Month: September 2022

From here: https://www.thebowencenter.org/societal-emotional-process

Each concept in Bowen theory applies to such nonfamily groups as work and social organizations. The concept of societal emotional process describes how the emotional system governs behavior in whole societies. Cultural forces are important in how a society functions but are insufficient to explain the ebb and flow in how well societies adapt to the challenges they face. Bowen’s first clue about parallels between familial and societal emotional functioning came from observing families with juvenile delinquents. The parents in such families give children the message, “We love you no matter what you do.” Despite impassioned lectures about responsibility and sometimes harsh punishments, parents give in to the child more than they hold the line. The child rebels against the parents and adeptly senses their uncertainty in their positions. The child feels controlled and lies to get around the parents. He is indifferent to their punishments. The parents are largely ineffectual in controlling the child.

 

Bowen saw that during the 1960s courts became more like the parents of delinquents. Many in the juvenile court system considered the delinquent a victim of bad parents. They tried to understand him and often reduced the consequences of his actions, hoping to effect change in his behavior. If the delinquent became a frequent offender, the legal system, much like the parents, expressed its disappointment and imposed harsh penalties. Recognition of a change in this societal institution led Bowen to notice similar changes in others, such as schools and governments. The downward spiral in families dealing with delinquency is an anxiety-driven regression in functioning. In a regression, people act to relieve the anxiety of the moment rather than acting on principle and taking a long-term view. A regressive pattern began unfolding in society after World War II. It worsened during the 1950s and rapidly intensified in the 1960s. The “symptoms” of societal regression include a growth of crime and violence, an increasing divorce rate, a more litigious attitude, a greater polarization between racial groups, less principled decision-making by leaders, increased drug abuse and bankruptcies, and a focus on rights over responsibilities.

 

Human societies undergo periods of regression and progression over their histories. The current regression seems to be fueled by anxiety related to such factors as exploding population, a sense of diminishing frontiers, and the depletion of natural resources. Bowen predicted humans would deal symptomatically with crises growing out of the regression until forced to address the anxiety feeding it. He predicted that a final major crisis would come as soon as the middle of the twenty-first century and that the type of human who survived would be one who could live in better harmony with nature.

After a brief, almost progression, we are running headlong back into thumb sucking and social decay.  None of this will end well.  It never does.

What will remain after the crack-up remains to be seen.

As I keep saying, the problem to me is not people like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.  The problem is people who cannot see what blatant liars and cynical-to-the-point-of-nihilism opportunists they are.  It’s not IQ stupidity.  It is emotional infantilism, which is a set of words I use often because I watched it throughout my childhood at close hand.

I have decided that I am strongly individuated, but at high cost.  It hurt, and continues to hurt.

I will fix me.  I continue to make progress.  But I can’t fix anyone else, particularly when so many people are actively antagonistic to what people like me have to say.

The claim I want to make is that Anti-Liberalism/Fascism is Fusionism, is what amounts to a social implementation of the dynamics of an enmeshed family, where you have an overactive government both enabling and compelling an underactive citizenry, whose agency it steals in the name of “helping” it.

The whole thing consists in naked mental illness, and this has long been obvious, but this is beginning to bridge the gap between politics and psychology.

Books like 1984, and We, and Brave New World describe different forms of this illness and its methods, but rarely reach the Why.  That some people are evil is clear, but why?  What is behind the why they offer, which is clearly not the real why?

https://michaelsamsel.com/Content/Couples/fusion.html

What he is describing amounts to failed individuation, which is to say maturity, which is to say retarded emotional growth that has lapsed into the pathological. In general, this is the clear fault of the parents and “system”, who have failed to set rational and clear boundaries, and to enforce basic standards of emotionally and socially integrated behavior.

“In a fused relationship, each participant believes they are compelled by the feelings (especially ‘negative ones’) and vulnerabilities of the other. This results first, in a great deal of compliant caretaking behavior that can’t be sustained, second in a great deal of repression of anger and resentment, and third, when the first two strategies become unbearable, the feelings of the others are disputed and invalidated. It doesn’t occur to participants that they can listen, acknowledge, but not ‘obey.'”

Think about this dynamic, and the INABILITY–not the unwillingness, mind you, but INABIILITY– to tolerate genuine diversity which we are seeing expressed across our political world, and particularly on what should be Liberal and tolerant college campuses. Is this not a highly descriptive and useful analysis?

Another: “It is considered a real ‘crime’ to do or say anything that upsets another member. The most anxious or constricted family member dictates the ceiling of freedom of action or freedom of expression.”

Can you not see the genesis of Acceptable Speech, speech as violence, and Safe Spaces here?

More: “Life is reaction-rich with very little real effective action. Said differently strong reactions are allowed but strong actions are not.”

Speech, for these people, constitutes action.  Genuine, meaningful, measurable, observable change for the better is something THEY DO NOT EVEN ATTEMPT.  I can’t see that blacks who have been voting for Democrats for 50 years have gotten any reward for their efforts; or that any elected Democrats have really tried to do anything but throw crumbs from the royal coach as it passes the unwashed masses. Once elected, they quickly notice the benefits of royalty, and quickly forget where they came from, if they ever cared at all.

And: “Difficulties and feelings are automatically projected outward. When asked to talk about themselves, participants talk about others–this is usually blame, which is rife in fused relationships. If one tries to redirect attention back onto the member of interest it only lasts only moments until the ‘other’ is being talked about. This ‘other-focus’ is far from a healthy interest in others. Despite talking about others, participants are trying to get their own needs met.”

Think about this: is politics not the perfect place for people to hide WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MANAGE THEIR OWN LIVES? You get to be angry all the time, talking about other people all the time, and deflecting from your own real and obvious failures ALL THE TIME.

All of this is understandable. All of our problems have sources, trajectories, and solutions, if we somehow manage the will and intelligence to actually solve them.