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At its most basic level this is the stable and sustainable nurturing of reproduction. Without it there is nothing else worth sustaining and within a few generations there is nothing to sustain. At this level, sustainability is that simple.

Here in the UK and the developed world generally, the ideal of a culture which generally works, a sustainable culture has been undermined in a number of familiar ways. Take this Elizabeth Skilton poster used in an earlier post.

 

From one perspective it is an idealised image of nineteen fifties family life. From a more basic perspective it is an image of what can make a sustainable culture sustainable. It depicts family life as one of the principal ways to nurture and sustain the most basic cultural necessity – sustainable reproduction.

Attacks on this ideal were always likely to be destructive, especially as there are clearly other factors at work apart from ideological political meddling. In which case perhaps it is better to stop the ideological meddling and treat sustainable family life as more than an ideal. Culturally we may perish anyway, but without an adequate replacement for this crucial ideal we have little chance of avoiding it.

What else is there beyond the sustainability of reproduction?