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In a crooked society, the interests of the individual are higher than the interests of society. In a decent society, the interests of society are higher than personal interests.
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The relationship between the individual and society is complex. On the one hand, if there were no society, there would be no personality. Society is the soil on which each specific person grew up, the source of his strength, mind, education and culture. However, society has its own laws and is not always focused on the interests of a particular person. As a result, there can be conflicts between the society and the individual.
The individual wants his own, but society does not care about this. Moreover, the society represented by teachers, the police and adults in general often make demands on a particular person in a strict form.
Turned seven years old — go to school. Don’t make noise in class, but listen to the teacher. Cross the road — only on the green light … »
Cheerful children simply call it life and enjoy learning what is useful to them. Lazy children tend to see this as an imposition and pretend to suffer in order to be left behind.
Psychoanalytic psychologists are usually convinced that the society is always hostile to the individual (personality) and impose their attitudes on him. Similar attitudes are usually broadcast by psychologists of the Gestalt approach. The consequence of such an attitude is to instill in people an uncritically hostile attitude towards social attitudes and to increase the clientele of psychotherapists.
Adults are enemies, do not obey adults!
The setting “Adults are enemies, do not obey adults!” — a kind of belief about the hostility of society and the individual. The consequences of its distribution are similar.
Psychological literature often tells that when parents guide their children about their future, they usually impose on them what they themselves could not realize in their lives, thereby solving their problems at the expense of children. Yes, it happens. It happens not at all, and setting children up against those balanced recommendations that a child can hear from loving parents seems to be the wrong position.
Curiously, Eric Berne’s Parent-Adult-Child schema usually describes the Child in the warmest terms as a source of spontaneity and creativity. The Adult is a dry rational machine, the Parent is a frown pressing tone.
I quote: “In many ways, the Child is one of the most valuable components of the personality, as it brings to a person’s life what a real child brings to family life: joy, creativity and charm. The Child is a source of intuition, creativity, spontaneous impulses and joy” (negative descriptions of the position of the Child are more often attributed not to the natural, but to the child reacting to adults) , foot stomping, hands on hips, arms crossed on chest, tongue clicking, stroking another on the head, etc. Words and expressions: “Always”, “Never”, “How many times have I told you”, “Remember times and forever”, “I would be in your place ..”, the words: stupid, capricious, ridiculous, disgusting, darling, cutie, well, enough, must, should, must” — Ian Stewart, Vann Joines. Modern transactional analysis. Socio-psychological center, St. Petersburg, 1996.
It is possible that patients came to Bern mainly with such a personal history, but to broadcast such attitudes to Adults and Parents, presenting them as negative antipodes of the wonderful position of the Child, is hardly correct.
From a letter from N.I. Kozlova, a student at the University of Practical Psychology
«The society puts forward quite strict and specific requirements for the child: you need to be strong, patient, not interfering. He gives a hard lesson to those who stick out: misunderstanding, ignoring, breaking contacts, rejection«. Is our university also such a society? I strictly and specifically demand from you and will demand: develop, think, do not be lazy. Maybe for you to be yourself is to dream and act out your childhood, and the Society (in this case, the University) will demand from you: don’t be lazy, become a person, grow up, think, don’t be afraid. You can do it! Repeat after me: you can do it!
In summary: I object to the picture where the society is represented by the jailer. This is a cruel lie. I think the ratio here is 2080: 20% of the time the society is a jailer, 80% is a developing environment. Unless, of course, the comrade intended for development has not yet rotted.