In his phenomenal bestseller, Iron John, Robert Bly captivated the nation with the wisdom embedded in a thousand-year-old fairy tale, creating both a cultural movement and publishing history.Now, in Silbling Society, Bly turns to stories as unexpected as Jack and the Beanstalk and the Hindu tale of the Ganesha to illustrate and illuminated the troubled soul of our nation itself. What he shows us is a culture where adults remain children, and where children have no desire to become adults--a nation of squabbling siblings.Through his use of poetry and myth, Bly takes us beyond the sociological statistics and tired psychobabble to see our dilemma afresh. In this sibling culture that he describes, we tolerate no one above us and have no concern for anyone below us. Like sullen teenagers, we live in our peer group, glancing side to side, rather than upward, for direction. We have brought down all forms of hierarchy because hierarchy is based on power, often abused. Yet with that leveling we have also destroyed any willingness to look up or down. Without that "verticle gaze," as Bly calls it, we have no longing for the good, no deep understanding of evil. We shy away from great triumphs and deep sorrow. We have no elders and no children; no past and no future. What we are left with is spiritual flatness. The talk show replaces family. Instead of art we have the Internet. In place of community we have the mall.By drawing upon such magnificent spirits as Pablo Neruda, Rumi, Emily Dickenson, and Ortega y Gasset, Bly manages to show us the beautiful possibilities of human existence, even as he shows us the harshest truths. Still, his probing is deeper and more unsettling than the usual cultural criticism. He finds that our economy's stimulation of adolescent envy and greed has changed us fundamentally. The Superego that once demanded high standards in our work and in our ethics no longer demands that we be good but merely "famous," bathed in the warm glow of superficial attention. Driven by this insatiable need, and with no guidance toward the discipline required for genuine accomplishment, our young people are defeated before they begin.It is the young and disenfranchised who are most victimized by the sibling culture, our children and out elders and those marked as "not us" by race and economic circumstance. In a phrase common to the ancient stories Bly uses to illustrate his themes, it is these people who we all to easily "throw out the window," but it is also these disenfranchised who will be waiting for us on the road ahead to claim their due.A wake-up call, an inspiration, brilliantly original, The Sibling Society will capture the imagination and enliven our nation's cultural debate as no other book in years.
Poet and storyteller Robert Bly takes the baby boomers to task in this highly charged exposure of midlifers' values. Having become jaded by the abuses of authority, the boomers of North America have torn down the traditional hierarchy within their families and within their communities. What's left is a "cultural flatness," says Bly, where adults cling to self-absorbed adolescent values, television talk shows have more clout than elders, children are spiritually abandoned to fend for themselves, and in the place of community we have built shopping malls. As always, Bly relies on mythology, legends, and poetry to illustrate the morals of his stories. Ultimately this is a hopeful piece of work, nudging midlifers to take on the responsibilities (and therefore the rewards) of adulthood.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
If the Metaphor Fits, Don't Wear It:
Just the title alone inspired me with many observations on modern society, in which no one wants to be/respect the authority figure, we all collaborate instead of taking orders from anyone, there is no right or wrong, only "your truth" and "my truth," and the most important thing is for everyone to be self-actualized. However once I began reading the book I found it to be somewhat rambling and unfocused, with many allusions to various myths, straining to fit them into preconceived interpretations to... more info
Are We Squandering the Nation's Bounties?:
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... more info
Now more than ever:
Bly's prophesies of ten years ago, in this book, have come true. America is a mob of frightened children being systematically taken advantage of by precisely the sort of uncaring Elder Brothers named in this book. Like an uncaring Elder Brother, the Bush administration will do anything it can to get elected, including lie so systematically (as does the sibling in the absence of an adult narrative) that the ecology of truth itself breaks up. Maureed Dowd recently passed on a mere rumor,... more info
A Commentary on The Way It Is:
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.
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