Sarahjon Reilly

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An important conversation with @kal_fell—one that needed to happen.

Technology and the Family Thank you so much, Tony, for that kind introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here today at the American Enterprise Institute to speak about the opportunity in front of us to rethink technology’s relationship to the family. When I say relationship, many of us think of the screens we hold in our hands or the amount of time our toddlers spend watching Cocomelon. And those are all important debates. Today, I want to discuss a deeper, philosophical alliance between technology and the institution of the family. We recently watched the Vice President head to France where he discussed the importance of American dominance in artificial intelligence, and I’ve been struck by the new administration’s focus on innovation. Those of us listening to the inaugural address just last month couldn’t help but notice references to colonizing Mars, the split atom, holding all the world’s knowledge in the palm of our hands. It’s refreshing to see technology celebrated as the engine of American economic growth after years of Washington denigrating it. And we’re now finally seeing enthusiasm for how government can leverage our technology sector to promote American Dynamism by unleashing limitless energy, deterring conflict, and manufacturing abundance of all kinds. And indeed, investing in American Dynamism my day job, my life’s work and my calling. But today, I want to talk about my other job. My most consequential job according to the Ordo Amoris, a job that is deeply tied to building American Dynamism in the most concrete way. And that is my job and my duty as Mother. For all the talk of Technology and the State, there should be much more talk about that other institution that is perpetually at war with it. The Institution of the Family. All of history is a war between the family and the state. Any college student studying Plato’s Republic learns quickly of this conflict, though it’s often only discussed in political theory classes. But in practice, it’s clear these two institutions are often incompatible in their quest for control over how we live, what we believe, what we worship, our history and our daily reality. If this sounds a bit hyperbolic because the family now seeminglysits comfortably inside the state, that is because the state has been winning this civilizational war against the family for decades. The long 20th Century should teach us this. It is a story of American growth and excellence, but it can also be accurately told as a story of the weakening of the family. It begins with thefundamental transformation of industry, where mothers and fathers are pulled from the home to work in factories, then companies. It proceeds with two atrocious world wars in Europe, where millions of families are decimated. The strength of states is greatly intertwined with war—states grow stronger in war while families are literally destroyed. It’s no coincidence that as we look to our European neighbors, we now see a continent subsumed with regulation, censorship, green authoritarianism, and a birth rate that predicts their demise. A very strong state, yes. But very anemic families. We then move to Communism and the Cold War, where we see Communism’s brutal attack on the family for both political and psychological reasons. The one-child-policy that ravaged China with forced infanticide wasn’t just to remind mothers that the good of society matters more than the good of her home. It was a reminder that the family is not, nor will ever be powerful enough to compete with the Chinese Communist Party.