Stage-7: Develop Generalized Applications
Benefit Society
From the outset, the doctrine, despite its specific focus, was assumed to be of benefit to society in general. This does not just occur through the direct use of the doctrine narrowly conceived. It also, and perhaps predominantly, occurs through applying the doctrine to particular situations, persons, groups, or events so as to develop a more humane and effective handling.
Example: 
Politics in Social Groups
THEE regularly develops a framework and then provides applications that might be helpful to many. For example, a framework for political choice (PH'6CHK) was developed in relation to a society, its natural focus. However, politics can be generalized to any enduring social group. Three significant groups were chosen to demonstrate the value of the analysis and potentially assist with issues that arise: organizations, families and global politics. To further demonstrate the power of the doctrinal analysis and assist users, the subsequent framework for political life in society (PH'6CsH) was also developed for religious orders, as well as again to organisations and geopolitics. Note that numerous THEE-names are altered in these special applications.
Once the doctrine is viewed as sufficiently developed, modern and relevant, it is ready to be generalized. Those applying the doctrine beyond its original focus typically adjust and even simplify certain essences to enhance credibility and acceptability. Raymond Aron wrote that Karl Marx's work "can be explained in five minutes, five hours, in five years or in half a century".
Example: Helping Hospitalized Children
The common practice in UK hospitals was to strictly prevent mothers from frequently visiting their ill children. Even when nurses or the occasional doctor behaved more humanely, the medical profession objected. John Bowlby and James Robertson, both psychoanalysts, were two key campaigners, producing papers, a report for the WHO (1951), films and lectures explaining how important it was for hospitals to give parents easy access to their sick children. The debate lasted for several decades from 1930’s to the 1970’s until it became standard practice to have open visiting of hospitalized children. Few would have understood this result as a triumph for psychoanalytic thought. See details here.
Doctrinal adjustments to suit some significant social phenomenon may well be ignored or even disowned by orthodox adherents while being mocked by experts. One or a few individuals, insider-adherents or well-read outsiders, may become the face of application and popularization at any particular point in time.
Example: Intellectual Debate
Psychoanalysis was developed and designed to treat people with psychological and relationship problems, and that remains the concern of psychoanalytic institutes. However, by mid-20thC, many writers began focusing on Freud's doctrine rather differently. Highly popular books like Erik Erikson's "Young Man Luther", Herbert Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization" and Norman Brown's "Life Against Death" were steeped in psychoanalytic thinking but deviated from Freud. Their arguments were viewed as profound by some and a ragbag of ideas by others. Still they reflected and promoted the notion that Freud's doctrine should inform social and philosophical thinking.
Consequences
For applications to yield results takes many years and the process is unpredictable and evolutionary in nature. Nevertheless, over time, aspects of the doctrine can come to permeate the culture, with different societies and different sections of any one society assimilating different notions.
As a doctrine becomes widely applied in society, the initial Stage-1 fundamental realizations get re-engaged, but now those early illuminations become cultural assumptions in regard to the way things are. At this point, everyone has heard about the fundamental ideas even if many will not even know that they emerged from an esoteric and once highly controversial doctrine.
Example: Psychoanalysis in Society
Orthodox psychoanalysis starting in the 20thC as a controversial fringe group grew in prestige as a treatment to reach a peak from which it has slowly receded in recent decades. What the doctrine lost as a specialized method of treatment for the few, society gained from its spawning of a wide variety of schools and therapies with diverse methods and applications while retaining many basic ideas. Notions like the unconscious, impacts of childhood relationships on later life, transference, defences, emotional ambivalence, the importance of sexuality, narcissistic manipulations and more have become accepted and used to understand or intervene in diverse social situations. This is particularly evident in areas like healthcare, welfare, literature, theatre, advertising, and propaganda. The reverse has not been the case: psychoanalysis has been resistant to incorporating cultural concepts or academic theories, or even seeing its own theory as part of some larger theory governing human functioning more generally.
Example: Marxism in Society
The original doctrine, "classical Marxism", has now split into numerous variants with differing emphases. While some of Marx's economic ideas have lost credibility, most people are unaware of those that remain relevant. So the doctrine lives on and core ideas like historical materialism, the class struggle, exploitation of labour, internationalism, communism, and false consciousness have entered everyday conversation.
Religious Doctrines & Societal Customs
Religious doctrines commonly get strongly established in societies. In the West, cultural values reflect the Judeo-Christian heritage. Islamic doctrine permeates a number of Middle East and Asian countries.
Doctrines may become so integrated and dominant in government that the non-adherent minority suffers disadvantages and even persecution. The killing and wars are never about the religious doctrine as such, which invariably preaches peace and tolerance, but more about the privileges and rights accorded to the respective believers.
Example: Christianity's Schism
Catholic and Protestant schools within Christianity have repeatedly come into conflict in central Europe, most notably in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) which devastated Europe. In France, Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV viewed Protestantism as a threat and even made it illegal, sanctioning massacres. More recently, the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, waged an irregular war largely driven by the Protestant majority’s discrimination against Catholics in jobs, housing and policing.
Because doctrines become embedded in the culture, it becomes difficult for people to distinguish between customs and doctrines. For example, many customs of Muslim countries (e.g. Iran, Afghanistan), like dress codes and suppression of women, have no basis in Islamic doctrine.
Completion
Cycle-2 is now complete and there is nothing further required to establish and a school and embed its doctrine. That does not mean that society has adopted the doctrine and everyone has become an adherent: that would be unreasonable and impossible. The doctrine will still remain controversial for many.
Now:
Then:
Originally posted: 7-Sep-2022. Last updated: 20-Mar-2024.