To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com

From: target@batstar.net

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:14:56 -0700

Subject: Re: [psysr-disc] Obama's Good Influence ..

 

Vxz:

I like your "psychological errors" citations.

I continue to think that the difficulty is that the "national security culture" is divisive to the extreme. It makes things harder for the Pres. to act effectively, and it also .. sets us one against another. Its designed methodology involves shattering "sense of community," as that's a good control tactic.

An "anthropologically informed" method of promoting U.S. cultural dominance in the world renders us a challenge to our critical skill. In my view we should focus especially on how to develop a psychologically appropriate critique of the mentality of government dominance today.

My Congressperson kind of "hit the nail on the head" when she voted 1-420 against the war on terror. She said, "We need a Dept. of Peace., not a war against terrorism." PsySR has taken on the "build a culture of peace" agenda. But it has not gotten as deeply enmeshed in the campaign for a "Dept. of Peace" as it might. Our getting so enmeshed might help us, but it's not in itself our "answer," I think.

I think your psychological errors idea is a start. But a thoroughgoing political/psychological critique is really the task in front of us.

 

Andrew Phelps

 

  

 

Quoting Vxz:

  1. fundamental attribution error--the tendency of observers to overestimate the importance of the actor's individual characteristics and underestimate the importance of situational factors in understanding the actor's behavior.
    2.
  2. what community psychologists call context minimization error - ignoring or discounting the importance of context and forces beyond the immediate situation that influence an individual's behavior.