This article seemed crazy enough but then I went to the British source and read a longer article and listened to a most enlightening clip. This piece was much longer and swift the intellectual in question was quoted far more in context and his words were even scarier. First of all reading was not the problem. That was just one example. Really it was any close family bonding time. He also mentioned going to cricket. For give me I am just a dumb American. I am not sure whether he meant going to a cricket match or playing in one as a family. Either what ever he meant seemed to be as bad or as good depending on how you look at it, as reading stories to your children.I will take it as attending a sporting event with your child so to me it is like taking your kid to a baseball game. So reading to your child or taking them to baseball games is dangerous because it gives your kids an unfair advantage. In fact the name of this article is "Is having a loving Family an unfair advantage?"
The philosopher Swift even musses about the possibilities of abolishing the family but in the end dismisses the idea. He does continue to talks about the problems of unfair advantage that those raised in loving families have. The truth is he looks at everything in a backwards and dangerous fashion. There is a difference between the haves and the have nots, but thirty years ago we talked almost exclusively about the have nots, the disadvantaged, the underprivileged. Now we have flipped the argument and we tend to talk about the advantaged, the privileged. This change is very dangerous for our society.
When the focus is on the underprivileged the solutions are about how to raise up the unfortunate and help them out. This is how we get our current welfare system and although we can debate how well this system operates, at least we can say the goal is to elevate. It might not always do that, but that is the goal. When we focus on the privileged or advantaged as the problem then the solution is not lifting those in poverty. It is taking away advantages from those who have them. So the solution becomes how to tear down not how to build up. That is a problem.
At one point swift says "One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field."
Like I said earlier he eventually rejects the idea of abolishing the family, but I find it interesting that he seems to think of this as the simple solution. Here I have a simple solution, lets encourage every family to have some quality together. Let's read together, go to baseball together maybe we will get really wild and every once in a while even go crazy and play a game of Yahtzee together. Let's encourage everyone to be better and not try to hamstring anyone.
Here are the links to the two stories.
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/05/05/09/44/bedtime-reading-could-disadvantage-other-children-academic-says
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/new-family-values/6437058