then specify ahead of time what are conditions under
which alkies’ family members are to look at themselves instead of blaming the
alkies.
And the same goes for the self-responsibility that all
those devastated Americans are expected to show for their own problems. If
cognitive therapists are going to treat a depressed person as if he’s letting
his own problem bother him too much, then these cognitive therapists had better
specify ahead of time what are the conditions under which they’d treat someone
as letting his own problems bother him too much. Would these cognitive
therapists simply figure that no matter what your problem is, you’d be most
likely to succeed if you stopped blaming others and looked at yourself, and that
includes choosing not letting your problem bother you? As Dr. David Burns
wrote in Feeling Good, “There is no such thing as a universally accepted
concept of fairness and justice. There is an undeniable relativity of
fairness, just as Einstein showed the relativity of time and space....
Here’s proof: When a lion devours a sheep, is this unfair? From the point
of view of the sheep, it is unfair, he’s being viciously and intentionally
murdered with no provocation,” and any cognitive therapist could work under the
assumption that any victim would feel better if he minimized others’ moral
responsibility like this. If, on the other hand, any cognitive therapist
wrote an actuarial test for resentment, which included, “Any awareness that what
was done to him was unfair or morally wrong,” that would have the effect of
explicitly putting this headgame into words.
No one in my codependency group said that they had any
desire to nurture, to live a melodrama, to be a martyr, etc. In fact, all
of the problem partners who the women in my group described, had the sort of
exploitive attitude that the man on the recent cover of Women Who Love too
Much, seems to have,
rather than being addicted to anything, or having any
other problem that could be called a disease that he’s powerless against,
so he’s basically not guilty by reason of insanity. According to the
zeitgeist of The Serenity Prayer, the only question that anyone faced with a
problem can legitimately take seriously about it, is, “Can I change this?”
No matter how much a woman’s husband isn’t powerless over his own behavior
that’s causing her big problems, she’d be just as powerless to change it.
Therefore, she’d have to serenely accept it exactly as she’d have to serenely
accept the symptoms of addiction.
Even if a self-help authority treated women as
codependent only if they seem to have subconsciously “let themselves in for
trouble,” this would entail all the conjecture that must come from assuming any
subconscious motivations. If you figure that the wife of a problem man
must have subconsciously “let herself in for trouble,” even thought
consciously she keeps wishing and hoping that he’ll change, that’s quite
an assumption.
For example, let’s take the attractiveness of Anthony
Mercieca, that perv-priest who molested Mark Foley when he was a teen. A
Miami Herald Tribune article said about a friend of Foley’s when he was a
kid, another altar boy, “He said Mercieca was one of his favorite priests and
hoped he was not the man who assaulted Foley,” and that this former altar boy
said, “My confirmation name was Antonio; that was because of him.” He
clearly made an effort to teach the boys constructive things, but also, to these
boys, he must have seemed to have an attractive personality. Well, here’s
Mercieca’s official archdiocese photo from when he was younger:
Frankly, that look in his eyes looks pretty vampirish to
me, especially when you’d consider that for a photo like this, he’d want to look
pious. Frankly, if a woman found attractive someone who, at times, had
that look in his eyes, that would seem to be a textbook case of someone “letting
herself in for trouble” by partnering herself with a man who, intuitively, would
come across as dangerous. Sure, just because one’s intuition would flinch
at someone with that look in his eyes, doesn’t prove that he means
trouble. Frankly, I’d also imagine that to many people male and female,
the look in Mercieca’s eyes wouldn’t look vampirish, so their intuitions would
have felt just fine with him.
Yet when Mercieca defended his molestation
of Foley, he said, “It was just fondling,” though now anyone who doesn’t have
an aberrant lack of a sense of the consequences of his own behavior, would
know how damaging an adult “fondling” a minor is. In fact, this has the
level of obliviousness that John Haslam, in 1809, described in On Madness and
Melancholy, “The slighter shades of this disease [insanity] include
eccentricity, low spirits, and oftentimes a fatal tendency to immoral habits,
notwithstanding the inculcation of the most correct precepts, and the force of
virtuous example.” Or, in less Victorian-sounding language, the person is
as oblivious of the wrongness of his own wrong behavior, as would be someone
considerably under the influence of booze.
A woman’s intuition might flinch when she sees a
possible lover with that look in his eyes, yet she ignores her intuition and
partners herself with him anyway. As Schopenhauer wrote in The World as
Will and Representation, “Women can have remarkable talent, but not genius,
for they always remain subjective,” so women’s intuition could be condemned as
unreliable. If he then caused her trouble, she’d be accused of partnering
herself with a guy who she knew was trouble! If a woman does trust
her intuition she’d seem subjective, and if she doesn’t she’d seem masochistic.
Figures. Of course, discussions about what’s wrong with the destructive
men wouldn’t attribute attributes to them, but it would seem too pushy and
self-righteous to wish and hope that they’d change. Figures.
