I posted a few weeks ago on an essay by Edwin Friedman in The Myth of the Shiksa (link here). I want to share a couple of thoughts on the essay for which the overall collection is named – “The Myth of the Shiksa.”
This is the largest essay in the book, but incredibly fascinating in light of cross-cultural leadership and mentoring. Friedman is a rabbi and a counselor so he provides an interesting perspective on things. The topic he goes after in this essay is the issue of dysfunction viewed through the grid of culture – specifically ethnicity.
Friedman takes a strong stance that family dysfunction and many other kinds of dysfunction are often attributed to cultural backgrounds and heritage (value systems, worldviews, etc…), when the focus should rather be given to family and emotional dynamics.
I’m not going to lay out his argument because I’m trying to lure you in to the world of Friedman, but this is a question that is very relevant to ministry, discipleship, and leadership. As ministry and leadership become increasingly cross-cultural, it’s becoming in some ways trickier and trickier to hold people accountable because it’s hard to know if you’re holding people accountable for what they should be accountable for or if you’re holding them accountable to your particular culturally biased interpretation of it. There’s some gray area here, but I find Friedman’s take on these issues fascinating.
Friedman does not minimize the role of culture in behavior and even dysfunction, but he provides a fairly compelling case for how family and emotional processes determine behavior (and dysfunction, anxiety, and conflict) as opposed to culture. He argues that culture “stains” dysfunction rather than causes it – it provides the expressions of the dysfunction, but the source lies in the maturity of the family system itself. And to avoid confusion he uses “stain” in a visual/artistic sense and not a derogatory or negative sense. He writes, “Rather than supplying the determinates of family dynamics, culture and environment supply the medium through which family process works its art.” (60)
Friedman is concerned about holding people accountable and helping people assume responsibility for their lives and grow into adulthood and maturity. A large part of his counseling and leadership theory focuses on the ways people try to avoid taking responsibility for their lives. He writes, “It is the failure to appreciate how emotional processes are camouflaged rather than determined by culture that enables family members to blame the background of others as the source of their discontent and their inability to change.” (61)
If you come from an ethnic minority background or are working cross-culturally, these are important issues to wrestle with as there are increasing efforts to adapt to various audiences and I’m curious what initial thoughts you have on this issue.
How would you go about seeking to help people assume responsibility for themselves when it seems like culture and family forces are almost one and the same? Friedman argues they are very different. Would you agree?
