Social Scripts

August 22, 2006

One of the problems arising out of the process of acculturation in the life of every fragment whose brain function is capable of acculturation, is that cultural scripts will attach to that process which is not only related to such things as folklore and religion, but to social expectations. Many of these cultural paradigms in turn bring about trained reactions that often have to be "undiscovered" in order for the fragment to reach a point where they no longer "kick in" in certain social circumstances that mirror the paradigm.

The closer this un-discovering comes to self intimacy and shared intimacy, the stronger the social conditioning that creates as script against it. Therefore moving beyond the immediate social view to a more inclusive posture can be not only frightening but socially incorrect for many fragments.

Obviously the greater the social diversity that an infant encounters the less cultural diversity will be threatening in later life. The more a child exposed before second Monad to many fragments of many ages and ethnic background, the more inclusive the child's expectations are to be in later life. The less inclusive the experience before second Monad, the more "conservative" the life expectations of the fragment are likely to be. For example, a Late Cycle Mature Soul raised in an all-white Baptist enclave in the Appalachians, while less threatened and upset by "outsiders" than Baby or Young Souls are likely to be, will still be less inclined to include "strangers" in his or her life than one raised, for example, in Los Angeles or Boston to name but two.

These social scripts become so automatic that many times identifying them can only be accomplished "from the outside" as these perceptions are thoroughly enmeshed with the social perceptions taught at the first stage of acculturation. All of these societal myths, legends, and paradigms while they help a fragment to reach a definition of him or herself in context with others, also pressure towards certain kinds of behavior and certain repercussions for failing to adhere to them that brings about an interweaving with the manifestation of personality that in fact cannot be fully addressed until fourth Monad at least to the extent of recognizing that true personality and social pressure are not necessarily the same thing.

Those who seek to undertake to understand the ways in which societal programming interacts with personality would be "well advised" to consider studying other paradigms and other cultures than their own, in large part because their own personalities are imbued with cultural scripts that marking the differences between the person and the conditioning is too rigorous when dealing with their own conditioning. In addition, the social conditioning of early youth teaches not only how life "should" be lived, but the "proper" way to rebel and even the ways in which "insanity" is manifest.

Learning to differentiate behavior patterns based upon cultural expectations as compared to true personality responses can sometimes be addressed by assessing those seeming to be aberrant to the society, but this can also be a distorted perception given that aberrance is as much a social construct as adherence. This does not mean that all fragments must confront social scripts, we did not say that nor did we mean to imply it, however, if comprehension of genuine experiential differentiation is to be achieved, social scripts and paradigms are indeed "part of the package", and understanding them as applied conditions of development can provide an interesting perspective on all that comes next, either individually or for other groups and societies.