| Book Review The Sibling Society - Robert Bly Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. l996 240 pages 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. -Barbara Spring ================================================================= have you read a good (or bad) book lately? We'd like to publish your review... on-line and in print... write or email us... |
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