War Against the Family: A Parent Speaks Out

By William D. Gairdner

Book Overview

THE GROUNDBREAKING BESTSELLER, is back in print

Widely recognized as the most powerful and complete critique of the war against the family presently taking place in Western democracies.

Inspired by his own passionate experience as a son, husband, and father, Gairdner offers in this book a forum for a long-overdue debate about the future of the family in Western civilization.

Gairdner traces the war against the family to an egalitarian ideology that begins with Plato and survives today as a utopian liberalism that has become a caricature of itself, everywhere promoting the equality and rights of individuals, but ignoring their duties and obligations. Driven by its devotion to egalitarianism and the promise of what can only be a morally and socially irresponsible form of "freedom," the modern state effectively weakens all of society, of which the traditional the family unit is the most important element.

So constituted, the modern democratic state is driven to target the family unit as a bastion of privacy, privilege, and moral authority at odds with the state's own secular and egalitarian motives. Hence, the war against the family.

All those who are concerned about the direction of modern life and the country they are leaving for future generations are sure to benefit from this cri de coeur written by a man of deep experience and searing insight.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1988360544
• ISBN13: 9781988360546
• Release Date: February 2023
• Publisher: Kinetics Design - Kdbooks.CA
• Length: 672 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

One of the most important books ever written

This book is by far the most important book ever written on modern-day Western collectivism, and it provides a startling analysis of the advanced degree of our cultural decay and loss of personal liberties.

Compelling ananlysis of modern social trends

I first purchased this book in 1994 and have found it to be enormously useful, well written and very cogent. It has not gotten stale with time only more accurate as the effects of family breakdown that he predicts become even more apparent. I use it as a reference and have referred several people to this book who have thanked me for that advice.I will keep this short as I think that G.W. Thielman's opus review tells it like it is.

Excellent

An excellent, well written book detailing many of the problems with our society. Written for Canadians, but will show Americans where they are headed if they follow in our intrusive, "Big Brother" government footsteps.

Factual and Reasoned Refutation of Social Engineering

Be no more... carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Ephesians 4:14 William D. Gairdner, a Canadian citizen and former professor at Stanford, has written a book warning the citizenry of the state-subsidized efforts by collectivists to destroy the nuclear family and atomize people into autonomous servants of the state. This opus is titled _The_War_Against_the_Family_ and should be read by all who are concerned about the policies behind the popular rhetoric labeled "family values" by public ofÞcials. Despite its 644-page length, the temptation to underline everything is compelling.Dr. Gairdner begins his book outlining the efforts of the therapeutic state to subsidize and coerce the private lives of its citizens in exchange for votes, before launching a critique of popular illusions employed to justify this intrusion. The ten tenants eviscerated are listed as: Individualism--the dissolution of interdependence for state-imposed autonomy, Communalism--the exchange of voluntarism with the compulsory society, Freedom--the replacement of and moral obligation with license, Rationalism--"from a worship of the God-man (Jesus), the people... worship the Man-god (ourselves)", Relativism--the decline of critical assessment, Victimism--the guarantees demanded by self-serving professional victims, Tolerance--the new thought-control, Rights--indulgent desires that have been transformed into claims against society, Equality--the votary of universal mediocrity, and Determinism--the denial of free will. Many critics of the traditional family claim that the nuclear family--father, mother and children with mutual love and division of labor among the members--is a rather recent development, born in the industrial age. The author shows this notion to be nonsense. He also disabuses the arguments alleging familial oppression--"It is not the individual who creates the family, but rather the family that creates individuals." He further emphasizes the importance of protection to private property and the dangers of excess taxation in injuring domestic tranquillity. The impersonal treatment of human beings can leave emotional scars on mature adults, but when waged against children, the results can be tragic indeed. Dr. Gairdner defends the family a "the only social institution ever invented to provide children... with a form of love that is unconditional"--in contrast to the impartiality of day care as espoused, among others, First Lady and NY Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Dr. Gairdner critiques the philosophies of the great collectivists, from Plato to Rousseau to Sartre and lays to shame their allegedly noble objectives. Then, the author contrasts the results of state intrusion by comparing nations with limited interference--Switzerland and Japan versus the most collectivist among democratic regimes--Sweden and Canada and th