I do think the BPS should police the practice of its members — unenlightened

Possibly, but I think it would need more government support to do something like that, membership is still not mandatory. As a token gesture though, I'm generally in favour of organisations taking a more serious stance about their membership, I just don't think it would have much effect without legislation to back it up. And then aren't we just more beholden to state intervention than we were before? I can't see a way that a professional organisation can meaningfully control the behaviour of its members and yet remain independent of the state (the only source of legitimate force).

One of the questions I'm not clear about in relation to the op is how to tell a legitimate state from an illegitimate one. — unenlightened

As you know from some of our previous discussions, I'm a relativist about things like legitimacy (in the sense I think it's being used here) so a legitimate state is just one that meets your criteria, I do it on gut feeling as much as anything else.

Am I responsible for psychology as a psychology graduate? I rather think I am, even though I do not practice, and never have, my education makes me responsible in the same way that education and a democratic system makes the people responsible for the government. — unenlightened

This is the question I tried to ask boethius in the beginning, what his ethical framework was by which I was responsible for the actions of others on the basis of some similarities but not others. I think a wide base of responsibility is a good thing but there's absolutely nothing to be gained by self flagellation over actions that we could never reasonably have controlled or repair. There's only any point in assigning myself responsibility for those things I can properly affect...and the actions of psychologists acting on the instruction of the Chinese government ain't one of those things.

I think symbols are also rallying points. Destroying a racist symbol can in fact be motivating, first in the accomplishment of the goal in itself - see, we can make a difference and second, due to symbols being understood in more ways than the abstract policy, debate or speech. So more people will get it as they don't reach the insight through rational deliberation but through feeling. — Benkei

This is all very possible, but it being theoretically possible is not the same as it actually happening in reality. I won't repeat what I've just written to Punshhh above, but the summary is I just don't think it's happening in any meaningful way. It's all symbol and no substance.

I don't doubt progress has been made, and will continue to be made, but there's absolutely no need for it to be made at this snail's pace, years of legal battles to get one bit of hard won legislation, years of pinning down the inevitable non-compliance, more years of political wrangling to appease those who lost out... Every single one of these inequalities is perpetrated by some company selling some product or service and every purchase legitimises their practices.

there is a demographic divide here and the young are on message about equality and tackling racism, like being on message on climate change and a need for more socialist political policies. — Punshhh

I don't really see any evidence of that. The gap between rich and poor is larger than it's ever been, there's more people in modern slavery than there's ever been and both issues affect minority groups disproportionately. If we had a large sector of the population who were 'on message' then these things would be at least better than they were, but they're not.

The young buy more mobile technology than ever despite the fact that Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and Google have all been implicated in the exploitation of Congolese children in the extraction of cobalt for their phones.

The young still flock to cheap clothes shops like H&M, Primark, or Gap, all of whom have been shown to exploit child labour laws in developing countries.

Nike are as popular as ever despite a long history of exploitation.

Premier League Football clubs have been called out by the Select Committee as being woefully clandestine about their legal requirements to produce a modern slavery statement despite being identified as a high risk group, but Football is as popular as ever.

People still look around for the cheapest mortgage, the best loan, the best credit card without a second thought to the industries those banks are investing in.

These activities are not primarily the older generation, they're primarily the young. If they really are aware and care about things like equality and ending oppression why aren't they taking these very simple steps to bring about and end to these practices?

The cobalt issue alone is suggested to affect 35,000 children as young as six, and could be solved in one simple move - don't buy Apple, Microsoft, Google or Samsung phones. Instead it's been tackled in a painfully slow way by legal suits and the tireless work of charities like Amnesty over several years while kids take photos of themselves 'fighting racism' on the same fucking phones made (in part) by 6 year old Congolese kids paid less than 50 cents a day.

