What Is The Value of Life, Pt. 5: Family

Summary: Anyone who knows us is aware that we have two dogs, Belvedere and Hamilton. Belvedere is an English Hound and Hamilton is a pit/lab mix with a stronger emphasis on the lab now that he’s getting older. Both dogs are super protective and have a reputation in the neighborhood for protecting their domain. Anyone walking too close to their fence, i.e., on the sidewalk, is going to be made aware of their presence. What I find interesting are the different ways the two dogs approach their job of protecting the family. Belvedere considers us all as a single unit. When he first goes out of the morning, he checks the perimeter of the yard for dangerous intruders such as homicidal squirrels or thieving raccoons. Once he’s sure the yard is safe, he comes back and lies down near the door. Hamilton, however, focuses more on the safety of individual family members. If none of us are outside with him, he wanders around and tries to convince Belvedere to play with him. Let anyone step outside, though, and he’s immediately by their side, their personal bodyguard against all dangers real or imagined until we decide to go back into the house. Inside, we see a similar approach. Belvedere is content to sleep on the most comfortable cushion he can find, regardless of where it is or who is around. He listens for the sound of the door and pays little attention to internal squabbles between family members. Hamilton, however, has to be near one of us at all times, preferably me. If there’s an argument between the kids, he gets upset and stands between them. He also does the same with the cats, interestingly enough. Again, the dogs’ emphasis is on the family as a unit versus a collection of individuals. There’s a lot of commonality in both dogs’ approaches. Both bark ferociously at anyone they perceive as a threat and breaching the fence in any way is a danger a few unfortunate people learned through painful experience. Both are especially protective of the kids. Both know that outside is more dangerous than inside. Neither like seeing the kids get on the school bus in the morning. Both come running when anyone returns home. What we see in the difference between the dogs is a separation of philosophy of what makes a family. For Belvedere, we are homogenous, we all go together. If one of us is gone, the whole is incomplete, but he remains with the ones still at home. For Hamilton, though, we are a collective, individuals residing together. If one of us is gone, he would leave the group to protect the one. In the dogs’ example, we find the basic differences for how the family is defined and how each individual member is valued. We might think of Belvedere as being more of a traditionalist, with there being two parents and their offspring composing the core family unit. Hamilton is more liberal, emphasizing individual identities from which the family benefits, however it is constructed. One might reasonably argue that neither view is puritanically wrong or right, but the definition one chooses inevitably affects one’s valuation both within and external to the group. As such, how one operates within the family, the roles we take, the responsibilities we assume, affect our valuation, and that valuation is noticed and generally adopted by the society of which we are part. This makes our relationship with family one of the most challenging aspects in determining the value of our lives. If we’re going to dissect this to better understand our value, we need some definitions. Be warned, there’s not a lot of consensus among philosophers, lawyers, or sociologists in this regard. In fact, just trying to define what is a family gets pretty sticky.

What Is The Value of Life, Pt. 5: Family

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