Addressing family morphogenesis from a relational perspective

Abstract

It is common knowledge that social processes are changing the family, so much so that many wonder if it will survive. The thesis of this paper is that the tendencies towards the dissolution of the family are due to processes of morphogenesis which require careful analysis and evaluation. The social morphogenesis of the family can have many meanings and developments. Tendencies towards the family’s dissolution can be, and indeed are, opposed by that part of civil society for which the family is a relational good that generates other relational goods. It is necessary to understand if and where the family (re)generates itself in those primary social networks that escape the processes of chaotic morphogenesis thanks to the vitality of the family’s own social genome. This genome is what makes the family the source of personal and social virtues, that is, the primary relational goods on which the happiness of individuals depends. It is a question of discovering if and how the germ of a new family life can be born that humanizes people rather than abandoning them to commodification and estrangement.