I hold down a job, for the moment. I go shopping. I tense up at the special hissing sound of bills slipping through my mailbox. I eavesdrop on conversations about the price of holidays, cataracts and children. I have a well-developed view that the economy is linked up to the entire multi-sensory experience.
But none of this means I carry a sound economic policy around in my head. Experiencing the problem does not give me a holistic understanding, let alone solutions. Naturally. And, yet, we act differently when the subject is family policy and do not object to politicians who fluff about and free-wheel on the matter.
They talk about "new realities" and in one breath move from implying that they have considerable anecdotal knowledge (like my knowledge of prices) to implying that they know just what the policy should be - if only they could speak their mind.
But, of course, speak their mind is what most fear to do. So they tend either to call for a national discussion that, by bringing all our gut feelings together, will metabolise the answer. Or they take refuge in Catholic conscience.
Unless something drastic changes, we are going to have to put up with much more of these diversions from serious policy-making. Remember, in two days there opens the new Legislature, which has to deliver on electoral promises to formalise domestic arrangements that have hitherto lain in the penumbra of the law.
For all the hollow phrases masked as principle, we, the commentariat, should carry a share of the blame. If an MP claims that she considers her view on the introduction of divorce legislation to be a matter of conscience, commentators pounce. But when, not too long ago, Lawrence Gonzi said that he would not allow a free vote on divorce, he too was pounced on. If we make the principle seem so slippery, can we insist on it?
The plain fact is that whether to introduce divorce is not a matter of conscience but of public policy. The essential questions raised are very similar to the ones raised by social benefits, rent laws and taxation: fairness, liberty, protection of the weak and who pays for it all. The issues are delicate but so is rent law reform.
The Catholic Church gives no special opt-out to its members: They are enjoined to be clear-eyed, measured and guided by good sense, lest their instincts lead them to do more harm than good. A politician who invokes a Catholic conscience to avoid forming a rational conviction is badly in need of some refresher catechism classes.
But what about the "new realities" discourse? It seems to face the issues head on. Yet, what it usually does is substitute personal experience and anecdote for knowledge. If you want to see how misleading that can be, consider some of the results of a recent international survey (commissioned by the French think-tank Fondation Pour l'Innovation Politique) of 22,000 young people (16-29) in 17 European countries, the US and Asia.
Italian youth tends to be well-integrated into families - and resent it. Their familism is a symptom of a last resort in the face of a public policy that fails them. They want independence and would rather get jobs on their merits but they end up having to use family connections.
The family is perceived as the foundation of society but this is taken as a sign of what is deeply wrong. Their diagnosis lies at the heart of young Italians' inability and unwillingness to set up their own households. Paradoxically, family values (of a kind), we might say, are one cause of Italy's very low birth rate.
Now take the Swedes. Remember them? Alienated, without that sense of strong family that we passionate Mediterraneans are supposed to possess. Well, it turns out Swedish youth rather like their families. They just do not see the family as a foundation for wider society but, rather, a private space that gives them personal pleasures and resources.
American youth is different again. They see no contradiction in cherishing both independence and being their parents' sons and daughters, giving great importance to reciprocal obligations between the generations.
These findings might seem to contradict some common stereotypes: of US families shattered by individualism, closely-bonded Italian families and lonely Scandinavian households. Actually, the stereotypes do have elements of truth but in ways that our anecdotal stories do not allow for: close bonds can cause problems; individualism may go hand-in-hand with warm family ties.
It all depends on the particular social structure - especially on how family ties relate to the state's policies on the labour market and social protection. Which only underlies, of course, why family policy is a matter of public policy.
This Legislature is going to have to come up with new, important laws affecting families and households. Hopefully, they will be based on more systematic knowledge of Maltese family structures than our legislators have shown so far.
ranierfsadni@europe.com