Preface to a History of Psychology and Torture

The truth is that from its inception, American psychology has harbored and nurtured tendencies that, understood within larger social and political pressures supporting racism, colonialism, imperialism, human domination and manipulation, make readily understandable how these psychological currents co...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Capitalism, nature, socialism nature, socialism, 2008-03, Vol.19 (1), p.41-48
Main Author: Lichtman, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
American history
Animal behavior
Colleges & universities
Detention centers
Human nature
Psychologists
Psychology
Sleep deprivation
Social control
Society
Torture
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The truth is that from its inception, American psychology has harbored and nurtured tendencies that, understood within larger social and political pressures supporting racism, colonialism, imperialism, human domination and manipulation, make readily understandable how these psychological currents could well lead to the present involvement of professional psychology in the cloaking and facilitation of torture. Every so-called scientific enterprise must make a fateful choice: either it establishes the priority of methodological rigor and so subordinates the object of its investigation to such status as can be carefully, quantitatively, and repetitively confirmed, or it embraces the life of its inquiry and replaces the mathematical certainty of its methodology with a procedure better fitted to the fluid, emerging, qualitative nature of its "object."
ISSN:1045-5752
1548-3290
DOI:10.1080/10455750701859406