From: Andrew Phelps <math_anxiety@yahoo.com>
To: withholdapadues@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [withholdapadues] Human Terrain Systems, Anthropologists and the War in Afghanistan
Date: Friday, December 4, 2009, 3:26 PM
Hi
Thanks Qrs for
the attention. This matter is heavy on me.I think Andrew Phelps would remind us that there is a long history of Anthropologists’ involvement in counterintelligence.
But there is also a
problematic of vilification. When psychologists engage in torture, foreign or domestic, military or in 'mental health', that still doesn't mean there aren't many who are doing everything right and positive that they know how. We can't attack anthropologists any more than we can properly attack psychologists. We need to understand/develop what PsySR calls "a culture of peace with social justice."Vilification is logically related to "heroism" whereas what's needed is not "more heroes doing the 'surge'" in the face of obstructive (but foolish) radicals. In my psychological education I was offered the "hero" opportunity; Dr. Merari the rat psychologist turned Israeli psychological warfare commander was a
role model. :-( I didn't take that one up, and truth be told much of the U.C. Berkeley Psychology Dept. was also ill-taken by that choice.Eventually I discovered the work of Norma Haan, (see e.g. "On Moral Grounds" NYU Press 1985). Norma sought to engage the logic of what would bring activists together not what brings us down.
Agricola first laid waste the land. Then he displayed to the natives his moderation.
— Tacitus
Today this is a matter of "torture when you must" as an 'upgrade' on "torture to get what you want." Whereas we need to get out of the "torture business" entirely.
Part of my training as a research assistant for Norma involved learning Kohlberg's moral psychology from his assistant Ann Colby. Kohlberg, in Norma's view, was in the "torture when you must" crowd, the same moral stance of Mead, Bateson, Benedict in building an anthropological advocacy for the National Security Culture.
Norma's mentor was Else Frenkel-Brunswik who was a colleague of Adorno. Their work on "authoritarian personality" was a starting place but the follow-up also has its kind of complexity. One has to engage not only "critical theory" but the premises of social justice advocacy, which is no small matter.
I know Norma was constantly challenging herself on this "moral development" direction. Her last research work was in the area of deconstructing Piaget's version of the moral development of the child. Likely she'd have taken on Leo Strauss and the "neocon" movement if she'd had the time. She did understand that the "client/survivor" advocacy was something that needed to be mainstreamed in psychology and social science in general.
A few days before she passed away, she told me about the suicide of Lawrence Kohlberg. He was at "Level 6" morally within his theory; she knew better than to provide a "Level 6" in her theory of "interpersonal morality." Apparently he killed himself because his wife was tired of his sexual activity with female graduate students, anyway that's what Norma said people were telling her.
<sigh!>
I do share with Norma and many others here, I'd guess, the notion that our social science needs to be reworked, and at a deeper and more critical level at that. I appreciate the "Ethical APA" as a kickoff project, and I hope we will proceed with proper attention to the undervalued roles of humanism, of morality.
Qrs, what do you think?
Andrew Phelps