Life Without Games, Part II

In order to continue our discussion, we're going to need two additional concepts. The first of these is the idea of the ego state.

Ego States

We've seen in a previous post that Sigmund Freud's 3 parts of the psyche is essentially the division of Plato, but with the terms reversed. In this way of thinking the appetite, which is the Freudian Id or the Platonic Epithymia, is in control, while the higher part of the psyche, the Freudian Superego or Platonic Nous, is an ephemeral social construct. Berne was originally a Freudian, but broke with classical Psychoanalysis to develop a theory both more subtle and more powerful. Like Freud and like most psychologists-- including our latter-day neuroscientists-- he envisioned a tripartite psyche. But his categories are different from Freud's-- or Plato's-- and quite a bit more subtle than the former's.

According to Berne, we each have within us three possible ego states. This aren't distinct "parts" of the psyche, or of the brain for that matter. Rather, they are three distinct modes in which we can interact with other people. The ego states are:

• The Parent

 

• The Adult

• The Child

It would be easy to see these as akin to the categories of Freud or Plato, but, again, that isn't quite correct. For Berne, the Child ego state is a set of behavioral patterns which carry through from childhood. Some are natural to the individual; these are termed the natural Child. Others are learned in response to outside stimuli; these are the adapted Child. The concern of the Chlidhood is emotion, intuition, creativity and spontaneity.

The Parent ego state is also learned in childhood, but here the individual is not behaving the way they did as a child, but the way that either they saw one of their parents (or a parental figure) behave, or the way that their parents (or parental figures) wanted them to behave. Thus, like the Child, the Parent comes has two forms. These are a little different from the Child, in that only one is an active ego-state. The Parent is especially concerned wtih judgment and opinion. When its influence is direct, the individual takes on the Parent ego-state and acts as one of their parents did. When its influence is indirect, they act as the Parent wanted them to behave.

The Adult, meanwhile, is the ego-state in which we are capable of reason.

In Platonic terms, these can be seen as different levels of the nous. The natural Child, capable of creativity and intuition, is the higher phase of the nous. It is also resembles the concept of yuan shen, or "original spirit," in the Taoist tradition. Yes, this is the origin of the concept of the "Inner Chlid" which has seen so much abuse in New Age circles. One of the principles of Catholic Moral Theology is "Abusus non tollit usum," or "Misuse does not take away right use." The mere fact that a concept has been abused does not render it useless thereby. The Adult is the ordinary reasoning mind or dianoia. The Parent, meanwhile, concerned with judgment and opinion, may be compared to the lower phase of the nous, the seat of doxha or opinion.

It might be better, however, to see the entire discussion as concerned with the Thymos, as Berne was, above all, a social psychologist, and the Thymos is concerned with the social emotions. Again, though, there is another tradition whcih will shed more light on this system from a spiritual and esoteric perspective, and we will come to it in due time. For now, there are two points which we must consider.

First, from the perspective of transactional analysis, it isn't a problem that each of us carries a childlike ego-state within us, or is capable of childish behaviors. As Berne writes, "the Child is in many ways the most valuable part of the personality, and can contribute to the individual's life exactly what an actual child can contribute to family life: charm, pleasure, and creativity." The problem comes in when you have a person who learned inappropriate behaviors in Childhood, or whose Child takes over at inappropriate times or in an unproductive way. People who were abused as children, for example, may carry within them a Child state which is angry, fearful, and aggressive; the lack of proper socialization often leads them to yield to this state too often and at inappropriate times. Seeing a violent parent in every ordinary interaction, they lash out in fear, thinking that they are "fighting back," but are in fact not fighting back against an aggressor but themselves acting aggressively.

Similarly, as the seat of opinion and habit, the Parent is necessary for human survival. Life is difficult and complicated; if we had to take the time to form a reasoned judgment in response to every possible new set of circumstances, we'd never get anything done! An inner Parent who teaches us, "This is the way things are," allows us to navigate the vicissitudes of life. It also allows us to be actual parents to actual children. The problem, again, comes in when the parent takes over at inappropriate times, or when the lessons learned either directly or indirectly from one's parents are destructive. Of course, the classic example is the abused child who grows up to become an abuser. This person may flip from a Child ego-state, protective themselves from non-existent threats, back to a Parent ego-state, abusing a child to enforce compliance as they had once been abused, in a single interaction.

This leads to neatly to the second point. Every relationship into which we enter is between one or more of our ego-states, and one or more of the other person's ego states. This is best illustrated by an image:



Patterns in Relationships

As we can see from the diagram, every person can relate to another in one of 9 different ways, and the other person can respond in one of 9 different ways: that is, as Parent to Parent, Parent to Adult, Parent to Child; Adult to Parent, Adult to Adult, Adult to Child; Child to Parent, Child to Adult, or Child to Child. In all transactions, one participant begins the interaction; this is called a transactional stimulus; the other returns the interaction; this is called the transactional response.

