Sibling Society

It has taken a poet to tell us what we normally expect from the Psychologists, Political Scientists, and Sociologists. Robert Bly, in "The Sibling Society," has, as he did in his seminal work in social criticism, "Iron John," told us things about ourselves that we needed confirmed by an independent source. "The Sibling Society" is that source. It confirms that we have become a culture that sanctions adult juvenile behavior. By ignoring our deeper responsibilities as parents, we have learned to ignore the difficult problems of our society; and in the process, we have lost an essential element of what it means to be an adult society. In effect, we have become the children of our children. At least that is Bly's theory. It is a powerful and beautifully told theory. One related to us through allegory and morality-based fairytales. It is centered on what the author sees as the nation's rapacious greed, its narcissistic self-absorption, and the neurotic need for unearned (one-way) love, and attention -- especially from our own children who we try to make our friends. Bly is not alone in having isolated these factors as the key symptoms of a much less orderly American culture. John Ralston Saul in "The Unconscious Civilization" comes to similar conclusions -- as does Theodore Dalrymple in "Life at the Bottom." However, it remains arguable whether these factors are in fact the true root causes of the American dilemma of its emerging adult adolescence. And alternative theory that, arguably fits Bly's anecdotal data with equal facility is to view Bly's factors as symptoms of a deeper cause. That cause being the desire to take credit for things that have been bequeathed to us but for which we have yet to take direct responsibility, and which we have not been actively engaged in accomplishing or furthering. In effect, America has become a culture that lives on psychological and emotional credits, mostly off the "past achievements" of its forefathers. By "pocketing" past achievements, with little real effort on our part, we derive a vicarious but undeserved, false and thus exaggerated sense of our own achievements. The byproduct of this "taking of unearned credit" and of becoming comfortable living on psychological and emotional credit, is a life lived beyond our psychological and emotional means as a nation. It is this false sense of achievement that leads to self-doubt, lost of confidence in our selves as a nation, and to Bly's factors as collective compensatory behavior. We Americans are fortunate to have inherited both natural, societal and spiritual bounties that make us the envy of the world. But the democratic freedoms we have inherited are a "work in progress," not the end of history as at least one scholar has declared. Both our natural and our spiritual endowments are things that require adult supervision for proper maintenance, safe-guarding and further development, on to completion, lest they be squandered along the way. What Bly seems t

In the Sibling Society, Robert Bly has found our culture's shadows: we have failed to provide a moral compass for the young. By refusing to become fully mature themselves parents have abandoned their children to inadequate day care and hours of television and computers rather than passing on the values of the culture on a one to one basis. The effects of turning young children over to unlimited hours of television has affected their ability to focus and apply themselves to the tasks of school.Yet school also takes some lumps from Bly. He believes that education is not what it should be because it is in collusion with the valueless sibling society that is; it does not consider what the past has to teach us. A seeming contradiction is Bly's discomfort with authority of any sort yet he expresses a longing for the order that mature uses of authority would bring.Promise Keepers, a men's organization that asks for responsible maturity, has missed the mark according to the author by ignoring the good gains made by women in the past thirty years. He recognizes the need for mutuality between men and women.At the age of 70, he reflects upon the changes brought about by neglecting to teach the collective wisdom everyone took for granted a generation or two ago. He has lived through turbulent times and given a great deal of thought to what has happened in families, the leadership of this country, the media and their effects upon the young generation. Bly's view will not be popular with those who have taken popular culture for granted. For example, he believes that western movies have affected the psyches of males in our society by overturning the bases for a civilized and moral society in favor of a macho male code.Reagan and Bush come in for hard criticism for leadership styles that disregarded the good of the whole by favoring the rich to the detriment of the environment and to the detriment of those who work hard to get ahead and cannot.Poet and storyteller, Bly loves metaphor and for this reason, his ideas are sometimes difficult for readers to understand. He often quotes transcendent writers from our culture such as Emily Dickenson and Henry David Thoreau as well as from cultures around the world including Kabir and Rumi. He is in love with the transcendent in a non traditional way.While the Sibling Society deals with important issues in an original and provocative way, the book is an over-generalization, lacks clarity, and often sounds downright peevish and cranky by ignoring the outstanding work of some parents, teachers and youngsters. Bly has failed to give their successes any praise. But it was probably not his wish to give a more balanced view.

You want to know what Britney Spears, Columbine, and Gary Condit have in common? Just read this book and you'll get your answer as well some great insights into our twisted little culture at the present. Yeah, yeah, yeah, online detractors, I heard it all before-he's stolen material from such classics as "The Culture of Narcisissm" and other works. He's unfocused, pompous,etc. Call him what you will, but I think it's brilliant how he uses myths and fairy tales to lead us into our modern day predicaments that we all sense on some vague level but can't articulate them clearly. And in the end, he is right on target with his arguments. There isn't a day that goes by where I don't whisper "sibling society" under my breath-whether it's that I see a 45 year old mother of 4 with a picture of a supermodel taped to her fridge to stop her from eating or the myriad of "reality programming" shows on every major network. Bly is a cultural prophet with a very thought provoking set-up that stays with you long after you finish the book.

Those familiar with "Iron John" know Bly's style, and how he uses fairy tales to illuminate the hidden recesses of modern culture. In "The Sibling Society," he pulls off an amazing feat. Using simple tales such as "Jack and the Beanstalk" and the Hindu myth of Siva/Ganesha, Bly points out many of the failings evident in modern culture. His insights are measured, wise and seem quite accurate to me. Time and time again, I found myself paging through the book, nodding "Yes! That's it." It seemed as if I were seeing the plight of Gen-Xers like myself clearly for the first time. Unlike most of my generation, I was raised in a traditional two-parent household. My mother was strong, gentle and patient, my father an old-fashioned, firm but fair disciplinarian. Needless to say, I was shocked when I went away to college. Though I drank, the debaucheries most people went through seemed silly and shallow. Even in corporate America, I find `brown-nosing' and petty backroom politics, instead of solid analysis and ethical behavior, to be the focus of most people's careers. Not that I am always perfect, but at least I try. I think Bly has done a wonderful job illuminating the nature of the dilemma I've been facing for years. Though some of his points are arguable, I think the synthesis is a pretty accurate Freudian/ Jungian relating of mythic elements of our psyches to the realities of modern life. His pointing out how the "super-ego" has shifted its emphasis from moral/ethical domination to a success/ popularity one seems to me quite apt. I can see it operating all around me. I was raised under the "old" system, and to this day find the "new" system quite alien. As an answer to the critic below, perhaps you are transferring your "shadow" onto the author. If anything, he is trying to awaken us from cultural trance we find ourselves in. His aim is not, heavy intellectualism, but communicating the essence of mythic/poetic dream images to normal men and women. That is much more useful than turning out a tome that a few solitary scholars will ever read. I think few authors manage to say so much so simply as Bly manages to.

Robert Bly's best yet.What happens while both parents work making money? Robert Bly, using 'Jack and the Beanstock', and other fables, addresses the children who watch too much TV, lose the ability to imagine, and remain adolescents their whole life.What can we expect as these people take control of our governmental and educational institutions? A 'must read' for parents, but read it carefully! It may be too true!