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Re-valu-ing
the Family, Part Eleven: Continuing the "Cause"—How
"Paradigm Problems" Contribute to the Mess
by Richard
and Linda Eyre
(www.valuesparenting.com)
Why
don’t families have more resistance against the perils inflicted
on them by the three bigger, outer sections? Because we don’t
fully see the danger!
Note: In
this sixteen-part column, Richard and Linda Eyre explore the recent
revolution of the family from the honored centerpiece of society
to a disrespected and seemingly redundant appendage to the larger
corporate and cultural institutions of our new world. Re-valu-ing
the family, the Eyres believe, is the only alternative to America's
demise. The sequence of the column is: A. Re-valu-ing the family
(part one); B. The "crux" (parts 2 and 3 -- why family is the foundation
for everything, including happiness); C. The "curse" (parts 4 and
5 -- the social problems that plague our society today); D. The
"crisis" (parts 6 and 7 -- the breakdown and breakup of families
that allows and leads to the social problems); E. The "cause" (parts
8 and 9 -- the reasons our families are failing); F. The "culprits"
(parts 10 and 11 -- how our new, large institutions are destroying
the small, most basic institution of family); G. The "cure" (parts
12, 13, and 14 -- what you as a parent can do about it); and H.
The "case" (parts 15 and 16 -- a case for government and big corporations
to pay more positive attention).
Note: Today’s
column is unusually long because the false paradigms it discusses
are particularly devastating. Stay with us and next we will shift
to "the culprits."
Paradigm
Problems (how what we see becomes what we get)
Despite
the power and self-interest of the three outer rings, the family
should be able to resist their destructive influences. After all,
the natural bonds and self-preservation instincts of families are
strong and parents ought to be able to avoid or counter or repel
the destructive influences of larger institutions.
So why don’t
families have more resistance against the perils inflicted on them
by the three bigger, outer sections?
Because
we don’t fully see the danger! Oh, we’re aware
of some of the threats enough to give them names: materialism, misplaced
loyalties, amorality, wrong priorities . . . but we don’t see
our new world and its family-destructive forces accurately.
Our perspectives, our world- views, our paradigms have been
altered by the messages we receive from the very large institutions
that threaten us.
If a paradigm
-- or the way we see something -- is off or skewed, or blurred,
then we have a false perception of reality and we can fail to see
a danger or fail to see our own power or ability to solve a problem
or resist a threat. For example, if media convinces us that all
teenage kids get involved in early, recreational sex, we may give
up on trying to help our own kids avoid it. Or, if advertising converts
us to the paradigm that we need a bigger house or newer car more
than we need time with our kids, we may spend our time and effort
on the wrong things.
If we think
of the large institutions of the outer three rings are the germs
or bacteria that cause the illness of family breakdown,
which in turn brings the pain and symptoms of serious social
problems, then false paradigms could be thought of as an immune
system deficiency that renders families unable to fight off
family destruction and disintegration.
Paradigm
shifts
A near-sighted child puts on glasses for the first time and sees
a whole new world. A hologram shifts in the light and reveals a
completely different picture. An Australian aborigine returns from
a walkabout, and, unaware of appendectomy, assumes evil intent from
the recently arrived medical missionary who he finds cutting his
wife with a knife. The American public cheers the exposure of communist
sympathizers until McCarthyism is exposed as a witch hunt. The U.
S. ignores Nazism as an insignificant new German party until we
see Hitler’s goal of world domination and his massacre of Jews.
When
light or insight suddenly reveals recently obscure reality the world
can suddenly look very different. Light can become dark, bad can
change to good, whole world-views or paradigms can shift.
Paradigms
are more than perceptions. A paradigm is like a framework, a formula,
an equation. When it changes, conclusions change, circumstances
change, consciousness changes. "Paradigm" is a
heavy word -- it sounds ponderous -- and it is. A paradigm shift
is like an earthquake. A crust of earth slips -- the old crumbles
-- everything is altered.
People
are not as careful with their paradigms as they should be. We let
our world views be manipulated by media’s masquerade of majority.
We let advertising persuade us that we need what
we really only want. We let spin-doctors style our sense of what
someone said, or meant, or did.
