FEST Writing Group

Societal Emotional Process is a large and complex phenomenon.  This paper will address just one perspective on societal emotional process, the repeating interaction patterns of some large social groups, analogous to the interaction patterns Bowen described in the nuclear family.

 

Large Group Interaction Patterns

     Reciprocal Societal Projection Process is the reciprocal projecting on each other of any two large groups which are opposed and about equal in power.

     Social Categories Projection Process consists of projections between dominant social classes and a long list of groups defined by social categories.  Lower social classes and groups defined by those social categories make for convenient targets.  The less differentiated individuals of the dominant social groups believe and project that the groups with less power are inherently inferior in abilities and character.  This paper will focus mostly on this second interaction pattern.

 

These are the social categories which provide easy targets for projection by the dominant classes.

Social Categories

Social Class

Race

Religion

Gender

Nonbinary sexual identification

Disabilities

Nationalities

Other Cultural Subgroups

Some medical conditions

 

Sociologists and public health researchers have repeatedly observed that in the social class structure the lowest classes are lacking in many critical social resources.

Lowest social classes are characterized by:

Less access to healthcare

Less access to good nutrition

Less educational opportunity

Less access to prestigious occupations

Inadequate police protection

Unequal legal treatment

Unsafe neighborhoods

Inadequate lodging

Less access to political power

Less access to financial credit

Less access to generational wealth

 

 

The process which drives some of this disparity is a lot like what we see in family projection process.

 

Two parents with more power than their focused-on child fuse together, believe themselves to be superior, and ally to project on to that child an inherent inferiority in abilities and character.  This emotional process occurs with the most intensity and the least thinking in less differentiated families.  

A similar process goes on in Social Categories Projection Process.  The less differentiated individuals of the large groups with more social power believe that groups with less power are inherently inferior in abilities and character.  This presumptive inferiority is given as the justification for depriving the less powerful class of social resources which would give them the opportunity to survive and thrive.

That’s the projection.

 

Within any one social category, the level of differentiation of the        individual can vary dramatically.

This projection of inherent inferiority is practiced most intensely by the less differentiated individuals of the more powerful classes.  The less differentiated of the less powerful classes buy into that projection and believe themselves to be unworthy and lacking in abilities and character.  They buy into the more powerful class’s belief that their own station and lack of wealth is proof of the higher classes’ inherent superiority.

Every class and social category has a broad range of individual levels of differentiation.  I have already described some of the behavior of the less differentiated members of the more powerful groups and of the less powerful groups.

The better differentiated individuals of all those groups operate on a more fact-based description of themselves and their fellow human beings.  For example, the better differentiated folks of all groups recognize the luck involved in what they have and where they have ended up in society.  They don’t attribute that to any inherent superiority or inherent inferiority in themselves.  They see the luck involved in what they have and act accordingly.