The Myth of Normal 170

The problem originates in how children are raised in the bosom of the modern family, itself a microcosmic representative of the culture. “The family,” Erich Fromm pointed out, “has the function of transmitting the requirements of society to the growing child.” It does so in all the ways we examined in our chapters on child development. The social character is seeded when children are deprived of breastfeeding; when their Natureimbued expectations for being held are frustrated; when they are left alone to “cry it out”; when they are compelled to repress their feelings; when they are programmed to fit in with the expectations of others; when they are denied spontaneous free play; when they are “disciplined” by punitive measures such as “time-out” techniques that threaten them with the loss of what they most crave—unconditional positive acceptance; when they are denied a connection with Nature. These all contribute to the inner emptiness, the void that addictions and covetous compulsions will later attempt to fill, even as our independent spirit is subjugated to the demands of an imbalanced, materialist culture. How lovely it would be if the democratic ideal of “we, the people” creating the society in which we wish to live were true. It’s certainly a dream worth pursuing. But believing in it is not nearly enough. It will not and cannot come to pass until we reckon squarely with how things are today: it is we who are made in the image of our distorted, disordered, denatured world —the better to keep it running, even as it runs us into the ground.