If you take a poll of genuine academics with proven credentials in substantive disciplines where there is still much genuine engagement with fact to get at truth – I am speaking not only of the empirical sciences and mathematics, but of many or most History, Philosophy, Languages and Law departments, and even of some English Literature departments – asking them what they regard as the most flaky, doctrine-driven, truthophobic, quack disciplines on the campuses, the answer would be near unanimous – Women’s Studies, Social Work (at the level of theory), Sociology, Psychology, and Education (at the level of theory). Although there are aspects of the last four of these five campus disciplines, or pseudo-disciplines, which, sometimes and in some places, can be inoffensive to authentic humanity and even illuminating of truth, in practice all five are almost everywhere rooted in poisonous dogmatics regarding man in his individual and social nature which makes them overwhelmingly toxic. Indeed, a predominant feature of them is a denial that there is any immutable human nature, unchangeable by social engineering, or anything sacrosanct about any aspect of human life.
They are Orc-disciplines, which like Tolkien’s Orcs are ugly parodies of healthy entities of which they are perverted distant descendants. They profess to teach scientific truth about humanity, but in reality they are simultaneously sub-humanities and pseudo-sciences. Typically, they offer pseudo-knowledge, comfortable jobs, infinite arrogance, and above all power over others even to the most ungifted and lazy-minded of students, which is undoubtedly the main reason for their persisting popularity.
Yet what university disciplines wield the greatest influence in Western society – in the universities themselves insofar as they impart or impose attitudes and values; in the media; in the law courts and court bureaucracies (especially family law); in schools; in government social welfare, adoption, education, health and foreign aid departments, and so on? The answer is these same sub-humanities. Worst of all, in practice many politicians, not only Orwellian left-liberals but many slack conservatives, and many church leaders, find it convenient to treat the apparatchiks of the sub-humanities with the respect and reverence they demand, giving them and the cults to which they belong – most notably the feminist cult – power which is not only bureaucratic but hieratic. “Hieratic” derives from the Greek word for priest, hierus, and when politicians or church leaders grant a sub-humanities cult hieratic power (always, of course, without telling the public, let alone inviting public debate), they give it the “right” to guide them and to guide society; to design laws and regulations to advance the cult agendas; and to exercise bureaucratic control ruthlessly.
This is a theme on which there is much, much more to be said, and on which I expect to be saying more.
Having spent most of my life in one of the fields you excoriate, I’d have to say that four of the five are if anything more empirically based (arguably too much so) than most of the fields to which you counterpose them. It hardly seems much of an empirical research method to propose consulting the prejudices of those in other fields with higher academic prestige but arguably less concern with “fact” and “truth,” if indeed they don’t – in postmodernist spirit – dispense with such concepts altogether.
The problem, Colin, is that psychology need not be a sub-humanity, though it often is. There is a place in learning for the study of the psyche, for the study of human nature and how best to treat mental illness and behavioral problems. And, indeed, in a day when actual priests have often abandoned the call to counsel their flock based on a true understanding of sin and virtue, the surrogate priests of psychology have often filled the breach, sometimes doing good, sometimes doing harm. And while I don’t know the state of the field in academia, the psychologists and psychiatrists I’ve known have a very keen understanding of human nature, based on years of practice.
It is certainly true that psychology is dogma driven. This has been true from the days of Freud and Jung, when their materialistic and gnostic philosophies (respectively) prevented them from seeing the psyche clearly. And yet somehow some good is still being done in the practise of the discipline.
Perhaps the best observation is this. You are safe to assume that a person who has been getting spititual direction for years is probably on the road to virtue and happiness, if not sanctity. A person who has been in therapy for years is probably mired in vice and unhappiness and getting nothing out of it but excuses for their behavior.
That’s a big generalization; there are bad spiritual director and good psychologists, but one often sees evidence of the latter, of nutty people getting nuttier in therapy.
Anyway, there is no need for psychology to be a pseudo science or a pseudo humanity. It holds much promise and can and should be reformed.
I can hardly believe that I’ve actually read what I just read. I am deeply grateful that I’ve lived long enough to see it said–and grateful to you for having said it.
