From: target@batstar.net
To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:51:28 -0700
Subject: RE: [psysr-disc] Digest Number 2195
Dfh, Baz, et al.:
I'm glad this discussion is starting up. I've been facing this concern since 1977, and the "psychology of terrorism" (I was wearing a button that said, "Palestine Will Win") was applied to me and I was prevented by U.C. Berkeley from becoming a social psychologist. The fact that my social psychology instructor was a commander in the Israeli Psychological Warfare Unit of Mossad was also significant, as it turned out.
Dfh wrote:
You are right, all too often terrible things we do are considered noble. But terrible things "they" do are considered evil. I wrote an article (attached) about this a few years ago while on active duty. It was a radically different view in contrast to the dominant thinking about the psychology of terrorism in the military. The article was published in 2002, just after the 9/11 attack.
The attachment does not come through.
Baz wrote:
When U.S. serviceman and women were implicated in complicity in horrific acts of torture, murder, and abuse suddenly the Milgram Obedience studies and the Stanford Prison experiments (with poor Philip Zimbardo apparently unwittingly trotted out for TV appearances to describe the latter) were explained in great detail. Despite the fact that the Nuremberg Trials established under international law the principle that individuals in abusive/horrific/inhuman systems CAN and MUST be held accountable for their actions even if defying the orders given them risked their being executed.
And the kind of glorification of accomodationist systems like that of Larry James in Fixing Hell (foreword is by Philip Zimbardo) - now being passed as "psychology of terrorism" needs to be challenged and refuted on theoretical grounds. Social Learning Theory is not a good justification for "torture denial" by "attitude management."
I believe that is part of what "towards a socially responsible psychology" expects of us.
Andrew Phelps