As the above diagram illustrates, it often happens that social interactions or transactions occur between people in different ego-states. A person in their Child state may engage another person in either their Child, Parent, or Adult state. In a marriage, a working spouse might, upon returning home exhausted from a long day at work, lapse into a Child state upon arrival, hoping for their partner to enter into a Parent state and care for him. There's nothing especially wrong with this. In a healthy relationship, the other spouse's Parent is activated in a nurturing mode and cares for their partner. The two can then return to an Adult state to discuss their finances. Then both can shift into Parent mode in order to get their kids through dinner and bed time. After the kids are asleep they can remain in Parent mode if they want to discuss the problems with the youth these days, shift back into Adult if they need to make plans for the weekend or Christmas, or mutually downshift to Child mode if they have fun and games planned for the evening.

From this perspective, it's easy to see how things can go wrong, and they can go wrong in one of two ways. Let's return to the exhausted working parent, returning home from a long day. Since stay-at-home dads seem to be increasingly common, especially in the wake of Covid-- I know of several in my own neighborhood, including myself for several years-- let's make it the wife. She returns home from a long day, and all she wants is to be cared for for a little while, until she can muster the energy to help clean up dinner, get the kids to bed, and so on. In transactional terms, she is in Child mode, approaching her husband's Parent. If he responds with gentle sympathy, perhaps bringing her a glass of wine and magnanimously refusing her offer to help with dinner, all is well. But suppose his own father treated him or his mother badly in moments of weakness, demanding that they "toughen up" because there was "work to be done?" He may then respond inappropriately, frequently by lapsing into Child mode himself. If he responds to her with, "Where do you get off sitting down while I'm busy making dinner!" he is acting the abusive Parent. It also happens quite frequently, as I understand it, that moder men left at home find themselves incapable of such tasks as cleaning, cooking, or looking after the children. In this case she may come home exhausted, hoping quie reasonably for a bit of Parenting for her Child, only to find another Child sitting on the couch, perhaps suckling from a bottle of beer, expecting her to take care of him as she takes care of the rest of her children.

(I hasten to add that this example is not drawn from personal experience. I'm very far from being a saint, but on those days when my wife works and I am at home, I make sure she comes home to a clean house, dinner, and a beverage of her choice. Real men know how to run a vacuum cleaner.)

Finally, transactions may occur between multiple ego-states simultaneously. These are called ulterior transactions, because one of the levels of interaction is hidden. This is very frequently what is happening with games. For example, consider two young adults sitting around a campfire with their friends.

Person A: Did you know there's a creek nearby, away from the fire?
Person B: I had no idea! Would you show me?

On the surface or "social" level this is an Adult-Adult discussion about riparian habitats. Under the surface, on the psychological level, it is a Child-Child discussion about sex.

Another example, drawn from Berne's book:

Salesman: This one is better, but you can't afford it.
Housewife: That's the one I'll take!

On the social level, this is an adult-adult discussion about price. On the psychological level, the salesman's Adult has carefully triggered the housewife's Child. Salesmen are often very good at this, and will vary their tactics depending on what they're selling. The last time we bought kitchen appliances, a shrewd salesman did an excellent job of convincing my wife that we needed a microwave that could also function as a convection oven or an air-fry system, even though the cost was three times that of a normal microwave. In a similar manner, the last time we needed a new car another salesman did an equally good job of convincing me that I'd certainly need a Jeep instead of a more reliable Honda, given all the off-roading I do (I don't). Looking below the surface, it's easy to see a little girl playing house, or a little boy playing with toy cars, in each of these interactions. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Who doesn't love playing with toy cars? But it can be a bad thing, when ego-states are deliberatley triggered for the purpose of manipulation, or when we are unable to recogize that our Parent or our adapted Child has inappropriately taken control of our reasoning. More on this in a moment.

The Dramatic Triangle

Now I'd like to introduce another concept developed by one of Berne's students, Stephen Karpman. Here again, this is best illustrated by an image:



The Drama Triangle is not so much a game as a set up for multiple games. Drama, in this sense, requires three participants: A Victim, a Persecutor, and a Rescuer or Hero. The Victim is innocent. Something awful is happening to them, and it's not their fault. It's the Persecutor's fault. The Persecutor is guilty. And the Rescuer is here to help.

