Yet, the
very process of socialization and education is heavily constrained
by the prevailing culture and influenced by it. Thus, culture,
mores, history, myths, ethos, and even government policy (such as
the "one child policy" in China) do create the conditions for
pathologies of the personality.
The ethnopsychologist George Devereux ("Basic Problems of
Ethnopsychiatry", University of Chicago Press, 1980) suggested to
divide the unconscious into the id (the part that was always
instinctual and unconscious) and the "ethnic unconscious" (repressed
material that was once conscious). The latter includes all our
defence mechanisms and most of the superego. Culture dictates what
is to be repressed. Mental illness is either idiosyncratic (cultural
directives are not followed and the individual is unique and
schizophrenic) - or conformist, abiding by the cultural dictates of
what is allowed and disallowed.
Our culture, according to Christopher Lasch teaches us to withdraw
into ourselves when we are confronted with stressful situations. It
is a vicious circle. One of the main stressors of modern society is
alienation and a pervasive sense of isolation. The solution our
culture offers us - to further withdraw - only exacerbates the
problem.
Richard Sennett expounded on this theme in "The Fall of Public Man:
On the Social Psychology of Capitalism" (Vintage Books, 1978).
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