Paradigms
are powerful (and dangerous) because they are starting points. If
they are unclear or inaccurate, so will be our conclusions, our
decisions, even our convictions. Incorrect and potentially dangerous
paradigms are sometimes born of simple ignorance or incomplete,
lazy thinking. But they are sometimes skillfully implanted in us
by those pursuing profit and power, or the simple company that misery
always seeks.
Procuring,
perfecting, and proclaiming proper paradigms is a little like planting
a new lawn. First, root out the bad grass wherever it lies, violently,
completely move it off the earth. Recognize it by holding alongside
the good grass just bought. Then implant the new, nurture the good
genuine green of things as they really are.
Paradigms
as Starting Points
A paradigm is like a filter on a lens -- it colors and alters everything
we see. A paradigm is like the map of a territory. If the map is
inaccurate, no amount of energy or tenacity can get us to where
we want to go.
The biblical
metaphor for a paradigm was old bottles which exploded when filled
with new wine. If we have old bottle paradigms, if we see the world
and ourselves inaccurately, we can’t handle new information
well; we’re less confident and sure of our convictions and
our abilities; and there is stress, a desperation, and fear of "mental
explosion" as we try to cope with it all.
For example,
think about the false paradigm of bloodletting. Since the problem
(or the cause of people’s health problems) was thought
to be bad blood -- bleeding or bloodletting was the widely accepted
"cure."
What happened
when it didn’t work (but the false paradigm was still in place,
not challenged, not replaced)? Well, better techniques were
proposed -- faster, better methods of bloodletting -- or more
of it. Better trained blood letters, perhaps, or better preparation
and education of patients, or more money spent on bloodletting facilities.
Maybe they re-engineered or restructured how they did it. Imagine
PMA training for blood letters so they could radiate positive energy
or team-building or total quality management practices.
But of course
nothing helped, because their paradigm was wrong. In the meantime,
there were clues suggesting some error in the prevailing medical
cause-and-effect thinking. In war, more men were dying behind the
lines in clinics than at the battle front itself. Infant mortality
was better when midwives delivered than when doctors did because
midwives were cleaner.
When Antone
Van Loewenhoek discovered germs, (the Dutchman called them
the "wee beasties") the paradigm changed -- and with it
everything changed -- causes, effects, prevention . . . everything
shifted. Progress became possible. The problem wasn’t with
the blood, and the core solution wasn’t even in the hospitals.
The solution was back in people’s personal lives -- cleanliness
in homes, in personal habits.
Now . .
. we look at social problems -- the problem, as the name implies,
is thought to be society. So we try to eliminate bad society
with tougher laws, or more police or bigger jails -- or we try to
fix society with more education or more welfare. We use all kinds
of techniques, behavioral methods.
In fact,
until the causes -- the "germ" of breaking families and
negative values -- are identified as the source and the home and
family is recognized as the place where cleaning and revaluing must
occur, we will be fighting windmills, wasting money, spinning our
wheels or worse.
Paradigms,
Attitudes, and Actions
Paradigms are incredibly important, because the way we see things,
and the framework within which we interpret or understand determines
what we think and how we think -- it creates our attitudes, it causes
our actions!
Think how
easily mistakes are made when we believe the wrong people or follow
the wrong examples . . . when we make false assumptions or follow
false paradigms:
• Good
techniques in mathematics wouldn’t help much if we proceeded
on the paradigm that two plus two equaled three.
• Proper
methods in chemistry wouldn’t work if we thought H3O2 was the
formula for water (it actually makes formaldehyde).
• A
parent’s effort to discourage aggression with a young teenager
would be undermined if the teen (or the parent) perceived, based
on TV and movies, that nearly everyone resolves differences with
violence.
• A
person trying to improve the important relationships of his life
might be distracted and lose focus as the world around him emphasizes
material accumulation and accomplishment over less measurable things
like the well-being of friendships or family bonds.
• We
might discount any idea or message that we need because the messenger
or presenter of it didn’t look right or sound politically correct.
• We
might conclude that today’s world is too complex and frantic
to allow for real peace and balance in life.
• We
might become persuaded (or allow ourselves to rationalize) that
other people -- or preschools or professionals -- can do a better
job of training our children than we can.