Intuiting something about someone’s destructive
tendencies, from the look in his eyes, hardly constitutes knowledge!
Yet that’s pretty much what the victim-blaming of codependency theory has to be
based on. There’s no way that these women really could know that
the men are trouble. The women could only get an intuitive impression.
Yet realists would then insist that though the ethics of psychologists say
explicitly that for them to use unscientific logic would be unethical, survival
skills must take heed even about dangers that can’t be proven scientifically.
Sure, one can’t state with scientific certainty either that a vampirish look in
the eyes means trouble, or that anyone has certain subconscious desires.
Yet when it comes to psychologists helping clients rid their lives of dangers,
whether these dangers be possible lovers or possible masochistic subconscious
tendencies inside themselves, one could argue that we couldn’t afford to require
scientific certainty. The women could be victim-blamed, and if you
responded by saying, “Prove it!”, you’d be told that we can’t afford to ignore
dangers like this that seem likely (to those who allege codependency), but can’t
be proven. And, of course, those altar boys who thought that Mercieca
looked like a lot of fun (without knowing about his molestations), wouldn’t seem
masochistic, since they’re not the women who’d be at such guys’ mercies.
As I listened to my codependency group’s logic of “Self-Determination
through Fight or Flight,” I couldn’t help but remember all the chronically
depressed guys I knew in college, and the guilt feelings they tended to have.
Sure, they grew up in authoritarian religious homes, and the guilt feelings
tended to concern moral guilt. The sort of self-responsibility that
was de rigueur in that codependency group, involved response-ability for
one’s own welfare even when others were clearly morally responsible. And
these women didn’t say anything about feeling shame. Yet it still seemed
clear to me that depression really should have nothing to do with
victim-self-blaming. The only reason why so many of those around me would
consistently have this obviously unnatural tendency, is that our cultural norms
must have caused this. These must be the same self-responsible cultural
norms that that codependency support group insisted on.
Soon after I attended that group, I read, in Dr. Mark S.
Gold’s The Good News About Depression, copyright 1986,
For example, guilt as a symptom
of depression appears to be a Western phenomenon. Kraepelin [in the 19th
Century] observed that his Japanese patients were neither guilt-ridden nor
suicidal. According to a more recent study, developing cultures tend to
emphasize physical symptoms. Asian cultures generally do not reveal their
feelings. A study of Hawaii’s ethnic groups showed that depressed Japanese
showed more suspiciousness, Caucasians more helplessness.
As soon as I read that, I realized that my intuition
about the cultural basis of the self-responsibility that I heard preached at me
in that codependency, was right on the money! After all, self-help,
especially that concerning addicts and their interpersonal relationships, would
have to have been heavily influenced by the zeitgeist of Twelve-Step groups.
That would have to mean, “God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as a
pathway to peace; Taking as Jesus did this sinful world as it is not as I would
have it; Trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your
will; So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with
You forever in the next—Amen.” This concept of
who’s personally responsible for what, doesn’t have to lead to feelings
of shame, especially suicidal ones. Yet if a codependency group is all
about not looking for members’ tendencies to “let themselves in for trouble,”
but achieving self-determination by fighting back or getting out of the way
whenever those who are morally responsible cause the problems, then this concept
of “personal responsibility” is very likely to lead to guilt feelings.
After all, each of these women, as she deals with their
problem husband, would have to figure that she’s personally responsible
for changing or accepting whatever she must. If she isn’t adequate to do
this, loses the battle, fails, and comes up short with big consequences, she’d seem
to be an irresponsible and inadequate, loser and failure with very consequential
shortcomings. If she doesn’t adjust to this, adapt to it, function with it,
fit in with it, and feel content with it, she’d seem to be a maladjusted
maladaptive and dysfunctional, misfit and malcontent. How else could a
society determine how good is good enough? The more that others
would cause her problems, the more that it would seem that she’d better
courageously change what she can (herself), and serenely accept what she can’t
(those who cause the problems).
hen I attended a group for those labeled codependent, I thought that its slogan should have been “Self-Determination through Fight or Flight.” The discussions in the group consisted of the members congratulating each other for, again and again, winning their self-determination by physically fighting back (not violently, just actively rather than verbally), or physically making themselves or their property invulnerable. Defining “personal responsibility” as personal response-ability was said to strengthen victims, making victimized women liberated, though in the long term what we end up with could be called Stepford Victims, victims who serenely accept just as unquestioningly as do Stepford Wives. If they acted like untermenschen, they’d seem scary. Victims are to accept unconditionally, personal response-ability and the results of contests of power which they don’t have the power to change. Any protests would receive such labels as “manipulation,” “excuse-making,” “playing the victim role,” and “self-defeating.” As I listened to these discussions, the mental picture that I kept getting is of masses of people on treadmills, running and running and running and running, plenty of good old fashioned American action and resolve, without getting anywhere.
