008 FOUNDATION BLOCKS OF INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT CHAPTER 7; EIGHT AGES OF MAN

008 FOUNDATION BLOCKS OF INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT

CHAPTER 7; EIGHT AGES OF MAN

 

 i     Now we shall consult another expert on the development of the toddler. How does the infant acquire some personality traits? In other words, how did you become the individual you are today with all your peculiar mannerisms? What roles did your parents and relevant others play in the shaping your present personality traits?

  ii     Erik Homburger Erikson, while practising at the Centre for the Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences, Stanford, California in March 1963 wrote:  “CHILDHOOD AND SOCIETY”, a Pelican Book, that was the result of more than ten years of clinical observations of two American Indian tribes.

  

  iii    On the front cover he summarised his work thus: “ While tribes and nations, in many intuitive ways, use child training to the end of gaining their particular form of mature human identity, their unique version of integrity, they are and remain, beset by the irrational fears which stem from the very state of childhood which they exploited in their specific ways.” 

iv    Professor Erikson is a Freudian. Using a number of fascinating case histories as springboards for theoretical discussions of the formative years of childhood, he reveals human life as a delicate balance between bodily, mental, and social influences in the masterpiece! 

v.                 You just have to locate that handy book and read it in a hurry, in order to follow my conclusions here! The title of our chapter is lifted from his book and coincidentally it is also a chapter seven! I can only summarise them here, and my précis may not convey all the information you need. So, find it and read it!   

vi.              The first age of man, Erikson labelled as; “Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust” which refers to the relaxation the infant feels with parental provision of his basic survival needs. “The first demonstration of social trust in the baby is the ease of his feeding, the depth of his sleep, the relaxation of his bowels. The experience of a mutual regulation of his increasingly receptive capacities, with the maternal techniques of provision gradually helps him to balance the discomfort caused by the immaturity of homeostasis with which he was born”.

vii.          In practice, the infant’s first social achievement, then, is his willingness to let the mother out of sight without undue anxiety or rage, because she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability. Maternal bonds formed by long and regular breastfeeding ensures this! Such consistency, continuity, and sameness of experience provide a rudimentary sense of ego identity. The lesson to learn from that analysis is that parents should take the blame if their children do not trust anyone in later life! Build confidence in your little infants today!!

viii.         The next age is labelled: “Autonomy versus Shame & Doubt” which has to do with locomotion. Maturation of the limbs and the ability to move around brings in its wake anxiety! Muscular maturation sets the stage for experimentation with two simultaneous sets of social modalities; their basic conflicts can lead in the end to either hostile or benign expectations and attitudes. These are very important facts which parents neglect either due to ignorance or dereliction of duties towards new-borns that are priceless gifts from Mother Nature!

ix.              “Thus, to hold can become as destructive and cruel as retaining or restraining, and it can become a pattern of care: to have and to hold! To let go, too, can turn into an inimical letting loose of destructive forces, or it can become a relaxed “to let pass” and “to let be”. In other words, we need to realise that self-confidence and independence depends on how much autonomy we allow our children in early life. Allow them to be on their own. Don’t over-protect nor pamper your children. When they fall down, allow them to get up by themselves!

x.                The age of “Initiative versus Guilt” follows, which Erikson describes as the most important factor in morality development! There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding, which constitutes a New Hope and a New Responsibility for all. Such is the sense and the pervading quality of initiative.

xi.              The criteria for all these senses and qualities are the same: a crisis, more or less beset with fumbling and fear, is resolved, in that the child suddenly seems to “grow together” both in his person and in his body. He appears “more himself”, more loving, relaxed and brighter in his judgement, more activated and activating.

xii.           He is in free possession of a surplus of energy, which permits him to forget failures quickly and to approach what seems desirable (even if it also seems uncertain and even dangerous) with undiminished and more accurate direction. Initiative adds to autonomy the quality of undertaking, planning and “attacking” a task for the sake of being active and on the move, where before self-will, more often than not, inspires acts of defiance or, at any rate, protested independence!

xiii.         The point for all adults around growing children to note, is that we must permit freedom to infants to makes mistakes, bear the consequences for their indiscretions and thereby learn to obey norms and mores on their own initiative rather than to please anyone! Does this make any sense to you? Moral codes must be rationalised and internalised on their own, not by religious or parental coercion!

xiv.          The next age is that of “Industry versus Inferiority”, wherein Erikson next introduces the genesis of laxity, truancy and malingering. The last stage is the foundation of initiative, thus the inner stage seems all set for “entrance into life”, except that life must first be school life, whether school is in a field or a jungle or a classroom! The child must forget past hopes and wishes while his exuberant imagination is tamed and harnessed to the laws of impersonal things – even the three Rs!

xv.           With the oncoming latency period, the normally advanced child forgets, or rather sublimates, the necessity to “make” people by direct attack or to become a papa or a mama in a hurry! S/he now learns to win recognition by producing things, becomes ready to apply her/himself to given skills and tasks, which go far beyond the mere playful expression of her/his sexual organ's modes of pleasure in the function of his limbs.