Although some might decry the pointed and bombastic critique offered up by Jory, those of us who have followed the trends and unsubstantiated proclamations offered by the disciples noted on many issues-esp. their uncritical acceptance- will agree that his analysis is long overdue and succinct. I hope other publications will pick it up and reprint it verbatim! The words gratitude and hooray do not begin to reflect my appreciation.
I’d like to add a note of wholehearted agreement with Jim Sekerak’s comment.
Been there–and got testimony!
Kevin’s comment: Psychiatry and psychology are worlds apart. The former is a specialty of medical science and totally valid; the latter is neither. Psychology admits this and even adds that it’s speculative by nature, its validity confined to carefully controlled experiments with all appropriate parameters applied. It calls itself “an inexact science.” That is not to say it’s totally useless, only to say that even its [ethical] practitioners acknowledge its limitations. It functions best as theory. St. Edith Stein and Pope John Paul II were authorities on the ultimate expression of theoretical psychology (personalism), where “psychology” bowed to its theretofore hidden master–which turned out to be the arch-humanity of philosophy.
I write as a psychologist. Psychology, at bottom, is the scientific study of human behaviour, no more no less. People can and do draw preferred (and sometimes incorrect) conclusions from the data so gathered with respect to social issues, but that does not negate the science. In many universities Psychology is no longer in the Humanities at all, but rather in the Science faculty. Rather than try to negate your argument at the general level, I will turn to the specific.
In my preferred area of work, the discoveries from the cognitve neurosciences (which includes contributions from many non-psychologists as well) is strongly impacting upon models of cognition, which are in turn becoming more robust and better linked with biology. If you are interested, Google the CHC model of cognition for more specific information about the theory.
Better understanding of how humans think and learn is leading to much better supports for people with brain-based disorders now than was the case in the past – I look at people I work with who have Autism, for example, and consider how they are able to function now, compared with 40 years ago when many were shut away in institutions which often overlooked the cognitive strengths they may have had, with very cruel results.
Good empirical science is what has driven the improvements in helping people that I have seen across my working life. I do not recognise your caricature as representing my discipline, at all – hence I can respond without rancour.
Dear Paolo,
Insofar as psychology helps people with “brain-based disorders” or cognition “linked to biology”, it is a function of psychiatry, which is rightfully a specialty of medical science. The difficulty with calling it a “scientific study of human behavior” is that such an appellation is open to all sorts of interpretation; hence, you can hardly blame people for incorrectly characterizing it. Other than the briefest overview of chemistry and physiology, psychology’s only recommendation to science is the rigor of its experimentation models.
This is not to say that it serves no purpose, only to say that the purpose has been enormously exaggerated. School counselors serve a very useful purpose, so do behaviorial experts in rehabilitation centers, etc., but the term “inexact science” is better suited–first of all, because very little is actually scientific except in method, and secondly, the type of counseling that has to happen in its appropriate context must necessarily ignore vital human elements (a situation which led to the personalism of JPII).
I wonder why the offending fields are called sub-humanities in the headline. I can see how Women’s Studies could be labeled in that way. There we find the kind of influences of feminism, Nietzschean postmodernism, etc. that inhabit humanities departments like comparative literature, French, English, and some philosophy departments.
But the other four are not humanities in any obvious sense, sub- or otherwise. Psychology and sociology are empirically based social and behavioral sciences and education and social work are professional (or sub-professional if you prefer) fields that draw on them.
All are driven, if only by funders and insurers, to find out what works and works quickly – social work increasingly utilizes and requires evidence-based practice, as does medicine. As with university education, teachers are increasingly required by accrediting bodies to assess empirically what students actually learn rather than what they think they are teaching them.
Now you may say that the concept of ‘works’ and of the human person underlying it is inadequate (as it is in medicine) or that professional codes of ethics are ideological (as they are). But you cannot reasonably say that there is not “much genuine engagement with fact to get at truth.”
OK, I have more to say on this subject, which I blog about here – http://thwordinc.blogspot.com/2013/01/theres-interesting-discussion-over-at.html . I will also mirror this post on the Ink Desk.
Great discussion!
Dear Paul,
I can read and understand the animus in your responses to Colin Jory’s post (and maybe also to my comments). There is more here than the topic indicates. I certainly don’t blame you for your response, nor do I think you’re in any way incorrect, just incomplete. There’s more going on here than surface claims imply or state. But I should leave that discussion for Colin Jory, whose post it is.