In terms of change, values make a significant contribution to culture so if we are promoting cultural change then we will have an interest in values. (On this subject, we already discussed how the values of the Pillars dominate the community sector).
Looking at the destructive alcoholic in the previous post, if our goal is to protect a child in a family where the dominant values have been formed by addiction (e.g. undemocratic decision making, powerlessness of vulnerable members, irresponsibility, dishonesty, game playing etc.) then we will want to change the dominant values to the opposite of all the above.
We also need to believe that the values of democracy, human rights, congruence, responsibility and discipline are more desirable for humanity in general than the opposite. (I propose that our believing is an influential factor in itself).
Systems theory proposes that long-term adoption of values occurs by a kind of osmosis, a process by which something seeps into something else by virtue of its closeness to it, and the other’s need for it, like moisture seeping upwards, seemingly defying gravity, into the trunk of a tree from the ground.
Values self-propagate under the right conditions. This is after all what happens in children growing up in our good enough family!
Now there is a fair amount of evidence (actually I’d say it is self-evident) to suggest that if values are forced on people there is considerable resistance to them. Adherence to forced values will be based more on fear than a genuine longing, within, for something to be different.
It is worth giving a little consideration to this.
The English tried in vain for hundreds of years to forcibly impose their dearly held value of subservience to a royal ruling class on the Irish, but we never really seemed to get it – and continually rebelled against it. Yet when the Catholic Church demanded the same thing (i.e. subservience to a Papal ruling class, where we simply substituted the Pope for the King of England) we took to it like a duck to water. When I asked myself how the Catholic Church became an entity of influence in Ireland, and succeeded where the English failed I concluded that the Church ruling class:
1. Did a lot more for ordinary Irish people than the English ruling class.
2. Grafted Roman Catholicism onto our centuries’ old Irish Catholicism, thereby giving us a distinct badge of identity – the importance of which is also mentioned later.
3. Had a consistent presence over 1,500 years – St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland in the year 432.
When considering the influence of the Catholic Church in times past in Ireland at this remove, we consider even the best of it to have been patronising and controlling. Yet at the time it had one major advantage over the English ruling class.
That is, it suggested that we could have a better life, both now and in the hereafter. Thus, through the Church, a critical mass of us Irish perceived ourselves to be moving forwards rather than backwards.
Learning lessons from this, and thinking about the family affected by addiction and imprisonment, there are messages in respect of increasing the chances of desired values propagating in families affected by addiction and imprisonment. These are:
1. We involve members of the family in determining their own destiny, using familiar messages and themes, grafting onto current wisdom. (On this point, I find it interesting to consider wisdom in humanity like energy in the Universe. It is always present, and doesn’t increase or decrease with time and space – it just manifests in different ways).
2. We promote values that are empowering, and are what most people aspire for themselves and their families anyway.
3. We do it consistently, over what might be a long time, sometimes more than one generation.
And, (something that the Church didn’t do – but, in my opinion anyway, might be more inclined to do now),
4. We allow values to develop at their own pace rather than hurrying them along.
I’m sure that most of you will have experienced situations where old destructive patterns re-emerged after fast change that initially promised much. This was covered at some length in a previous post.
Reverting to type happens because it takes quite a lot of emotional energy to change the patterns of behaviour in our day to day life. The epiphany, (for example, the sudden conversion of Saul into Paul in Christianity, or Muhammed’s visitation in his cave in Islam), are much loved in story, song and legend. In my experience, however, they are rare.
St. Paul or Muhammed notwithstanding, epiphanies, on their own, are about as probable in respect of long term success as the lady of the manor running away with the servant boy and living happily ever after – possible but unlikely!