• We
might become convinced that good managers and intact families really
don’t exist anymore, that nearly everyone has sex outside of
marriage, or that children are too massive an economic and emotional
burden and thus lose both hope and effort in building committed
marriages and stable homes and raising good children.
• We
might believe that humans are inherently base or bad and that our
natural instincts are dark and selfish -- and we might become what
we believe we are.
• We
might conclude that we can truly own things and that accumulation
is the measure of happiness.
• We
might be conned into thinking that a positive attitude can solve
everything and that it is possible to plan and control all parts
of our lives.
• We
might conclude that there are no absolute evils . . . that ethics
are conditional.
All of these
are paradigm problems. They are deceptions based on inaccurate and
negative-consequence-producing paradigms.
Until the
incorrect paradigms are isolated, identified, exposed and expunged,
they will grip at us, influence us, deceive us, and undermine most
any intentions we have that run contrary to their gravity
Four Family-Affecting
Paradigms
There are four huge paradigm problems at large in our society today.
And each is far more sinister than it initially appears. We are
used to them, you see. They are all around us and everyone seems
to believe them . . . or at least allow them. They are also subtle
and gradual; they seem to have grown up with us. They are familiar
and comfortable. But in fact, they are traitors, they are lies,
and they carry with them huge power for real destruction.
Each was
created, directly and indirectly, sometimes on purpose and sometimes
inadvertently, by larger institutions bent on their own preservation,
growth, and profits.
1. The
paradigm problem of a media minority masquerading as a majority.
We
consume an enormous amount of media. Entertainment media (from music
to movies to television) fill several hours each day for most Americans.
We are exposed to hundreds of advertising impressions each day.
And we soak in news and information constantly from radio, TV, print,
and the Internet. Media literally surrounds us and permeates us.
Most entertainment
media represents itself as the reflection of typical
or majority life styles, values, and conduct. And news media poses
as the reporter and revealer of events, trends and opinions.
In fact,
however, media is more and more in the business of creating trends,
suggesting life styles, and remaking values and moral codes.
Media has
given a tiny and grossly nonrepresentative minority an enormously
disproportionate influence over the rest of us. In entertainment,
two or three hundred individuals (media executives, producers, directors,
moguls) influence virtually every movie or sit-com we see. Similar
disproportionate influence exists in the music we hear. And this
tiny "cultural elite" is widely removed from the American
mainstream. Most are far less oriented to family and considerably
less likely to be married, to attend church or profess belief in
God. They have far more money than typical Americans. Most live
jet set, materialistically-oriented lives, and they often disdain
and belittle traditional values. Yet they portray what they
produce as typical, as average, as mainstream. And they do it convincingly
enough that:
• A
Midwestern husband and father watches TV each night and begins to
think of himself as a boring, old-fashioned dinosaur -- one
of the few who hasn’t separated or divorced, doesn’t have
affairs, and actually likes to hang out at home.
• A
southern housewife watches the soaps, decides (at least subconsciously)
that her life is incredibly drab and unexciting and that she must
be the only woman in America who stays home with young children.
• A
California teenager listens to rap, goes to movies and feels increasingly
uncomfortable and out of step in being a virgin and not using drugs
or alcohol. The paradigm problem is also a blockade for her parents
who see their hopes for her continuing abstinence from drugs, alcohol,
and promiscuous sex as naive and unrealistic.
• A
New England professional man doesn’t want to be out of step
or behind the trends so he buys cars and clothes he can’t afford
to meet the expectations put on him by advertising.
• A
grandmother in the Southwest becomes both increasingly scared of
and increasingly desensitized to the violence that media shows her
to be the norm nearly everywhere. There don’t seem to be many
quiet, peace-loving people like herself anymore.
In reality
these people are the majority. Most Americans prioritize family
and relationships, have faith in God and traditional values, believe
in and practice fidelity in marriage and encourage chastity before
marriage, avoid drugs, try to live pretty much within their means,
and abhor violence and gangs. They even believe in and try to practice
discipline, self-reliance and delayed gratification, and try to
avoid excessive materialism and self-gratification. They would rather
see a movie about loyalty or dedication or the might of right than
one about violence, debauchery, or evil.
Whenever
a minority masquerades as a majority, the real majority is made
to feel like a minority. Too many of us in America have been made
to feel awkward and defensive about our life styles, about our values,
about our morality.
