Lots of the writing about family abolition assumes some familiarity with Marxism and other terms commonly used in left political discourse. This is an attempt to provide some colloquial definitions for terms that might be unfamiliar or difficult to understand.
abolition, to abolish
In a marxist/Hegelian context, the simultaneous destruction, preservation, building-upon, transformation of a thing. In the case of the family, we want to preserve love and supportive relationships while destroying the coercion and violence of the family form.
atomized
Perhaps think of this as the opposite of collectivized/socialized/communal. Usually used to describe individuals isolated and alienated from each other, unable to cooperate or collaborate. Not knowing the names of your neighbors, for instance, is an atomized way of living in a place.
base assumption
A base assumption is one that's rarely even acknowledged let alone questioned. One base assumption family abolition names is the naturalization of the family -- that families are just the common sense grouping that parents and offspring form easily and instinctually. Instead, family abolition shows the way families are used to reproduce class society and imagines a society beyond the nuclear family, of chosen relations and widespread care.
capitalist realism
A term from Mark Fisher about the seeming inescapable-ness of capitalism in the imperial core. Every act of resistance can itself be commodified and subsumed into capital. Sometimes phrased as “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine a world beyond capitalism.”
care
Care is, broadly, all the support we need from each other to thrive. Care under the private nuclear family is often feminized work, coerced through rigid gender roles, control of resources, and the threat of violence. Care is increasingly commodified, such as in elder care, gig work conveniences like food delivery or dog walking, and childcare. Family abolition seeks to “de-privatize care” and spread the burden of caring for each other more equitably through society.
co-construction, co-constitutive
In systems thinking, this is a description of systems that are co-constitutive are intertwined and dependent on each other to function. The family and capitalism are one such co-constituted system of systems, as are white supremacy and racial capitalism. This is also an acknowledgement that all co-constituted systems must be dismantled in parallel and that remnants, like relying on the family after the fall of capital, can still reconstitute the systems of class relations and capitalism.
communization (theory)
A tendency in ultra-leftism / left communism which advocates the replacement of all capitalist and market relations with direct fulfillment of people’s needs and social ownership of the means of survival. This modern tendency emerged from the French insurrections of 1968 and is refined today by collectives such as Endnotes and The Invisible Committee.
contingent
In the context of this book, “contingency” is used to describe unequal power or other pressures in familial relationships due to scarcity under capitalism. For example, a co-habitating couple may stay together because they depend on each other to afford housing. Their relationship is “contingent” on this circumstance. Children’s survival is contingent on their parents and other caregivers, an unequal power dynamic that facilitates coercion and violence.
denaturalization
The process of examining something with fresh eyes, to see it not as a “given” that always-was and always-will-be, but as something imposed and structural and serving an “order” of some sort.
gender regime
The enforcement of gender roles and policing of gender nonconformity. For many queer and transgender children and young adults, the family is the primary enforcer making sure that one’s gender expression conforms to their gender assigned at birth, through the threat of cut-off resources, rejection, or physical and psychological violence.
horizon, revolutionary horizon
The far-off, sometimes unimaginable goals and end-state that political projects like family abolition can assert within the desert of capitalist realism.
imperial core
The usually Western countries which exert a militaristic and economic hegemony across the world. Life in the imperial core has its own challenges and contradictions.
natalism
The “default” philosophical view that making babies and bringing them into the world is a good thing to do and that all people should want to be parents. This viewpoint bolsters the pressure on people who can become pregnant to find a mate, become pregnant, and establish a family. This is also why “productive” (propagative) families often have a socially privileged status whereas childless people may face social stigma for being unable to have or simply not wanting children.
naturalized
Something becomes “naturalized” when it is thought of as so “normal” and expected that it seems like a natural law of the universe, when things could very well be otherwise. As materialists and/or skeptics, it’s our job to look at things with fresh eyes and don’t take anything for granted or “natural.”
program, programmatic
In a marxist/revolutionary context, this is the instruction sheet and blueprint for implementing a political agenda. Many marxists avoid programmatic writing, knowing that conditions will determine the right tactics and strategy, and to avoid a dogmatic approach. In the case of this book, some suggestions are provided in service of imagining beyond a revolutionary horizon.
revanchist
Politics characterized by a “return to greatness” or reversal of progressive policy in pursuit of an imagined “golden age.” Literally, trying to reconquer territory which once used to belong to the nation, such as colonies which have gained their independence.
social reproduction
A branch of feminist marxist thought concerned with how individuals, workers, families, and entire classes are “reproduced” – maintained with unwaged labor. This includes everything done to prepare a worker for the next day at work: material needs like laundry and food, social needs like companionship and intimacy, and intellectual/cultural needs such as religion or education. Collectively, these tasks are called “care.” This book is concerned with the role of the family in organizing social reproduction and how the private care within a family could be satisfied in an open/socialized way.
tendency
A term for a “flavor” or “varietal” of communism, socialism, or whatever umbrella “-ism.” This book might fall under a “communization” or “transgender marxist” tendency.
transhistorical
Transcending historical boundaries; unchanging throughout history; basic to the human condition.