Masopher's Mind

A lot of blame is thrown around. I know that a lot of people blame investment bankers for the 2008 housing bust-up. Greedy bankers selling houses and selling mortgages and insuring mortgages and selling the insurance, and selling the insurance of the insurance. I have spoken to enough bankers to know that they blame people for what is currently happening. Stupid people buying houses they couldn’t afford, buying houses in hopes of flipping them to earn a profit, get on “the ladder” become rich overnight. Some boffins like I hold globalization accountable. News organizations talk about “confidence” others say, banks not lending to each other. Democrats blame Republicans, Republicans blame democrats, regulators blame deregulation, laisse faire economists blame regulations.

I blame myself.

I blame myself for putting myself in the situation that I have to give a shit. I could have set up a nice little farm for myself raising chicken, cows and corn, have an equally natural lady and 12 or so kids to help out on the farm and to take care of us in our old age, instead I am living here in a fictional world depending on fictional money indicated by a one dimensional line running across a screen. Its funny how at its most “advanced” life can be condensed to how much the S&P500, Dow Nikkei and FTSE move up and down. All those companies, all the workers all the people involved can be condensed down to an index. And suddenly the people stop moving the index; it is the index that is moving the people.

Sorry Sammy you are being laid off because our stock has gone down. People are uncertain of profitability because the stock market crashed. Half a million people lose the roof over their head because numbers on a screen were a lot less than they were a few months ago. Somehow people have become so dependent on numbers that things like eating, drinking, making love and laughing have become secondary to the weighted moving average of an aggregate of investments. Living has become secondary to the securitization and sale of mortgage guaranteed profits.

To me this is not a problem; to me this is nothing but a cleverly told fable by very very clever men and women. Instead of dragons and hobbits and lightsabers its derivatives and hedge fund managers and financial instruments. I agree, it is real, the emperor has the most magnificent gown on, it changes colour and sparkles with a million jewels, shimmering in a way that only the geniuses on former Wall Street, Canary wharf, and Brussels can understand.

The root of all evil, is the fallacy that evil exists, the root of a stock market crash is the fallacy that the money existed. The root of fallacy is the human mind. Without the human mind, evil and the stock market would not exist and therefore my friend the root of it all…

is you.

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