It is not
only the entertainment media that is involved in this deceptive
masquerade. Predominantly liberal (not only politically liberal
but morally liberal) decision makers dominate our news media. Too
often amoral beliefs and behavior is reported and depicted as mainstream
or "normal" and moral, conservative, values driven beliefs
and behavior is treated as fringe.
Statistics
are constantly interpreted by much of our media as evidence of a
"new morality"and the message is a subtle justification
of irresponsible and amoral personal behavior.
Nowhere is this
more prominent than in the family-undermining statistics we read
that suggests the "doomed" nature of most marriages and
the near-impossible costs and obligations associated with having
and raising a child. Half of all marriages, we read, end in divorce
-- and it will cost at least $300,000.00 to raise and educate a
child. And we’re reminded daily of the ever-increasing numbers
of children who have serious troubles with drugs, gangs, teen pregnancy,
school dropout, suicide. We read it and hear it and watch it broadcast
until it seems that the only safe course, the only logical decision,
is to steer clear of the land mines of marriage, family, and children.
In fact,
there is huge misinterpretation of statistics. There was one
year in which there were half as many divorces in America as there
were marriages, but there are far more married adults than single.
So the numbers do not mean that half of the marriages are ending
in divorce. In fact, over 80 percent of first marriages survive
until death. Nearly 85 percent of married people are still married
to their original marriage partner. And 90 percent of unmarried
adults say they want to be married and plan to be married.
And statistics
actually show that adults with children do better financially than
those without. Of course children cost money, but they can also
help and earn and become independent. And while it is hard to raise
kids today and many families are in trouble, it is, of course, still
possible to create strong families and raise successful children.
What a tragedy
it is when a false paradigm keeps people from life’s most joy-providing
experiences and roles and stewardships -- those of marriage, commitments,
children, and family.
As though
it weren’t enough to have such a small and untypical minority
holding such huge influence through the mainstream media, the paradigm
problem is further exacerbated by the fact that many of the things
most of us do believe in are being championed in media by people
who seem either so self-righteous or so little like us that we have
a hard time identifying with them.
A friend
recently said, "The people I cannot stand to watch or listen
to are television evangelists and right-wing radio and TV commentators.
"You
don’t like what they’re saying?" I asked.
"I don’t
even know what they’re saying," she answered. "They
are just so shrill and so self-righteous . . . and either so abrasive
or so syrupy smooth . . . that I just can’t stand them."
Why is it
that the conservative, values-oriented, family-centered, God-acknowledging
message which most of us agree with is so often delivered or represented
by people with personalities that polarize -- by people with whom
many can’t identify -- rednecks, egocentrics, extremists, even
intolerant and bigots? And why, on the other hand, are so many of
the liberal, politically-correct, and often anti-family-and-values
messages presented so appealingly by such appealing people?
The bottom-line
danger of this first false paradigm is this: When we perceive things
around us to be worse, less moral, and less hopeful than they really
are, we tend to give up, to cave in, to think, "If you can’t
beat them, join them." It’s the old ad-man gimmick of
"everyone’s doing it so why not you." The false paradigm
grows far beyond a simple misperception. We laugh and join in and
think we must be on the right train because everyone else is there.
But we’ve headed for a cliff.
Dangerous
Spinoff Notions from False Paradigm 1:
1.
"Everybody does it." (especially casual, recreational
sex)
2. Violence
is just part of the landscape and shouldn’t shock or disturb
us that much.
3. "Tolerance
is the prime virtue -- anything that anyone does is okay."
4. "Traditional
values and traditional families are out of date and old-fashioned."
5. "There
are no consequences."
6. "You’re
in touch, therefore, in tune."
7.
"We don’t create society’s values, we just reflect
them."
Discuss the
power of media. Someone has said, "Like earlier generations,
we look out at the world through glass rectangles. The differences
is, we turn ours on with a switch." How much does media influence
us? Does it give us an accurate picture of the world? Why are we
(and particularly our children) so inclined to believe what they
see on the big and small screen and to identify with what they hear
in the lyrics of popular music? Generally speaking, does the media
work for or against the values you want to teach your children?
2. The
paradigm problem of materialism (putting achievements above relationships
and of looking for external security rather than internal).
