Games People Play

If we examine the complex way in which we behave (a sample of which is present in the last post), we become aware that we operate on multiple levels simultaneously. The psychological truth of this was popularized many years ago now by a book by Eric Berne entitled Games People Play. Berne called his method transactional analysis. It is based on a Freudian model which assumes that we have a Superego (call it social conditioning); an Id, call it our animal self, a child; and an Ego, meaning the realistic, rational self. The Ego was Freud’s favorite, of course. For him the religious sphere resided in the disreputable (because maladaptive) Superego or the childish (because undeveloped) Id. But never mind all that. According to Berne, if people communicate Superego-to-Superego, Id-to-Id, Ego-to-Ego, all is well. These are innocent ways for filling idle time. But if communications cross the boundaries—if you address me from your Superego and I respond from my Ego, trouble breaks out. The games turn nasty. My point here is that layers in the human are recognized even in pop psychology.

Berne’s analysis, however, is right on—whether you accept Freud’s materialism or not. Endless mischief is constantly caused in communications between people because they attack or criticize each other across the layers or, what is equally destructive, certainly of communications, denying the reality of all but one layer.

This categorization may be stated in other ways. Humans have a biological, organic existence, a rational layer above that, and a spiritual manifestation above the rational. All three have standing, as it were—not merely the layer in the middle, Freud’s Ego. Moreover, human understanding is hierarchical: the spiritual understanding is capable of, adequate for, understanding itself and the others those beneath it. The rational can understand the physical but is inadequate to understand the spiritual. Those who criticize religious phenomena on rational grounds are like some of the medieval geographers who never travelled anywhere but concocted their accounts from other’s tales and sheer say-so. They are just as deluded as the aggressively ignorant who despise all “book learning.” Every level is valuable, every art and science has its place—and its boundaries.

To illustrate, I’ll never forget the disaster that came about once when we hired a very nice contractor to redo our kitchen. I learned later that he and his laborers all had advanced degrees in English literature—but not finding jobs had decided to go into business on their own. Their sales pitch, of course, had been eloquent. I spent months after their premature departure fixing what they had messed up. And I managed it too—despite my education in history. I had to. Money had run out.