If you return to the story which opened this series, you can see the three roles in action. The woman who just needs six hundred dollars to keep from being evicted is the Victim. Her Persecutors are legion-- today it's her landlord, tomorrow it's her ex-boyfriend. Her Rescuer, in the story, is you. For now, anyway-- once you get to her apartment and find another man there, you'll switch to Persecutor, as you are meant to, and she'll have a new Rescuer. One who hasn't yet been bilked out of six hundred dollars.

But what happens next?

The Switch

Let's return to the character of our Rescuer as he leaves the apartment that night. No, put the mask back on-- as you leave the apartment that night. You raced over there, your heart pounding, not knowing what you'd find, knowing only that she needed your help. You run up the stairs, two at a time. You grab the door handle. It's locked. You bang on the door. No answer. There's a window; you find it open, crawl through it, land on the floor. Up on your feet--

And there he is, coming out of her bedroom, hastily pulling his shirt on. And there she is, coming out after him, wrapping a blanket around herself.

You start screaming. Don't you? Maybe you tell him to get the hell out. Maybe you grab him, and there's a fight. And before long, there are police sirens, and now you find yourself in the back of a cop car, broken and bewildered.

What happened?

In the days that follow you hear rumors about yourself, how you went crazy, what a creep you acted like.

And slowly, you realize:

She wasn't the victim here. She never was. Not of her ex-boyfriend, not of her landlord, not of you.

No, the real victim...

...Is you.

For a while you hold onto it, this realization of what's happened to you. After a while, you start to wonder if other guys have gone through the same kind of thing. You begin to look online, and you find that, yeah, it's actually not that uncommon. There are even whole groups out there for men who have been abused by women, like you have. Not nearly as many as for women that have been abused by men, of course. But there are some. Soon you discover a whole internet subculture, with an entire philosophy and a political program. And now the whole thing starts to make sense.

You discover, of course, that society is actually run by the demented ideology of Feminism. It took control some time in the '60s, when radical activists, often Jews and frequently on the payroll of the CIA, took over our universities and cultural institutions. From Andrea Dworkin to Gloria Steinem to Angela Davis, these radical feminists took over the culture and created a kind of simulation of reality, convincing men that they themselves are the problem, that we live in a destructive patriarchy, while the actual structure of our society is a dastardly matriarchy.

What happens next? Do you remain in Victim mode, bewailing your fate on every online message board you can get your hands on, calling yourself an "incel" and insisting that it's the fault of the Longhouse Gynocracy that you can't get a date? Do you become a Rescuer, running a forum for Men Going Their Own Way and helping other victims of the Matriarchy to come to terms with what's happened to them? Or do you, perhaps, shift into Persecutor mode, perhaps taking your wrath to YouTube or Twitter and filling the internet with misogynistic tirades about how women should never have been allowed the vote, perhaps... doing something worse.

Roleplaying



The man in the foregoing story played all three roles in the Karpman Triangle. He began as a Rescuer. He met a damsel in distress, and he wanted to help her. He paid her rent. He helped move her furniture. He raced over to her apartment when she said she was in trouble.

Then he suddenly found himself shifted into Persecutor. How did it happen? He didn't have any plan to hurt anyone. He was there to help. But as soon as he met someone else in Rescuer mode-- and with her ensconced in her role as Victim-- his own role shifted, and he became a Persecutor.

After that, of course, he became a Victim. And then, in the usual way of things, he managed to find opportunities to play all three roles as a new member of the Men's Rights internet subculture.

The thing to notice is this:

His victimization was real. These sorts of things really do happen, all the time. The man in my story is a mashup of two different men I know, the women, of two different women. And I know other men who have experienced these sorts of things.

But I know women who have gone through the same kind of thing, in abusive relationships with men. Sometimes they become radical feminists, dedicated to protecting their fellow women from the abuses of the patriarchy. Sometimes they just know that all men are awful.

But there is one thing that the man in my story, and the people on whom he is based, never become:

Honest.

Consider how things began. He was a Rescuer, wasn't he? If asked, he would say that he sincerely wanted to help. Now consider whether this is true. There is one ulterior motive, which he almost certainly had, which is obvious. But he may have had others as well. Perhaps he was, himself, a committed feminist, and when she came into his life and told him about all the ways she had suffered at the hands of men (her ex-boyfriend, her landlord, inevitably her father) he was filled with a righteous desire to help her, and in that way strike a blow for women everywhere. (Don't laugh; I know of one man who found himself in this exact situation, almost down to the details, who believed exactly this.) Perhaps he's simply spent his whole life "helping" people, because he learned to do so caring for his chronically ill mother in childhood, and now he gets an emotional thrill out of it. Perhaps the motive is something else.