You don’t
hear of people on their deathbeds saying, "Oh, if only I’d
spent more time with the business." Most of our regrets and
our guilt comes from inadequate efforts on our relationships --
too little time with family. We acknowledge that relationships are
more important than achievements, but our actions are not congruent
with our beliefs.
This second
paradigm problem is related to the first. The masquerading minority
promotes materialism, encourages us to measure and judge by wealth,
position, comfort, social status, ownership. But it’s more
than that. We live in a world where profit is the bottom line, where
everything is explained in an economic model ("poverty causes
anti-social values" . . . actually it’s the other way
around). When we meet someone, the first question we ask is, "What
do you do?" Money (instead of being the means to worthy
ends like education, family, experience, and service to others)
becomes an end in itself.
This paradigm
problem also seems to have convinced us that our world is too complex
and demanding to allow real balance between work and family -- between
ambition and relaxation, between quantify and quality.
In actual
fact, we gravitate to achievements because they are easier
than relationships -- easier to obtain, to preserve, and to measure.
They are also less risky; they take less emotional energy.
Deep down
most of us know that the very concept of ownership (which
drives most of our "achieving") is flawed. We really don’t
own anything. Things pass through us. We are temporary stewards
over everything from our cars and houses to our children. An ownership
mentality always produces greed, envy, and jealousy on one hand
and pride, conceit, and condescension on the other. Yet we all seem
locked into the idea of wanting more.
Another
aspect of this paradigm problem is thinking that our sense of inadequate
safety is caused by gangs, violence, and by too little politics,
protection, and police -- and that it can be solved by more of them.
"Crime" is now the most frequent answer to the public
opinion survey question, "What is the biggest problem in America
today?" Most Americans feel terribly insecure and vulnerable.
The buffer of law and order that used to separate good, respectable
citizens from the elements of violence and fear has been permeated
and knocked down. So we campaign for external solutions -- more
police enforcing more laws, bigger prisons and tougher drug penalties.
We make our kids paranoid about strangers and we arm ourselves with
guns and mace and still we can’t recover the feeling of safety.
In fact,
the crime problem is caused by the breakdown of the families and
will be solved only by the revaluing of families and the inner recommitment
to values. Kids join gangs because they need a larger-than-self
identity and security that they don’t find in their dysfunctional
and inadequate homes. People use drugs to escape the reality of
crumbling or non-existent relationships. And violence erupts out
of the frustration of wrong expectations and failure at the things
that really matter.
The only
real personal security that exists -- that has ever existed -- comes
from within. We tend to realize this more when our external security
breaks down. The ‘90s is a great example. As institutions and
schools and neighborhoods help us less and less with raising our
kids, we look inward . . . and books like Bill Bennett’s Book
of Virtues and our Teaching Your Children Values
become #1 national best sellers. As we feel less and less safe externally,
we look for inner spiritual strength and security and books like
The Celestine Prophecy, Embraced by the Light, Care of
the Soul, Seat of the Soul, and Chicken Soup for the Soul
also become best sellers. Our own editors and publishers, who used
to say, "You’ve got to quit putting these references and
allusions to spirituality in your book," now are saying, "Can’t
you work in more references to the spiritual side?"
The error
of worldly paradigms looking to external achievements, wealth, or
security is always exposed in personal life . . . as individuals
achieve these external things and still find no inner peace or deep
satisfaction. But we need to acknowledge it before we spend a lifetime
figuring it out. We need to reject it early rather than later while
our lives (and the real joys) are still ahead of us.
Dangers
Spinoff Notions from False Paradigm 2:
1. "You
are your work."
2. "He
who dies with the most toys wins."
3. "Image
is everything."
4. "All
I want is the land next to mine."
5. "It
takes at least two full-time incomes to raise a family."
6. "You
deserve it before you earn it (instant gratification)."
7. "Have
it all."
8. "More
is better."
9. "It’s
impossible today to raise a child."
10. "Money
is the goal. Work is the purpose. Economics is the explanation."
11. Preschools
and day care give more to kids than parents can."
Discuss the
false paradigm and the dangerous obsession with materialism. How
does it hurt families? Why are achievements and relationships often
a tradeoff? Should we be more conscious of how much time
we have to give up in order to have more things? What is the predictable
result of short-changing relationships in favor of achievements?
