11. The Family – Huston Smith and reviews Dr. Margaret Mead world famous anthropologist and Dr. Bertram Beck of the National Association of Social Workers on the American family. Is the American family disintegrating or is it simply in transition? Dr. Mead draws a sharp distinction between pre- and post-Korean War families and argues that there is a trend to becoming too family centered. All is not well with the American family but its problems are almost the opposite of those we usually suppose.
In this series, the inquiry turns from descriptive to normative values, from the 'is' to the ‘ought'. Focusing on fifteen crucial problems confronting the American people, from foreign policy decisions to matters of personal faith, it asks: What values should guide us toward the solution of these problems? Featured Personality: Huston Smith, a pioneer in Educational Television, Huston Smith is known to the television public for his two previous series: The Religions of Man and Science and Human Responsibility. For eleven years Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, he moved in 1959 to become the first Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, since the early days of that institution. An authority in comparative philosophy, Dr. Smith is the author of The Religions of Man and The Purposes of Higher Education.
