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Societal Reaction to the Killing of Nine People in Charleston SC: Are We Blindsided by the Emotional System?

These ideas were generated by the first summer session for Navigating Systems and Murray Bowen’s Concept of Societal Regression.

Each day we are bombarded by the difficulties we as a society face: random violence, wars, mass migrations, acts of terrorism, senseless murders, posturing politicians, our decreasing attention span, increases in autism, breakdowns in relationships and many other challenges. How can we understand the essence of these societal problems? And what will it take to make a difference?

This week Dylan Roof, a 21-year-old man, joined a prayer meeting at the historic African-American Church Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina. Cool and deliberately, he killed nine people there.

“A drunken Dylan Storm Roof boasted one night about an unspecified six-month plan “to do something crazy”. This weekend Roof’s sister was to be married. Roof had repeated the ninth grade at the Lexington County High School, and was described as “very transient,” he “came and went.” In a Washington Post interview, Roof’s uncle, Carson Cowles, said his mother “never raised him to be like this.” “The whole world is going to be looking at his family who raised this monster,” Cowles told the Post. “I’d be the executioner myself if they would allow it.”

Only a few things are known about Roof now. But there will be analysis of his environment and his family, as there has been for the others who slay innocent people. Once again we will learn more about the profile of a loner who had as much difficulty relating to others as they had relating to him. All the mechanisms are engaged; distance, conflict and projection.

This is another example of family emotional process, intensifying and impacting society. The family patterns of relating create intense polarizations and blaming over the generations. It is these patterns of reactivity that draw “fault” lines in a family that become more and more deeply imbedded in that family and in society.  Read more.

Filed under Bowen family systems theory

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