The point is this: People who consistently find themselves in the Rescuer role do so because they want to be there. We can imagine plenty of other Rescue Game scenarios, besides the one I've shared here. Who doesn't have the friend who only ever calls them to complain about how badly their life is going? If you offer sincere advice and disengage once they are (inevitably) unwilling to follow it, all well and good. But what if you pick up their call, every single time? What if you listen for hours, only complaining later to your other friends or your mother or your husband about how draining it is to talk to her? Maybe you've even done some research into esoteric and paranormal phenomena, and so you know you're dealing with a Psychic Vampire-- a fact which you share with all and sundry. It hardly matters. At this point, you're clearly in it because you're getting something out of it. You want to be the Rescuer, and if your Victim were to change, the game would be over. But you can't admit it to yourself. You can't be honest.

That Victims are dishonest is equally obvious. Now, we are not saying that there is something wrong with someone because they have been abused. Many people have been abused, and not because they deserved it. It's wrong to abuse people, and it's wrong to be abused. But haven't we all seen the person who finds themselves in the Victim role, again, and again, and again? Or who finds themselves in the Victim role once, and does absolutely nothing about it, even though it's within their power? Or who maybe isn't even really a Victim- it's just that they were once victimized. Or maybe they weren't even victimized, but someone who looked like them was victimized. But it doesn't matter; now they're the Victim forever and ever and ever.

And then there are Persecutors. The odd thing is that, very often, in their own minds, they don't see themselves that way. No-- they see themselves as Victims. This is actually one of the very few things that the sort of sensationalistic killings-- you know, the sort that people like to use as proof of whatever political position they already believed in any way-- actually have in common. The perpetrators, despite obviously being in a Persecutor role, almost inevitably see themselves as victims. And they see their victims, whom they have often never even met before, as Persecutors.

While the Rescue Game is active, therefore, there are no real relationships. True relationships can only occur between real people, not people playing roles. And so real relationships require honesty.

The Rescue Game, Writ Large

From this perspective, it's easy to see that much of 21st century American "politics" consists entirely of games, especially of the "Rescue Game" variety. For any given issue that you can name, our political discourse is defined by a class of Victims, whose innocense is permanent and unquestionable; a class of Persecutors, whose guilt is equally permanent and unquestionable; and a class of Rescuers, who are just here to ehlp.

The most cringe-inducing example of this that I have ever seen took place around ten years ago. A group of left-wing activists who were members of a radical environmental group blockaded a highway leading into a town. The town was a small village on an American Indian Reservation. The activists explicitly defined themselves as "white allies of the Indigenous people." And the purpose of the blockade? Why, that was to prevent a delivery truck from replenishing the town's one liquor store with alcohol. In this way, the White Allies hoped to rescue the innocent Indigenous Victims from the wicked Persecutors and their fire water.

Now, it's worth noting that the activist group in question is, frankly, one of the creepiest I have personally ever seen. It is based in a cult of personality around its leader and is marked by constant purges of low-ranking members for failure to grasp subtle details of radical theory. To put it plainly, it really sucks to be part of this group. But that's not what I want to focus on right now. What I want to point out is that, in this scenario, the activists themselves are the only ones with any agency. The liquor salesmen are wicked Persecutors who simply can't be reasoned with. The poor people of the reservation simply can't help themselves; their oppression, their genetics, the White Man or some other damned thing simply forces them to buy liquor, get drunk, and beat their wives and children.

In fact the Rescue Game often works this way, at least in the minds of its players. Rescuers act; everyone else simply plays a role. At least, that's how it appears on the surface-- at the ulterior level, anyone may initiate a Rescue Game, simply by advertising the role they wish to play, and inviting others to show up. I once watched a woman stand in front of the entrance to a roadside rest center, prominently displaying her breasts. When a man noticed her, she would then approach him and explain that she'd run out of gas, and did he have just a little money so she could get herself and her baby to the next town?

Of course, the Rescue Game is at the root of all of our current "Woke" political movements, from "anti-racism" to "feminism" and "Trans liberation" and everything in between. Unfortunately, as I tried to demonstrate above, it's also at the root of most of the right-wing responses to Wokeism. These largely consist in accepting most of the distinctions drawn by the Woke, but then reversing the identities of the Persecutors and the Victims. Rather than Jews being victims of Antisemitism, we're all victims of a conspiracy of Jews. Whites are victims of black violence, men of misandric matriarchy. "Longhouse gynocracy" remains my favorite term for our supposed condition of female rule, for its sheer histrionic absurdity. And so on.

Religion and the Rescue Game

But there is another area where the Rescue Game manifests itself, and that brings us to the major point of this post. The Rescue Game is at the center of much of modern religion. And it is especially common in those forms of alternative religion in which I myself and many of the readers here participate.

Once again, however, it seems we've run out of time. Tomorrow we'll conclude this series with a discussion of precisely who is not a victim in religious matters, and how we can move on to a life without games.