If you’re reading this you’ve probably got the phonetic connection with Stockholm Syndrome and will no doubt be groaning a little at how contrived it is. But I’m not going to apologise. Like the Stanford Prison Experiment , it’s a popular concept but is suspect in terms of credibility. The Stanford experiment (which concluded that just about anyone could commit evil acts given the right circumstances) was designed and manipulated to give the results its designers anticipated. The Stockholm Syndrome, even if it is real thing, is rare.
Both concepts have entered into common discourse because they echo what we’ve all experienced or observed. Both contain evidence based truths but, particularly in the Stanford case, the problem lies in the generalisation of what we’ve observed specifically. For example, we see a certain trait in an ethnic group and when someone from that group commits a crime in a way that exagerrates that trait, we create an association between the two things. Yet when we think of sexual assault we assume its committed by a stranger when its more likely to be a family member. We don’t associate families with sexual assault. This segue’s well into a discussion on the Stockholm Syndrome.
Our attachment to the Stockholm Syndrome probably comes from it being played out on film. One technique we should be familiar with is where a film attaches us to a character who, in real life, would be utterly repellent. In the final scene of Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal phones Clarice and tells her “I’m having an old friend for dinner”. Its one of the best film endings ever, yet it seriously twists our sense of justice and human decency. Whereas the Stanford Experiment tends to absolve those who have committed war crimes and acts of barbarity because of their situation, the Stockholm syndrome tends to romanticise the role of the captor. Whereas our captors are human (with all the complexity that entails) their actions are inhumane and reprehensible.
The Dome
In the StuckHome ScreamDome, the captor is invisible and disembodied. It takes various forms, from social responsibility to health concern to legal constraint. But while the reasons for our compliance can be well grounded, those we look to for guidance and provision are shape shifters, a little like an erratic captor who courts our companionship in one minute then breaks our spirit the next. It feels like we are chasing ghosts and scaling clouds. The rules are both inconsistent and ever changing. They are ostensibly for our good, yet we feel punished. Over time we lose focus and lose track of how we got here with no prospect of getting back to normal.
The nuclear family becomes more nuclear and potentially dysfunctional because there is no natural separation to contextualise the proximity. At least there is school now but even that is uncertain and, just like we cannot escape the earth without taking some of it with us, the spectre of the coronovirus sticks like a burr. There will come a time when Covid-19 either becomes part of the furniture or loses its potency but no one knows when that will be. For those outside of a nuclear family, especially those who live alone, physical contact is a distant memory and its really difficult to quantify what effect that has on the psyche.
As with any traumatic experience, its the long term ramifications that require the most attention yet as our societies fracture the state will be less equipped to deal with the fallout. The triple point of a substance is the temperature and pressure at which the three phases of that substance (e.g. water, steam and ice) coexist. We exist at the point of an existential crisis where history screams to be reconciled, our future hangs in the balance and our present is utterly dysfunctional. All 3 demand our attention in equal measure and none is going away. Its the perfect storm. But though we live in a version of 1984, many don’t recognise it.
The Scream
We live in a post-apocalypse. Much of the damage done to our planet over the last 200 years looks to be irreversible. The damage done to our societies over the last 40 years has left us without support structures and mechanisms for recovery. The well is dry, the bucket has rusted away and the rope has perished. 60 years ago the aspiring generation looked at the well, saw the state of the bucket and the string and said, “this all must change”. Jim Crow screamed injustice, Vietnam screamed against the military industrial complex, the nuclear arms race screamed Armegeddon and the environment screamed against consumerism.
Stuck Home
One of the most debilitating aspects of the coronavirus pandemic is the isolation, both physical and geographic. Yet this might be our saving grace. Its not only that we crave human contact but the isolation also turns us inwards, forcing us to examine our lives in more detail. Most people don’t want to go back to ‘normal’ and one would suspect that is not entirely materialistic. Crises such as Brexit didn’t appear out of thin air, they’ve come from a sense of deep discomfort. There is a general desire for change, though its shape differs according to your demographic.
What is most debilitating is the lack of hope but maybe, even there, we have a germ of progress. When all roads are blocked you are forced to consider travelling another way. For all its advancement, the Twentieth Century was arguably the most destructive century ever and we now stand at the point where our choice is to accelerate our demise or beat another path and its only in a collective decision to do that, with a commitment to follow it through, in which there is any hope at all. Despite it’s destructive nature there might well be some residual grudging respect for a microscopic bit of code that took us captive and inflicted casualties yet opened up new horizons.