Thank you. Another truly thought provoking article.
My estimation is less that there is a family industrial complex (although you have highlighted a very real issue) but that there is a community or masjid industrial complex. Where obsessive caution, active inaction, dissuasion against all but puerile or “safe” activities, educational and intellectual austerity, or executive bureaucracy, makes it feel like a flat-tired weak-engined car trying to move while the driver desperately mashes the brakes. One hopes for direction, vigor, and life, but encounters a forum often infected with a contagious spiritual consumption that saps enthusiasm, acts like a soporific, and spreads a fettering contagion — that holds back rather than propels upwards. Perhaps it is a concern for placating the sources of funding, perhaps a concern for maintaining tax free status, perhaps it is a desperation to maintain a safe neutrality and avoid criticism and judgment, perhaps it is fear and anxiety of taking a misstep in a hostile environment, perhaps it is just a case of keeping heads low and eyes to the ground to avoid societal and political bullies, perhaps a thousand this and thats; but the result remains. Certainly, the family level you speak of contributes to this, since communities are built of families, but my feeling is that this is a higher level problem of mindsets that taint from the top down.
Having been part of a massive masjid complex for almost 30 years, I know exactly what you mean. Masjid and community is going to be one of the major things I explore in my first collection of essays, which will be about the internal problems of the American Muslim community
Couldn’t agree more with you in that the ummah in its single units have evolved under the western influence as selfish tyrants at home but a micky mouse on world stage
The concept of the Family Industrial Complex is certainly an intriguing one, and I appreciate the depth of analysis here. However, I see this as more of an intermediate problem—a stop on the way to what I would call Individual Freedom Complexes, a phenomenon that has taken hold in the post-modern era. The West has already gone through this shift, where the focus on personal autonomy often leads to the erosion of communal and family structures. While the family industrial complex has its own challenges, I believe the larger issue ahead is the continued prioritization of hyper-individualism, which will reshape societies in ways we are only beginning to understand and you have pointed out.
My experience working with young kids in the US is that their desire for freedom is very different from the Western desire for freedom. The latter comes from a philosophically rooted belief that they have complete autonomy over themselves, and the first comes from a sheer dissatisfaction with their parents’ desire to control every aspect of their lives.
Thank you. Another truly thought provoking article.
My estimation is less that there is a family industrial complex (although you have highlighted a very real issue) but that there is a community or masjid industrial complex. Where obsessive caution, active inaction, dissuasion against all but puerile or “safe” activities, educational and intellectual austerity, or executive bureaucracy, makes it feel like a flat-tired weak-engined car trying to move while the driver desperately mashes the brakes. One hopes for direction, vigor, and life, but encounters a forum often infected with a contagious spiritual consumption that saps enthusiasm, acts like a soporific, and spreads a fettering contagion — that holds back rather than propels upwards. Perhaps it is a concern for placating the sources of funding, perhaps a concern for maintaining tax free status, perhaps it is a desperation to maintain a safe neutrality and avoid criticism and judgment, perhaps it is fear and anxiety of taking a misstep in a hostile environment, perhaps it is just a case of keeping heads low and eyes to the ground to avoid societal and political bullies, perhaps a thousand this and thats; but the result remains. Certainly, the family level you speak of contributes to this, since communities are built of families, but my feeling is that this is a higher level problem of mindsets that taint from the top down.
Having been part of a massive masjid complex for almost 30 years, I know exactly what you mean. Masjid and community is going to be one of the major things I explore in my first collection of essays, which will be about the internal problems of the American Muslim community
JazakaAllahu Khair for writing this!
It really emphasizes a big issue rampant within American Muslim communities.
Inshallah first of many to highlight them
Couldn’t agree more with you in that the ummah in its single units have evolved under the western influence as selfish tyrants at home but a micky mouse on world stage
May Allah guide us all Aameen
Ameen
Is this a neo Marxist attack on family?!!
....just kidding. No trolling please 🥺😄
twitching intensifies
The concept of the Family Industrial Complex is certainly an intriguing one, and I appreciate the depth of analysis here. However, I see this as more of an intermediate problem—a stop on the way to what I would call Individual Freedom Complexes, a phenomenon that has taken hold in the post-modern era. The West has already gone through this shift, where the focus on personal autonomy often leads to the erosion of communal and family structures. While the family industrial complex has its own challenges, I believe the larger issue ahead is the continued prioritization of hyper-individualism, which will reshape societies in ways we are only beginning to understand and you have pointed out.
My experience working with young kids in the US is that their desire for freedom is very different from the Western desire for freedom. The latter comes from a philosophically rooted belief that they have complete autonomy over themselves, and the first comes from a sheer dissatisfaction with their parents’ desire to control every aspect of their lives.