Of course! I agree with you Carl, that "the key task for cultural
psychologists is to understand mass-psychological phenomena", and that's
why I continue to push my luck in asking for the money-relation (i.e. the
alienation of human labour into an external symbol which substitutes itself
for a human relation) to be given serious attention. To "explain" mass
phenoena is *obviously* the task of cultural psychology, but explanation
does not at all exhaust the task of science - "the point is to change it" -
and as soon as you begin to engage in struggle you come up against the
concrete forms in which mass psychological phenomena are manifest, and you
need a concrete psychological theory to make sense of your practice at this
level. I am not in favour of a division of labour between abstract and
concrete psychology. Or the alienation of humanity into separate "branches
of science".
Andy
At 04:27 PM 20/01/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>
>>
>> ----------
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| - Andy Blunden - Home Page - http://home.mira.net/~andy/index.htm - |
| "It has been said that the very essence of civilisation consists of |
| purposely building monuments so as not to forget". L S Vygotsky 1930 |
~ Spirit, Money & Modernity, Melbourne Uni Summer School 23/24 Feb '01 ~
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
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