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Freidrich Schweitzer in a book entitled, The Postmodern Life Cycle, cites a German study that vividly reveals drastic changes in what the life cycle has come to mean for people living in highly developed countries. Following is an abbreviated synopsis of Schweitzer. The pictures from the original study were not available, so I have chosen to embed some that I found that I believe faithfully represent the study that Schweitzer was commenting on. Consider the contrast in the following three scenes.

First, is a picture of a family from roughly the 1930’s.

Note first of all how many people are in the picture, and the fact that they belong to three or four generations. Life is shared together as the central tasks and functions of the family are well integrated. Working the fields and sharing a meal together are pretty seamless activities represented in the picture from the fact that the table is set in the midst of what appears to be an open filed. Everything for this family happens in relatively the same place – likely a geophysical space that has been in the family for decades. Furthermore, Schweitzer notes, there are few identity choices necessary for the people in this picture – the future looks a lot like the past (note the commonality of clothing). If junior wants to know who he is to become and what life is to be like, there is a handy and proximal reference point sitting across the table from him – he can simply look to his father and perhaps to his father’s father who is also readily available. Life then is pre-defined from birth or ascribed as the expectation is that one would move through the lifespan taking on the social role vacated by a family from the previous generation. In this scene, suggests Schweitzer, there is a continuity between the generations and life may largely be defined as the sequencing of generations.

Consider the second picture, a symbolic one representing life from the 1950’s.

Here the German study depicts a car, because the automobile in that era became the symbol of personal achievement and individual mobility. However, the car was also symbolic because of the number of seats it contained, enough for two adults and two or three children. Schweitzer comments that the number of seats defined the ideal family size of the era, but compared to the former picture, the ideal represented a more limited family structure that made mobility affordable if this “nuclear family” wanted to travel or vacation together.

This is the post-WWII family reflecting living conditions in the decades following the war. The car meant that the “breadwinner” for the house (almost inevitably the male), could now commute to a place of work. The essence of the life cycle now involved striving for achievement and providing a life for the children that might allow them to surpass that of the parents. Whereas, great economic benefit accrued from this modernization, several things were also sacrificed. The ascendance of the nuclear family meant that the seamless continuity between the generations suffered a significant blow – if one could “go farther” than one’s parents in life, then the family that one was born into no longer determined the outcome of one’s life. Instead, education/training became the best predictor of success. Gone however was the referent point within the family for knowing what one was to become. Choosing a vocation/career become quite important though the choice(s) available were somewhat limited and offered rather clearly defined alternatives – e.g. education versus work. Schweitzer considers this era and suggest that the lifecycle was redefined to mean career, and the successful navigation through this life cycle was often determined by economic and social success.

The third picture is best associated with a turn toward the 21^st century.

In this depiction, the promises of the 1950’s have come to full fruition in suburban life. The automobile is now more than a means of transportation or symbol of personal achievement, it’s almost a kind of toy attesting to the affluence of families. Paid work and family life are clearly separate as both spouses may be commuting to their places of work, occupying different spaces, sometimes even residing in different locations, and creating the reality that at best there may be one parent available to children. For the adults in this scene, choices are multiplied as there are no longer predefined social roles. Whatever reference points there may be to guide a person in navigating this brand of adulthood, seem unclear and without a clearly defined set of outcomes or consequences if one chooses that particular pathway. Thus, the past appears to offer little direction for the future. Drawing from the German study, Schweitzer comments that life has largely become an individual project, lived as a matter of personal choice.

The benefits, liabilities and implications of such modernization have been written about extensively and will be the subject for future editions of virtues and choices: the elusive search for a centered self, the ecstatic quest for a sensual high, the eternal longing for a faithful love, etc. With the unprescribed nature of contemporary adult life where there are multiple lifestyles and vocational variations that plague one with choices throughout the lifespan, and where multiple stories present themselves from which a person can draw values, the residual feeling is that one is an amalgam of multiple selves, a different one needed for navigating through the multiple roles, contexts, and expectations placed upon them. In answer to all of these stands the offer of salvation, understood in its fullness as wholeness that integrates the fragmented self and that coalesces the patchwork self through a relationship with the Messiah. Add to this the gift of the Spirit and the community that His presence creates, promised to us as the Counselor who will lead us into all truth. Life today may indeed be experienced as an individual project and lived by many as a matter of personal choice; but campus ministers can offer a different understanding – where community is valued, guidance comes corporately and from revelation, and where there is in Jesus a referent for who we are to become.

Categories: Virtues & Choices
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