Why do you think it is so hard to differentiate between what we
need and what we want? What forces are driving this false paradigm
of materialism?
3. The
paradigm problem of recreational sex, hedonism, and instant gratification.
Our society
somehow manages to glorify and debase sex at the same time -- both
falsely. Sex is portrayed and perceived as the ultimate pleasure,
the ultimate test of manhood or womanhood, the almost instant result
(and gratification) of any romantic encounter. Alternatively, it
is portrayed and perceived as cheap, casual, or violent.
This false
paradigm tells us that fidelity is rare in marriage and that chastity
is almost nonexistent prior to marriage. It implies that singles
and swingers have more sex (and enjoy it more) than people who are
monogamous and married. Furthermore, the paradigm implies that marriage
is boring, spells the end of romance, and causes people to take
each other for granted.
In reality
(in the true paradigm) things are very different. Over 80 percent
of married women and nearly as high a percentage of married men
have never had an extramarital affair. More than half of female
high school graduates are virgins. Married adults report more and
better sex than unmarried "swingers." (More quantity and
quality.) Marriage, when it is worked at and committed to, brings
the peace and security we all long for, and can produce a miraculous
kind of synergism where two people become more than the sum of their
parts. And romance of the mind and spirit -- courtship that saves
the physical union until the time of commitment and marriage --
still exist, still works -- still thrives. And the point
is, it would thrive more, and produce more joy for us all
if we could rid ourself of the false paradigm.
A connected
paradigm problem is that of personal discipline and conservative
values being perceived as constraints and freedom inhibitors.
A former
business partner of mine used to say, "If it feels good, do
it." He prided himself in living for the moment, having it
now, and holding no inhibitions.
Because of
my association with him I was particularly aware of how often his
philosophy was reinforced by media and by the prevailing
attitudes around me. I noticed how often ministers or preachers
were portrayed on TV or in the movies as out-of-touch, uptight fuddy-duddies,
or as hypocrites -- how often her heros were wild rebels, liberal
carousers, or big-hearted whores.
Too often
in this paradigm, nice guys finish last -- or are not even in the
race; people live or behave irresponsibly without consequences;
and standards, from religious commandments to committed personal
values, are seen as chains that bind people down and take away their
freedom to act, to express themselves, to fully live.
Actually,
of course, the precise opposite is true. Irresponsibility and instant
gratification always have their consequences and immoral and amoral
behavior always hurts people -- and ultimately hurt their practitioner.
And the consequences and the hurts are what rob people of the freedom
to fully live and to find their best selves.
The fundamental
problem with the false paradigm of hedonism, as with each of the
others, is that it is a lie and it actually takes from us the very
freedom that it promises to give.
Perhaps
the essential difference between humans and animals is that animals
achieve their purpose and potential by following and being controlled
their instincts and appetites. People on the other hand, achieve
their full purpose and highest potential by controlling and governing
their appetites. Whether the appetite is for food, sex, power, wealth,
or achievement . . . happiness comes through control and discipline.
Spiritually,
inwardly, we know this is true, yet it is so much easier to let
the appetite win. And in today’s false paradigm, appetite is
tied to excitement and fulfillment while values (which are essentially
appetite controls) are thought of as boring and old-fashioned.
Dangerous
Spinoffs Notions from False Paradigm 3:
1. "What
I do in my private life only affects me."
2. "If
it feels good, do it."
3. "Nice
guys finish last."
4. "Affairs
are the norm, teen sex is the norm."
5. "Sex
is recreation."
6. "You
owe yourself."
Discuss the
relationship between self-discipline and freedom. Are we ultimately
more free when we give in to our appetites or when we discipline
them? Do you agree with the statement, "Animals become all
they can be by following their appetites. Humans become all they
can be by controlling their appetities." In what ways do you
think early, casual, recreational sex is more dangerous today than
it was a generation ago?
4. The
paradigm problem of conditional or situational ethics and the oxymoron
of "self- help" (relying on the "reality" of
the physical, the practical, the psychological and the philosophical
rather than the spiritual).
Conditional
ethics, values-neutral education and a host of other confusing and
pain- producing notions spring from our efforts to explain and deal
with our world without acknowledging inherent, self-manifesting
good and evil.
