crisis or evolution?
Joanna Janicka
Faculty of Humanities University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland)Abstract
At the beginning of the twenty first century, Chantal Delsol wrote that the man of late modernity is characterized by his attempt to regress to a period in history before his attainment of autonomy and subjectivity, both of which Delsol associates, among other things, with the essential and formative role of the family. Turning to a society or a group with which he could identify, man – in her opinion – takes a step back towards a tribal form of existence, which deprives him of the right to self-government. Demographic data seem to confirm the tendencies which Delsol has described: the rising number of divorces, the dropping number of marriages, and the increasing presence of the welfare state in the life of an individual. We might tend to think that reality bears out the pessimistic vision of the man of late modernity Delsol puts forth.
Yet it is the role of philosophy to call into doubt all that seems obvious and to ask questions where to all appearances there is no room for doubt. This article proposes this kind of undertaking as an attempt to examine Delsol’s diagnosis through the lens of Kołakowski’s philosophy. With the help of Kołakowski’s treatment of the relationship between freedom and responsibility, and by applying his thoughts on the irremovable tension between the individual and the collective man, a motif distinctly present in his considerations, this article poses anew the question of whether we indeed are facing a crisis or an evolution of the family. Are the changes which we are observing a threat to our culture and civilization, or evidence of progress?
Keywords:
philosophy of culture, patriarchy, philosophical antropology, Delson, KolakowskiReferences
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Faculty of Humanities University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland)
