Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Who was Carle C. Zimmerman?


Of academia, Carle was an American sociologist and author of Family and Civilization.  Some years ago, I read this book, over and over with highlights and annotations. His sense of the family's future in western culture was (and is) profound.  

The family is an institution crucial to a free society.  Intact families are the foundation of a free society, small governments that serve to strengthen society--staving off state power aimed to replace it.

Where fatherhood goes, so goes the family and where the family goes so goes societal strength, community and cultures—self-government.   

From the Web-based Goodreads, the following comment on his book: 

The man wrote in the late 1940's and he was clearly prophetic. He was off in his prediction of the collapse of the West (he thought end of 20th century) but his analysis that the West cannot rejuvenate itself until and unless the family unit is delivered from its current hyper-atomism was spot-on. Indeed, I'm so convinced by Zimmerman's argument that I am inclined to think the best thing we could do would be to hasten the collapse by supporting the Feminism, GLBT agenda.

I have used his inspiration and insights in my own writing, his unique and unadulterated analysis of the history of society and, specific to us, projection of society in the West.  
He writes in the 1940’s,

Marriage did not collapse under its own weight; it was ruthlessly dismantled piece by piece…to advance human freedom. 

Marriage and family undone—“ruthlessly dismantled”!  But why; why is marriage and family a target, perhaps a threat, to our culture, civilization?  What did marriage ever do but offer men at their possible best, both husbands and fathers? 

To address these questions, I turn to Albert Jay Nock, a minister and author of Our Enemy the State.

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