And while
it may not be politically correct to reference belief in God or
in the devil, most Americans do believe in both. And the experience
of the ages and the logic of our minds tell us that certain core
values -- honesty, responsibility, fidelity, respect, basic kindness
-- are essential to the survival of a society and of its essential
institutions, down to and including the family.
While we
were writing our book Teaching Your Children Values, we were
confronted more than once by media interviews who demanded, "Well,
whose values is your book going to advocate?" The implication
was that there is some huge pot full of values and each of us selects
our own by individual preference. We had answers to these questions
because we’d done our homework. As we wrote the book we solicited
input from large numbers of parents with diverse backgrounds from
all over the world. The bottom line is simple: Virtually everyone
shares certain basic and universal values and wants those values
to be enhanced by their children. Based on the feedback we received
(the basic question was, "What values do you want most to develop
within your children?") we included twelve values in our book:
1. Honesty, 2. Courage, 3. peaceability, 4. Self-reliance, 5. Self-discipline
and Moderation, 6. Fidelity and Commitment, 7. Respect, 8. Loyalty,
9. Kindness and Friendliness, 10. Unselfishness and Sensitivity,
11. Love, 12. Justice and Mercy.
The
essence of this fourth paradigm problem is that while almost everyone
pays lip service to these values, we apply them selectively
and sporadically -- and our larger institutions often encourage
their compromise. For example:
• Easy
credit undermines self-discipline.
• Erratic
welfare systems erode self-reliance.
• Merchandising/advertising
downplay balance and delayed gratification.
• Complex
tax codes encourage dishonesty.
• Macho
attitudes and media violence contradict peaceability.
• Media
and merchandising induced trends and peer pressure undermine kids’
courage to be themselves and follow their own standards.
• Loyalty
to family is replaced by economically mandated loyalty to job.
• Respect
and unselfishness are replaced by the exploitation and expediency
it takes to get ahead.
• Kindness
and friendliness are knocked out of us by suspicion and fear.
• Media
amorality and the glamorization of stereotypes of recreational sex
discourage fidelity and chastity.
• Self-help
and pop psychology emphasize self-fulfillment and strategy at the
expense of love and mercy.
As
the stress and complexity of daily life has increased over the last
half century, the two recurring "solutions" thrown at
us by our pop culture and our self-help writers and speakers have
been: 1. Positive mental attitude, and 2. Time management.
"You can do anything," goes the P.M.A. thesis. "Every
day in every way you are getting better and better!" "Where
you think you can or think you can’t you’re right!"
"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can
achieve." The time-management solution tells us to plan everything,
control everything, "act, don’t react." "Never
be surprised." "Live by your list." Both notions
are comforting -- and motivating -- but neither one is completely
true and in the long run, both set us up for a fall. The fact is
that we can’t do everything -- we’re actually pretty
limited in what we can do on our own, and -- sorry -- we just don’t
get better every day in every way. As much as we might like to control
everything, plan everything, and never be surprised, life doesn’t
work that way. The only truly predictable thing is unpredictability.
In fact,
it is our human inadequacies can make us humble, faith-filled, and
ultimately powerful through a higher power. And the surprises, opportunities,
and unplannable, spontaneous "serendipities" are what
makes life interesting and entertaining. Family life, especially,
doesn’t work in a predictable, scheduled, always positive way.
When a child needs help or has a question at an inconvenient moment,
we can’t "pencil him in" on another day. Families
have ups and downs; they test the extremes of our emotions in both
directions.
This paradigm
problem of "self-help" is more than a matter of applying
the wrong techniques. It is a problem of false realities. When we
think of the spiritual as less real than the physical, of impressions
as less reliable than sensory evidence, of guidance and inspiration
as something exclusive to monks or gurus, of spirituality as a less
important "science" than psychology or philosophy . .
. when we make these paradigm mistakes we give up what is most real
within us. As Chardin said, "We are not human beings having
a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience."
Trying to
explain everything physically and empirically is actually a phenomenon
just of the last couple of centuries. Before that, most perspectives
and explanations were spiritual. In the renaissance, science and
"enlightenment" became a temporal alternative to excessive
religious power and unsatisfying, simplistic spiritual explanations.
