A Society Run by Half-Adults: Robert Bly's SIBLING SOCIETY (2) available as an abridged reading/audiobook
In a sibling society, science and ethics don’t matter anymore because we lack a modicum of adults who understand science, and most people are just looking out for themselves and their niche interests
As I recently mentioned (Feb3, linked below) Robert Bly's SIBLING SOCIETY is among my most cherished books and one of very few that have kept safe during numerous national and international relocations since 1996; the book is descriptive of our major social problems and also predictive of how bad things can get when nonadult values come to dominate society, resulting in what appears to be a free-for-all food fight. In a sibling society run by half-adults, science and ethics don’t matter anymore because we lack a modicum of adults who understand science, and most people are just looking out for themselves and their niche interests, respectively.
Where have all the grownups gone? In answering that question with the same freewheeling erudition and intuitive brilliance that made Iron John a national bestseller, poet, storyteller and translator Robert Bly tells us that we live in a "sibling society," in which adults have regressed into adolescence and adolescents refuse to grow up.
The “sibling society” is Bly’s metaphor for a world where “adults regress toward adolescence” and “adolescents . . . have no desire to become adults”; where admiration for elders has disappeared, tradition has eroded, ancestors have been forgotten; where the family is being destroyed everywhere, by everyone; where children’s brains are addled by day-care and TV; where adolescents, lost and self-destructive, dwell in bastions of boredom called high schools; where parents, particularly fathers, have abdicated their archetypal roles; where mass culture provides not elders but movies about infantile “grumpy old men”; and where respect for ancient myths and tribal ritual has been replaced by the cynical self-centeredness of “do your own thing.” https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-15-bk-43980-story.html
A tragedy has been that the book was never made available as an author-read audiobook, but I recently found an independently produced abridged audio version, which I have linked/provided here:
Alex, Thank you for all of your work. I try to share it where I feel it won’t fall on deaf ears. The prevalence of intellectual laziness is astounding. You are a warrior. A Morpheus in our “Matrix”.