xvi.         The growing child or teenager now develops a sense of industry – i.e., s/he adjusts her/himself to the inorganic laws of the tool world. S/he can become an eager and absorbed unit of a productive situation, and to bring it to completion is an aim/objective, which gradually supersedes the whims and wishes of play! A successful adjustment results in a well-balanced adult! So, guide your kids to achieve independence and industry in later life and you would have scored a 100% as good and dutiful parent!!!

xvii.      The fifth age, Erikson called “Identity versus Role Confusion” which simply states what is happening as the teenager evolves into an adolescent. With the establishment of a good initial relationship to the world of skills and tools, and with the advent of puberty, childhood proper comes to an end. Youth begins!

xviii.    With the maturation of their gonads; menarche in females and wet dreams in males, they are now primarily concerned with what they appear to be in the eyes of others as compared with what they feel they are, and also with the question of how to connect the roles and skills cultivated earlier with the occupational prototypes of the day!

xix.        The integration now taking place in the form of ego identity is, as pointed out earlier, more than the sum of the childhood identifications. It is the accrued experience of the ego's ability to integrate all identifications with the vicissitudes of the libido, with the aptitudes developed out of endowment and with the opportunities offered in social roles!

xx.           The danger of this stage is role confusion! Where this is based on a strong previous doubt as to one's sexual identity, delinquency and/or outright psychotic episodes are not uncommon! But when properly resolved and to keep themselves together, they temporarily over identify, to the point of apparent complete loss of identity, with heroes of cliques and crowds!

xxi.        This initiates the stage of “falling in love”, which is by no means entirely, or even primarily, a sexual matter – except where the mores demand it. To a considerable extent, adolescent love is an attempt to arrive at a definition of one's identity by projecting one's diffused ego-image on another and by seeing it thus reflected and gradually clarified. This is why; so much of young love is conversation and an over-doze of chattering spiced with giggles!

xxii.   “Intimacy versus Isolation” is the next age of man, according to Professor Erik Erikson! The young adult, emerging from the search for and the insistence on identity, is eager and willing to fuse his identity with that of others. S/he is ready for intimacy, that is, the capacity to commit her/himself to concrete affiliations and partnerships and to develop the ethical strength to abide by such commitments, even though they may call for significant sacrifices and compromises.

xxiii.   The physical body and the ego must now become masters of the organ modes (instinctual energies) and of the nuclear conflicts (sexual urges), in order to be able to face the fear of ego loss (inferiority complex) in situations which call for self-abandon (self denial): in the solidarity of close affiliations, in orgasms and sexual unions, in close friendship and in physical combat, in experiences of inspiration by teachers and of intuition from the recesses of the self!

xxiv.  The avoidance of such experiences because of fear of ego-loss may lead to a deep sense of isolation and consequent self-absorption. These are the predisposing factors that lead to masturbation, homosexuality and lesbianism! Be observant and rescue your little ones from these abnormalities early in life! Display genuine heterosexual relationships whenever you and your spouse are in front of them!

xxv.    The seventh age of man then, is “Generativity versus Stagnation”, a term that encompasses the evolutionary development that has made man the teaching and instituting, as well as the learning animal. Generativity, then, is primarily the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation of human beings, although there are individuals who, through misfortune or because of special and genuine gifts in other directions, do not apply this drive to their own offspring.

xxvi. Generativity thus is an essential on the psychosexual as well as on the psychosocial schedule. Where such enrichment fails altogether, regression to an obsessive need for pseudo-intimacy takes place, often with a pervading sense of stagnation and personal impoverishment. This is the predisposing factor for the variety of abnormal sexual behaviour mentioned earlier! In fact, some young parents suffer from the retardation of the ability to develop this stage!

xxvii.       And finally, we arrive at the last age of man; “Ego integrity versus Despair”, which the learned professor describes thus; “Only in him who in some way has taken care of things and people and has adapted her/himself to the triumphs and disappointments adherent to being, the originator of others or the generator of products and ideas – only in him/her may gradually ripen the fruits of these seven stages”.

xxviii.      “It is the ego's accrued assurance of its proclivity for order and meaning. It is a post-narcissistic love of the human ego – not of the self – as an experience which conveys some world order and spiritual sense, no matter how dearly paid for! It is the acceptance of one's one and only life cycle as something that had to be and that, by necessity, permitted of no substitutions: it thus means a new, a different love of one's parents” affirms Erikson!

xxix.“The lack or loss of this accrued ego integration is signified by fear of death: the one and only life cycle is not accepted as the ultimate of life. Despair expresses the feeling that the time is now short, too short for the attempt to start another life and to try out alternative roads to integrity! Disgust hides despair, if often only in form of a thousand little disgusts which do not add up to one big remorse”, concludes our learned professor!”

xxx.     My dear reader, with the wisdom gained here, you can now assert that it is not religion that makes one feel guilty, develop into a sex pervert and/or become a recluse! Modern man has to learn to de-emphasise scruples induced by religious injunctions and accept his responsibility for personal failures in life! If that is the only lesson you have learnt from this chapter, you are a wise person!! Go ahead and implement that principle in all your dealings in life!