Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017

88 Group-Analytic Society International - Contexts
“Boundaries” as a theme that culture is now trying to
steal from nature.
For example, gender is somehow no longer being defined by nature,
and has become matter of cultural choice; instead of a binary
determination (man or woman) other possibilities emerge, even the
possibility of a rolling gender, permanently unbounded.
(Psychotherapists point out that some adolescents – before even
choosing a partner – are now preoccupied with the painful choice of
selecting their own gender.) Age is another doubtful natural and
demographic boundary. Human life is seen as an opportunity to make
permanent use of the advantages of adolescence and early adulthood
without regard to the special needs and special gifts of early childhood
and late old age; these two extreme ages are implicitly seen as
something like inadequacies that would be better confined to the
expert care of an institution.
The boundaries between the sexes, between the generations,
between the given conditions of nature and culture, between different
kinds of time... all these boundaries are rendered uncertain and are
changing. The process is facilitated by the advance of technology and
the development of science, and societal developments grant
permission.
The boundaries of nature are also crossed by the excessive
drain on resources, and by brutality towards living creatures – that has
already entered the social awareness to quite an extent. Nevertheless,
the development of civilisation also abolishes the natural boundaries
within; within man. It was not only gender identity that became a
matter of choice. Inbred stereotypes of gender behaviour are also
demolished; some women reject traditional male courtesy, we see
women boxing and men as fashion models, metrosexuals. Children are
presented in kindergartens and schools with programmes and images
where the roles of mummy and daddy are reversed. People’s attention
is captured by social networks and television where the norms are
established; various television programmes feature (after the abolition
of previous stereotypes) male and female couples where, according to
the plan, the woman is dominant not only verbally but physically.
The boundaries between the basic roles are shaken, and thus
the family too.
The family is the original human group, the cradle of
culture; now it is heading towards destruction
A few centuries ago, the fathers of today’s Europeans accepted the