In Search of Lost Time. Family, Nature and Culture

Abstract

There is a spectre haunting current political, cultural and ideological debate in Italy (and perhaps throughout Europe): the traditional family.

This spectre is raised by those who are afraid of change; as they are unable to respond to the general ongoing societal changes (not only in the family), they suggest a return to the good old days where, for a start, men and women knew their place in society and complied with standard cultural norms and models. The proposed response to the problems affecting families in the ‘liquid’ society is a step back into the past to rediscover the values and solidity of the traditional family. Under the guise of the adjectives ‘traditional’ or ‘natural’, this ‘retrotopia’ invokes a return to the patriarchal family where the individual rights of women and children are denied.