From: "Andrew Phelps" <math_anxiety@yahoo.com>

To: withholdapadues@yahoogroups.com

Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 9:39 PM

Subject: Re: [withholdapadues] Seligman selected for Wiley Prize in Psychology

As I see it, Zimbardo's statement is basically dishonest and asserts that we can apply the morality of the Stanford Prison Experiment to the general question of torture. He stands for "careful and appropriate torture." I am one of his "torture subjects."

Why hasn't the Ethical APA put out a statement regarding the rights and wrongs of challenging the prevailing "torture denial" system of clinical psychology? The obvious answer is that "they haven't done their homework yet" and there are many intricacies of the matter not yet worked out. Seligman knows that his "positive psychology" is "hamstrung" that way, and he chooses to act and promote what he has of it, rather than "divert his energy to getting the homework done by the social justice psychologists." So he has to "maintain the discipline of silence" and hide behind the "CIA culture" that dominates torture discourse today.

You wouldn't want Seligman to come out and justify the Mossad psychological warfare system the way that Zimbardo explicitly does, in his radical advocacy for Ariel Merari's "rat psychology" approach. But should he justify Mitchell and Jessen? Then he could line up with (rather than "hide behind") the "CIA culture" and network dishonestly with Zimbardo!

What the Ethical APA has to do, if it cares to do its homework, is to develop something akin to a "community organizing" version of "positive psychology" and then "put out a statement."