What causes patterns of dysfunction to repeat themselves across generations in a family? And how can these patterns be altered?
Literature throughout history has dealt with the problem, and despite the efforts of the most creative minds in humanity, the root cause of pernicious behavior transmission remains murky.
Moreover, the idea that the behavior patterns across familial generations can be altered seems to be a new one. The Greeks were convinced that generationall familial disaster was the will of the gods and impossible to evade. Even modern writers find moderate versions of that position palatable: in his preface to A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and their Remarkable Families, author Michael Holroyd remarks that "the configurations of family life today still echo and reflect the concealed lives of a hundred years or more ago" (as reported in a NYT book review).
One obvious possibility for dealing with such fatalism is to flee. Oedipus tried with dismal results. Writers, as recounted in Louise DeSalvo's, On Moving: A Writer's Meditation on New Houses, Old Haunts and Finding Home Again, seem particularly inclined to follow Oedipus' lead and obtain similarly disappointing outcomes. "In . . . detached moments, . . . [Virginia] Woolf understood that her moves -- like many discussed here -- were efforts to obliterate the past. The next house was always, she said, the 'ancient carrot before me,'" writes Amy Finnerty in a NYT review of DeSalvo's book.
My own sense is that, literature and the experiences of writers notwithstanding, physically disassociating oneself from dysfunctional behavior is a step towards breaking the pattern. That said, running is not a solution in itself; rather, conscientious and extreme uprooting of the environmental triggers that lead to behavior patterns seems to be necessary. Oedipus, for example, seeminly could've avoided all his familial woes if he'd joined a monastary.
I don't mean to be blithe about the difficulty of altering behavior patterns, and I'm not typically a supporter of radical measures. But because the causes of pernicious behavior transmission are difficult to identify with any precision, broader remedial measures seem justified. Whatever the cause, eliminating all triggers will prevent the harm. Whether Oedipus slept with his mother and killed his father because of the gods, bad luck, or a mixture of perversion and over-competitiveness, joining a monastary would've averted the evil.
Of course, we resist radical measures. They're inconvenient. Also, "[w]e typically take comfort in any discovery of connection to ancient peoples. See, we reassure ourselves, nothing has changed," writes Brad Leithauser, reviewing Anne Carson's An Oresteia for NYT. But, whether examining the House of Atreus or the House of Alexandri, the comforts of nothing changing are outweighed by the pain of nothing changing.
Literature throughout history has dealt with the problem, and despite the efforts of the most creative minds in humanity, the root cause of pernicious behavior transmission remains murky.
Moreover, the idea that the behavior patterns across familial generations can be altered seems to be a new one. The Greeks were convinced that generationall familial disaster was the will of the gods and impossible to evade. Even modern writers find moderate versions of that position palatable: in his preface to A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and their Remarkable Families, author Michael Holroyd remarks that "the configurations of family life today still echo and reflect the concealed lives of a hundred years or more ago" (as reported in a NYT book review).
One obvious possibility for dealing with such fatalism is to flee. Oedipus tried with dismal results. Writers, as recounted in Louise DeSalvo's, On Moving: A Writer's Meditation on New Houses, Old Haunts and Finding Home Again, seem particularly inclined to follow Oedipus' lead and obtain similarly disappointing outcomes. "In . . . detached moments, . . . [Virginia] Woolf understood that her moves -- like many discussed here -- were efforts to obliterate the past. The next house was always, she said, the 'ancient carrot before me,'" writes Amy Finnerty in a NYT review of DeSalvo's book.
My own sense is that, literature and the experiences of writers notwithstanding, physically disassociating oneself from dysfunctional behavior is a step towards breaking the pattern. That said, running is not a solution in itself; rather, conscientious and extreme uprooting of the environmental triggers that lead to behavior patterns seems to be necessary. Oedipus, for example, seeminly could've avoided all his familial woes if he'd joined a monastary.
I don't mean to be blithe about the difficulty of altering behavior patterns, and I'm not typically a supporter of radical measures. But because the causes of pernicious behavior transmission are difficult to identify with any precision, broader remedial measures seem justified. Whatever the cause, eliminating all triggers will prevent the harm. Whether Oedipus slept with his mother and killed his father because of the gods, bad luck, or a mixture of perversion and over-competitiveness, joining a monastary would've averted the evil.
Of course, we resist radical measures. They're inconvenient. Also, "[w]e typically take comfort in any discovery of connection to ancient peoples. See, we reassure ourselves, nothing has changed," writes Brad Leithauser, reviewing Anne Carson's An Oresteia for NYT. But, whether examining the House of Atreus or the House of Alexandri, the comforts of nothing changing are outweighed by the pain of nothing changing.
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