What Are We Doing to Ourselves

Only a few years to retirement after a right from the beginning of the scienin the power of reason to understand, long academic career of pure pleasure, tifie method, beliefs about the feasibiland on the other hand, he had a sensi so why complain now? Because I see ity of a scientific approach to personaltivity to the aggressive, antisocial urges some changes that seem destructive to ity shifted from one extreme to the stressed by the Hebrews in their pessi professors and students alike. I am other at different periods in the history mistic view of humankind. The impor surrounded by bright, caring, hardof Western civilization. tant thing here is that Freud did not working academics, and a disproporEarly theories made the universe see these two views as contradictory; tionately high number of them seem anthropocentric—all geography, the he saw that they both existed, demoralized and discouragedwith both entire physical world, and even the We are presently enamored with the themselves and academia. Young prostars above were arranged in accorbiological, genetic, biochemical side of fessors in particular enter the profesdance with a moral law that applied to human behavior, and most research sion full of dreams, passions, and behuman conduct and the universe. Psyers today appreciate the complexities liefs in their ideas. Within the six-year chology, in a religious sense, ruled suof human personality and assume that tenure clock it seems as if for many preme over all branches of knowledge, it is not an "either-or" situation. We their dreams turn into nightmares, In the Middle Ages, people were obincreasingly see the importance ofboth passions turn to cynicism, and big ideas sessed by a great fear of witchcraft. The nature and nurture, give way to trivial pursuits. Is this the Renaissance dismantled this pattern This quick and dirty history of the time-honored reaction of old folks to of beliefs as technical inventions, voydifferent approaches to understanding new ideas? You decide. ages of discovery, religious revolt, and human behavior is not meant to choose My concerns center on two issues, the revival of Greek learning all comone side or another. It is meant to point One is the pressure we are all under to bined to produce major upheavals, out that we keep searching for an produce quickly, which discourages the People began to regain faith in themswers, which certainly is a laudable careful development oforiginal or comselves and their own powers, a faith taskbutnotasimpleone.Atthepresent, plex ideas. The other is an increasingly justified in the beginnings of scientific I see an unwarranted faith among so narrow view of what is the acceptable conquest of the physical universe, cial work researchers in an emulation way to do research. Whitehead (1925) referred to this peof the "scientific method" as practiced riod,roughly 1550tol660,asthe"Cenby the physical scientists. As A Bit of Hi t tury of Genius." The 17th-century phiMcClelland (1951) said, "After all, the y losopher John Locke and his spiritual scientific mode of apprehending real From times immemorial, human bedescendants felt that man was essenity is only one possible mode" (p. 15). ings have struggled to understand tially a "blank tablet" at birth; society themselves. Social scientists, poets, and parents had the power to make of „r, , „ „ , Tt o , . • , t . , , j. v L , , ,j What Does This Do to Us? physicists, religious leaders, country a child what they would. and western songwriters ... all have Freud dealt head on with an issue Parker J. Palmer (1990a), a noted something to say, and in varying dethat had been causing conflict over so sociologist and writer on the topic of grees of methodology, all keep trying, many centuries: people's ability to un"knowing and teaching," talked about Among social scientists, there have derstand by using the powers of reason some of the things that drive human been a variety of different views over versus the pessimistic view of humanbehavior, such as genetic coding, stimu the centuries. McClelland (1951), in kind as driven by aggressive impulses, lus response, social conditioning, eco his book Personality, described a hisPeople, he said, in order to ensure the nomic self-interest, and means-ends tory of what he called the scientific triumph of reason, must extend their rationality. He questioned whether approach to personality. The Hebrews domain to those very unconscious, irthese things completely explain a hu saw dark and inscrutable forces within rational elements that had for so long man behavior that some would label "a human nature and felt that to try to shaken their belief in the power of calling," "altruism," or "spirituality." understand them was a bad thing. The reason. Freud combined in his own Stimulus response or social condition Greeks said that humans, by reasonthinking the two great contradictory ing can explain part of it perhaps, but ing, could arrive at an understanding beliefs about human nature: On the not all of it. If we cannot measure of and learn to control themselves. So one hand, he had the faith of the Greeks things like a reaction to watching a