>
> ----------
> From: Carl Ratner <cr2@humboldt1.com>
> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 18:13:25 -0800
> To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Cc: carl ratner <cr2@humboldt1.com>
> Subject: Re: Carl's paper
>
> I am grateful to the commentators on my paper "Agency & Culture." I'd like
> to respond to their questions and comments.
> Andy says that it's crucial for cultural psych. to explain individual
> differences. I disagree with this. I believe that the key task for
cultural
> psychologists is to understand mass-psychological phenomena such as the
fact
> that billions of people define themselves in terms of commodities they
own,
> billions of women are unsatisfied with their bodily appearance, millions
of
> American teenagers have poor communication with their parents, millions of
> American students have lost any interest in learning academic material in
> school, 50% of American marriages end in divorce, the vast majority of
> Westerners experience romantic love which has particular characteristics
> quite different from the love that Puritans experienced, Americans in
> general have higher levels of aggression than people in Sri Lanka,
> particular forms of mental illness are found in different countries, etc.
> etc. These mass-psychological phenomena are clearly shaped by shared
> features of a social system. Cultural concepts, or scripts, are clearly
> impt. in fostering these psychological phenomena, as Doris observes. But
the
> entire structure of social activities is crucial also. Understanding the
> relation between social systems that organize large numbers of people
> together in activities, and mass psych. phenomena is interesting
> scientifically and has enormous practical import. It should not be
> denigrated w. labels such as anthropologism, sociologism, etc. I don't see
> why Andy thinks that individual differences are more important or
> interesting than mass psych. issues which millions of people share.
>
> Since modern societies are complex, individuals who occupy different
> positions will have psych. differences. Beyond this, individuals in the
same
> position, and even the same family, also have psych. differences.
Explaining
> these is NOT the field of cultural psych.; it is clinical psych. I don't
> think cult. psych. should, or can, explain why among 2 brothers in a
family,
> they have different hobbies, one is more shy than the other, one marries a
> Caucasian blonde while the other marries a black woman, why 1 stays
married
> and 1 divorces, why 1 becomes homosexual and the other heterosexual.
What's
> relevant to cult. psych. are broader issues such as why 50% of marriages
end
> in divorce, why a small percentage of men become homosexual in America,
why
> the number of white men who marry black women is low, and why the
> personalities of immigrants systematically change over generations to
> conform to personality types of the adopted country. These are questions
> about psych. and culture. Of course, individuals with different
psychologies
> adopt different cultural concepts, however the point is to understand how
> these concepts organize psych., and why people in particular social
> positions adopt different concepts and develop different psychologies, not
> why a given person adopts one concept rather than another. The point of
> cultural psych. for me is to always see a psych. issue in relation to the
> broad culture, not to the unique experience of the individual. Personal
> experiences are impt. for the CULTURAL features they contain, not for the
> idiosyncratic features they contain. The cultural features are experienced
> by numerous individuals.
>
> Andy asks certain additional noteworthy questions. One concerns
> individualism and alienation. I say, following Marx, that individualism
> seems to be a form of freedom but in reality it is distance from society
> which prevents individuals from controlling society.Therefore,
> individualistic agency is alienated, impotent agency -- quite the opposite
> of freedom. Agency can only be fulfilled when individuals collectively
> control social forces. Thus, we don't yet have true agency. We need social
> change to develop it. And the chicken and egg question is how do we engage
> in social change if we're alienated? Who educates the educator? The answer
> is not as mysterious as it seems. Certain people occupy positions in
society
> which give them an understanding of alienation, possibilities for social
> change, and a motivation to do so. HOpefully, some of us XMCA folk are
among
> them. This is not elitism. It recognizes social differences in psychology
> which is cultural psych. par excellance. Social change is a spiraling
> process of gaining insights from a social position, communicating w.
others,
> making social changes which lead more people to develop more insight.
That's
> why we better start now accumulating this knowledge because when we need
it
> to deal w. emergencies -- as we soon will w. the Bush administration -- we
> can't just invent it.
> INdividualistic notions of agency naively believe that everyone is
already
> an agent by virtue of being a person, or engaging in narratives.
> Well, I'd be interested in what folks think about these comments.
> Carl
>
> --
> Carl Ratner, Ph.D.
> cr2@humboldt1.com
> http://www.humboldt1.com/~cr2
>
> P.O.B. 1294
> Trinidad, CA 95570
> USA
>
>
>
>
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