„Obliviousness can be defined as a state of being unmindful or unaware of something, of being ignorant of it or not conscious of its existence. When obliviousness is shared in a family, the family members will individually and collectively distance, avoid, lack interest in, be unaware of, or lack engagement with relevant information, perspectives, meanings, interactions, places, memories, and events. Almost always, shared family obliviousness does not represent a choice by anyone in the family or by the family collectively. Shared family obliviousness just happens. And in that obliviousness they are unconcerned about (in large part, or quite possibly entirely, because unaware of) whatever it is they are oblivious about. (…) Shared obliviousness is a property of social systems. All social systems tune out a great deal of available information as they function and work toward what seem to be their goals. Systems can do this through a summation of individual obliviousness and through organizing in such a way that the system and everyone who is part of it is oblivious. (…). That organization includes values about what counts as interesting and important. It includes education that focuses family members here and not there, walls (literal and metaphoric) that block off certain information sources, and system-wide rules that define only certain information sources as worthy of attention. General systems theories typically do not problematize inputs but assume that inputs are so obvious and can so be taken for granted that there is no reason for a system analyst to explore why it is that of all the potentially accessible inputs a system only detects and makes use of the ones it does. Similarly, in the information systems literature, information might be defined as any stimulus that has changed recipient knowledge (…). By contrast, the concept of shared obliviousness introduces the notion that systems at some level must always select and filter information. They must always have processes for separating what to attend to from what not to attend to. Understanding the bases for those processes would tell us a lot more than simply assuming that inputs are whatever they are or that they exist if something changes in the system in response to them. Inputs to systems should not be taken for granted. It is better instead to raise questions about how it is that the system takes in or reacts to this and not that. Shared family obliviousness does not necessarily involve a lack of focus or absorption. Indeed, an important process of achieving obliviousness about some matters is to be focused on and absorbed in other matters. Hence, an important reason for a family system to focus on this or that is that it is then much easier for it to be oblivious to other things.“ (In:„Shared Obliviousness in Family Systems“, State University of New York Press, New York 2009, S. 3f)