This talk is about the double-bind as a formula in Everybody Loves Raymond and how to get out of the Perfect Trap. A double-bind is a situation where no matter what you do or say is lose/lose. If you can catch another person in a double-bind you can control them…but watch out. There are only two ways out of a double-bind: violence of creativity. Destruction or love. The news us full of violence created by a lose/lose situation. Even suicide is a way out of the double-bind. But humor is the best way. In this talk I look at how humor is created by the double-bind. So watch it.
Women intuitively know how to create double-binds. Men get caught in them every time. The basic formula is Nature versus Law or Order. Obey your own nature or obey the Law created by the other. In the double-bind, no matter what you do, you feel guilty: guilty for disobeying your own nature or guilty for disobeying your duty to the law. Heck, this goes all the way back to Jesus.