Overview
In The Sibling Society, Bly turns to stories as unexpected as Jack and the Beanstalk and the Hindu tale of Ganesha to illustrate and illuminate 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 "vertical 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 the place of community we have the mall. By drawing upon such magnificent spirits as Pablo Neruda, Rumi, Emily Dickinson, and Ortega y Gassett, 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.Editorials
Walter Goodman
Mr. Bly is an accomplished storyteller, and his affection for the tales of many peoples over many centuries can be catching. But when it comes to the contemporary condition, his propheteering arias seem as out of control as the nafs....No, don't throw his book out the window. At least read the fairy tales. ''The Sibling Society'' is by turns engaging and exasperating, suggestive and tendentious, a mix of imagination, scholarship and remarkable silliness. Although he announces, in his take-no-prisoners way, ''Television is the thalidomide of the 1990's,'' I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Bly showed up on PBS again soon. -- New York TimesKirkus Reviews
Following Iron John's (1990) mythopoetic men's-movement guide, Bly's new jeremiad turns to broader issues of children and parents, excoriating the modern world as an adolescent culture lacking parental supervision.Bly's "sibling society," formed by "junk culture . . . early and shallow sexuality, destruction of courtesy . . . economic uncertainty," sacrifices mythic symbols for literal information, with children the first victims of this denatured environment. "Adults," Bly writes, "regress toward adolescence; and adolescents—seeing that—have no desire to become adults." This tattered society is, he suggests, the puerile heir to the overthrown, emotionally bankrupt patriarchy. Bly, playing at punditry, predicts a catastrophic downward shift in values unless we identify the proper way to rear children and unless we "half- adults" become truly mature. He salts his call to action with citations from New York Times articles and sundry statistics on education, crime, and the economy. In fact, The Sibling Society often sounds more like Bob Dole, Anna Quindlen, or even Ross Perot than Iron John. As in that earlier work Bly turns to myths and poetry both to illustrate our predicament (an elaborate reading of Jack and the Beanstalk focusing on the Giant's ungoverned appetite) and to suggest an alternative model for father-son relations (the Hindu myth of Ganesha's creation). Bly also liberally borrows from feminists, such as Jean Baker Miller and Mary Pipher, to fashion his vision of a healthy environment for maturation and intimacy, for fathers and mothers, daughters and sons alike. There are stops along the way to settle scores with radical feminists and the cowboy cult of inarticulately stoic masculinity, among others. Bly, having identified what children need—"Stability . . . advice, good psychic food, unpolluted stories," as well as clear rites of passage and access to the great outdoors—offers some specifics on how we should go about providing these necessities.
Urgent, impassioned, with (potentially) wide appeal, but Bly's myth-patterns jar with his newly adopted news-magazine style of statistics and commentary.