If it bases its treatments on the requirements of schools for order in the classroom, then its claim to validity is lost. — unenlightened

But it doesn't. It bases its treatments on a need to medicate extreme hyperactivity (in the case of ADHD). We could argue whether a need ever exists even in the most extreme cases, I'd probably be inclined to say no myself, but it's a difficult issue. The point is, if there's a need to treat anyone at all, clinical psychology as an academic discipline will have cause to investigate drugs that can do so. But they do not, ever, as an academic discipline determine the people who should be given such medication. That's done by the pharmaceutical company psychologists, NICE, and the psychologists on the ground. The academic discipline as a whole (its teaching, its rules, its guidance) doesn't say specifically.

This is exactly what the complaint of the thread is, children are drugged for the convenience of the school, and we call it ADHD. — unenlightened

The complaint of the thread is that all psychologists everywhere in the world are complicit in Chinese genocide because they study the same topic, and that they are all, worldwide, agents of the state because they need state permission to carry out their research. Don't try to ameliorate the foam-flecked insanity of the original rant by pretending it's really about some nuance of the specific involvement of psychiatry in the oppressive education and criminal systems.

But leaving aside the delusion of the OP and taking this new point, then yes, I agree with you that psychiatry is complicit in that it provides tools it has good reasons to believe will be misused to subdue children for mere convenience.

That complicity is limited though. Whilst I rarely work with children, my wife has been a child psychologist for nearly 20 years and in our experience of the field, the overwhelming majority of psychologists are opposed to this kind of treatment, many are opposed even to the very existence of the drug. The BPS has very strong guidance on medicating behavioural problems. Unless you think psychology ought to have its own police force I don't see how you can hold us accountable for a failure to comply with the guidance.

Maybe we should ban any medication for behavioural problems. I'd seriously like to see such a motion discussed at the BPS, but their evidence to the 2018 Nice review on medication for ADHD was already preceded by quite a robust debate in which the possibility was mooted. Not where I'd like us to be, but hardly gagged shills of the state the OP describes.

Firstly, I love a good statue toppling as much as the next anarcho-syndicalist, so I agree with much of what you say, but I have a few caveats, mostly related to the modern age and so if they seem a bit fusty then feel update me.

Let's not pretend that statues are a neutral form of speech; they're not part of a scientific discourse — fdrake

Absolutely, I hope I was clear enough in my initial comment, but if not I'll reiterate it here - any statue representing an oppressing institution in the very community oppressed by it (or one expressing solidarity with them) deserves everything it gets. Putting one up is offensive and failing to take one down is at best wilfully ignorant of that offense, at worst just as offensive.

But...

So the second function; they are ideological symbols; the cast body of the person stands in for the spinned old stories they're involved with; they're metonyms. — fdrake

It's this second function that concerns me. If a statue can act as a symbol in its erection, then it can no less act as a symbol in its toppling. A statue of Wilberforce says "We [parliament] dismantled slavery". The problem is that if they can perform this function in their erection, they can do so in their toppling. Its erection says Parliament destroyed slavery - when in actual fact there are more slaves now than there have ever been. So the very same trick is committed in tearing it down. People haven't decided they're not going to tolerate slavery anymore, they tolerate it daily by their very purchases, but by tearing a statue down they get to re-write the narrative in exactly the same way that putting it up did. "We [the protestors] dismantled slavery, we must have done, look at the lack of symbol"

In the past I don't think there would have been enough of a temptation to re-write the narrative in real time (it's all very well denying history, but denying the present is a lot harder). But in the modern age, dictating reality through filtered social media images has become not only easy but the standard. I think this changes the way these symbolic actions are used, hence the hypocrisy we see.

there is no question that psychiatry exercises a coercive function by incarceration and forcible treatment that cannot be divorced from the state as it is incorporated of necessity into the justice system. And that was the main criticism of Szasz, as you know, which has not been addressed anywhere as far as I am aware. — unenlightened

I agree. Which is why, right at the very first mention of this whole issue I sought to clarify if we were talking about psychiatriy or psychology as a whole. I reject the idea that simply because psychiatrists are psychologist this somehow implicates the whole of psychology in their actions. Not even the whole of psychiatry is implicated as Szasz and Laing prove, and we do study both now (on some courses by name, on others by their effects), so academic psychology cannot be held responsible either.

