Masopher's Mind

This article is in response to a BPS post critisizing former APA president Ronald Levarant on visiting Guantanamo Bay and promoting the involvment of Psychologists in everyday life.

Perhaps I misunderstand. Is the original poster suggesting that Gitmo and torture will cease to exist if psychologists were to not be involved?

Is Ronald Levarant such a bad person for wanting psychologists to be involved in all human activities including the less savory ones such as torture or judging without 100% accuracy that a convicted criminal will recidivate therefore denying a human the chance of freedom? Does the OP think that lambasting him is enough? Perhaps subjecting Levarant to the torture he apparently promotes might teach him a lesson? Making an enemy of this man because of the beliefs he has treads the very same ground now being walked by the American administration. Everything is a matter of perspective and I strongly believe in seeking to understand before condemning.

It is fashionable to criticize the United States for ‘Gitmo’ or an American psychologist for appreciating the presence of psychologists at Guantanamo Bay but has anybody ever considered that it this just a matter of popular opinion and not absolute. For instance: Why is the Nazi genocide such a gruesome specter to haunt Mr. Levarant’s words but the Armenia genocide and the African Chattel slavery and Native American genocide events that are shrugged at, forgotten or passed off as things done long ago? If one takes the position that all these are ‘bad things’ that are un-natural and should not happen then perhaps first hand observation by a trained psychologist may go some way in appreciating and rectifying a ‘problem’ that seems to happen all too often through-out history.

In Nazi German, Ottoman Turkey and 18th Century England just as it is now, there were a string of scientists who were very legitimate and who tried to legitimize very objectionable (in the modern sense) things. However if one were to employ empathy and some attempt at objectivism and retrospect one can also see how beneficial these very bad events were to the people at the time as well as the successive generations. Nazi Germany produced scientific advances in nuclear and rocket technology quickly adopted by English and American administrations but also advances in medicine, biology and psychology used today. I agree whole heartedly with any detractors that these advances by no means vindicates the incredible human costs but my perspective in psychology is emphasizing the positive and trying to make “bad practices” better not be condemning or ostracizing but through participation understanding and offering positive alternative behavior.

As an observer of human behavior I find it unacceptable that psychologists are being encouraged to deny, defy or hide from the existence of human evil. Will the BPS and APA screen out people based on their penchance for participating in or attempting to rationalize socially reprehensible acts? Will the BPS and APA start officially condemning Guantanamo, or lesser ‘evils’ like teenage pregnancy, prostitution, or drug abuse? Will the BPS begin writing a list of ‘thou shalt nots’ for the general public as well as for members? It is high time that we get more involved with our fellow human beings and accept them for who they are. I take the view that we are scientists, not authorities on right and wrong.

References:
A good history book, introspection, personal experience, a bit of Jung and Nietzsche