Today, more and more of us see the inadequacy and shallowness of
the secular, "scientific" explanation, and we look ever
deeper at the spiritual.
Very few
of us, deep down, want to be a "material girl" or a material
guy. Our desires are spiritual and our finest hours often come in
the enlightenment and courage of faith rather than the limited and
fearful insistence on self-reliance.
Ultimately,
"self help" (in the psychological or the scientific sense)
is an oxymoron. We can work to be our best, we hold within us powers
of self-improvement. But to truly lift to another level, to go beyond
our very finite and limited abilities, to see realities that are
beyond our senses -- for these we need non-self help -- we need
help from a higher source, from a spiritual source, from God.
Simply acknowledging
this, simply releasing the false paradigm of one-dimensional self-
help and self-reliance, liberates us and lifts a weight from our
heads. It is less empowering to say, "I can do anything,"
than to say, "I can do very little by myself, but I have faith
in a higher, stronger, better power that can guide and illuminate
and help."
Take a look
around the self-help section of a big bookstore sometime. The majority
of the titles focus on some aspect of the three things all of us
seem to be looking for these days:
1. Control
2. Ownership
3. Independence
Each of
these accepted (and almost worshiped) pursuits constitutes part
of a serious false paradigm.
1. While
we should certainly try to control some things (our temper, our
check book balance, our various appetites), attempts to control
all of our circumstances and all of the people around us result
in frustration and in the destruction of relationships and of families.
To a person of faith, the goal should be guidance rather
than control. Indeed, the central tenant of all religions is to
put God’s will above our own and to acknowledge God’s
control. Seeking divine will always leads us to prioritize values
and family whereas following our own desires for power and control
often leads us away.
2. Ownership
may be a good and necessary economic paradigm in free market politics,
but it is a disastrous spiritual paradigm in families. Ownership
and the desire for things turns our hearts away from family.
First of all, materialism and the "all I want is the land next
to mine" mentality sucks away time and attention from families.
Second, parents who live in this paradigm often begin to think of
their children (and their spouse) as their property, thus
treating family members with less respect and less nurturing.
3. Independence
too, is nice politically but disastrous spiritually. "I’m
on my own," and "I can do it alone," can become presumptuous
and even atheistic comments. We need food, we in actual fact are
completely interdependent. We need each other. No man is an island.
We need our families and they need us. We need faith and we need
God.
Dangerous
Spinoff Notions from False Paradigm 4:
1. Conditional
(changing) ethics.
2. "Values
neutral education."
3. Poverty
causes the destruction of values (rather than the reverse).
4. "I
can do anything I want and have anything I want."
5. "I
am number one."
6. "All
of my problems are emotional and mental, not spiritual."
7. "You
need professional expertise to teach kids."
8. "Religion
is self-serving and self-righteous."
9. "We
can understand and explain everything."
10. There
is no ultimate source of good or of evil. No God, no culprits.
Discuss
the question of absolutes. Do you believe some things are absolutely
and always wrong (or right)? Are there some basic, universal values
that never change and that are good in all places at all times?
What do you think about the three most popular self-help themes
of today (control, ownership, and independence)? Are they always
good? Can they be carried to success? Are there spiritual principles
and spiritual help that can ultimately give us more help than any
help we can give ourselves.
Summary
of Cause
They are doing it by replacement, by false paradigms, and by "sins
of omission and commission." . . . They are doing it with and
without thought, purposefully and accidentally. . . . Our large,
new institutions are disrupting and destroying our smallest, oldest
institution.
As Sylvia
Ann Hewett and Cornel West put it in their book The War Against
Parents:
.
. . This (the erosion of the parental role) is happening not because
parents are less devoted than they used to be. They do not love
their children less. The truth is, the whole world is pitted against
them. One of the best-kept secrets of the last thirty years is
that big business, government, and the wider culture have waged
a silent war against parents, undermining the work that they do.
Some of the hostility has been inadvertent, and some of it has
been deliberate. But whatever forces are responsible for the war
against parents, one thing is for sure: parents have been left
twisting in the wind by a society intent on other agendas.
Before
we can curtail, counter, or challenge what our welfare and our larger
institutions are doing to our families, we must know -- really know
-- who and what these institutions are. We must identify and understand
the culprits.
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© 2001 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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