the complement of what abolishing the family can do for children is what it can do for the elderly, by the way. when the family is the unit of resource and care allocation, what happens to the elderly with no family? who cares for them? what about parents whose children are unable to take care of them? what happens to the older generations if they don’t have the class position and familial wealth to get their own care as they age? who protects them if they have a family that wants to exploit them? can you imagine the anxiety of having to account for any of this in the later years of your life? no need to imagine it—you can just talk to someone going thru this right now. I truly hope that won’t be you in 20, 30, 40, 50 years.
familiarising yourself also with what that life looks like materially and how it is produced- in the care home- is also crucial. the deliberate segregation of older people from society serving not to reveal the contradiction in the enshrinement of retirement as goal in conjunction with its reality. which is a routinely abusive, repetitive tedium facilitated at the lowest possible cost because there is no profit to be made in being more accomodating. life in care is atomised, isolated, and full of drudgery. this segregation is crucial to the pacification of the populace wrt post-working life, encouraging people to live as though they will never die. which is crucial to accumulation and consumption. i worked in care. my boss once told me over a mcdonalds that she thought this life was hell, and if when you die you were good, you got to go to heaven. lots to say about this, but enough here to note that it is interesting how the promised future has to be deferred beyond death for those familiar with how awful the intermediary stage often is.
Friendly reminder for any other people on the autism spectrum:
It’s not recommended to offer to kill someone’s dad, especially if you’re talking to a stranger
may I please have more context?
Sometimes dads are terrible and should die, and you can console people by offering to rid them of this troublesome parent, but you should be friends with the person before making the offer
how the fuck are we supposed to make friends if not through gestures of patricide?
Unknown. I’ll provide updates if I ever figure it out
