The Sibling Society

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Robert Bly
Publisher:	Vintage
Release date:	27 May, 1997
List price:	~~$14.00~~
Our price:	$11.20 that is 20% off!

The Sibling Society

Average rating: Stars

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, created by the clinically insane over-focus on Bush's National Guard service (which we know was exploited for his selfish ends, and his selfish ends alone). The rumor is that the stories of failure to serve are true, but the documents passed to CBS in September were fakes created by Karl Rove deliberately as a double-cross, created strictly to discredit CBS and the opposition.

When this rumor emerged, it was as if a very large segment, as large as the Ross ice Shelf, broke off never to rejoin our structures of trust and belief.

The stunt is precisely the sort of games siblings play. Precisely the sort of nonsense that occured between my own children which I wearily tried to forestall after 14 hour shifts and long-distance: for a Sibling Society hates parents and punishes parents, from welfare mothers to divorced dads, for the crime of having sex.

In a Sibling Society, siblings recognize that they have been cast into Bly's Euclidian hell in which in a post-human fashion, their ability to use language has been destroyed (as a Kant would have predicted) by systematic use of language and (in the hate-filled sneering of talk radio) "reason" to lie and to cover up.

The previous poster calls the book an "over-generalization", a favorite phrase of my generation. Seemingly so neutral, responsible, and academic, the phrase in actual use is a post-human phrase because out ability to create "generalizations" is what makes us human.

The horror is complete. Bush will be re-elected to the outrage and despair of the rest of the world, and, shortly after the election, a massive terrorist event will occur. The Bush administration (like any Elder Brother left in charge by alcoholic parents) will do nothing to stop the horror, which it will take a Steven King to recount, assuming there's anything left.

But Steven King doesn't really narrate the deepest structures which have led America to her tragic predicament, whereas Robert Bly does.

He knows why the "sixties" so quickly curdled, in a few short years, from genuine hope to Altamont and vicious cults. Western society has lost its soul.

The Sibling Society - Robert Bly

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.

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.

Robert Bly - The Sibling Society

Bly's On Fire!

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.

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