I my opinion we still do incarcerate and, more prevelently, medicate far more people than we should. But I disagree that the main driver of this is the state or academic psychology. There are two main drivers; the pharmaceutical industry and the need for crowd-control in educational establishments. Neither are really state driven. Both are heavily tied to the needs of corporations to make profits.

Psychology degrees, at least in their modern incarnation, do not teach anything about who to incarcerate. Only a small subset teach about who to medicate. Virtually all of them (to my knowledge) teach the entire argument about over-medicalisation of societally instigated conditions. It's actually the institutions outside of academia (schools and the NHS) which now produce the most force to overmedicate.

My point was more that the lack of will/awareness is not isolated from the focus on the police, the statues, the latest celebrity advocate... It is directly linked.

The reason why there is a lack of awareness is because it is not talked about, the talking points are taken up with mythological villains deliberately to occupy the narrative space so that actual solutions never get discussed. Changing buying habits (particularly moving towards lower consumptions) harms the very people who benefit from systemic racism. Pulling down a few statues or changing the make-up of the police force doesn't. It's not a coincidence. It's a deliberate attempt to dominate the narrative with something amenable to consumer culture.

The reason why there is a lack of will is because our social structures are still set up to reward indicators of group membership klike having the right phone, being on the right social media platform) and again, it's not coincidence that these very narratives are being filled with identification tokens which are conveniently of no harm to capitalists.

I don't think it's sufficient to simply acknowledge that these issues exist alongside. They'll never be talked about until there's space in the narrative for them.

I presume you have a phone like everyone else. — Baden

It's really weird that I always get this kind of response when I mention these issues. You're quite happy to get people to fund and suffer the upheaval from changing the entire police force of a city but somehow you think changing phones is so hard you'd be making a reasonable guess presuming I hadn't done so. I have a Fairphone. They're not more expensive than the latest Apple. Before that I had a second hand phone. One can do the same with clothes, banking, energy, cultural activities, social media... If you'resstuck I'll provide a list.

Some cost more money (and so only available to few), but many don't even cost more, they just require giving up on a group identity (carefully crafted, of course, by the very people selling it).

Amazon were recently derided for near slavery treatment of their workforce. We could bring down Amazon tomorrow, just stop buying stuff from them. Target (to use a relevant example) have been shown to use modern slave labour in the manufacture of their clothes. Burning down the store just causes an inconvenient amount of insurance paperwork (not that I object to doing so anyway). Not buying any of their stuff, even for a few weeks, is crippling, and it's not even hard. Ethical suppliers do exist for almost all products.

the academic institution of psychology that I was part of at the time, was very much "involved to prevent the breaking down of an old structure to build a new one." — unenlightened

Indeed it was, as was true of basically every other institution at the time. Philosophy too had its time when it perpetuated old structures. Which directly contradicts boethius's point that psychology does one thing whilst philosophy does another.

Institutions seem to perpetuate the social norms of the time, what's more, there's a time lag such that most institutions will be slightly behind the new social norms, slightly resistant to change.

None of this supports or illustrates the point being made by boethius, which is that psychology, as a whole, serves some state instituted function which other institutions (like philosophy) do not.

This is absolutely patently false.

All institutions suffer from the same effect (its not just psychology).

The effect is mediated mostly by the make up of society (and sub classes of society). It is not generally mediated by the state (except in places like China).

People within those institutions are just as much part of the solution as they are part of the problem, they are not morally complicit just by association, they are, more often than not, the very same people who bring about a change in their institution.

So out of all the crazy claims that have been made on this thread, all were left with any actual evidence of is the idea that institutions in general tend to support cultural norms and are a bit slow to change when cultural norms change. Academic Psychology was one of those.

So if we can cut the crap about how all psychologists are morally culpable for Chinese genocide we can actually have a discussion about how the institution's previous resistance to change has played a part in how mental health issues were poorly addressed.

I didn't criticise it. Pull them all down for all I care.

I'm criticising the scope such reification gives for people to ignore the real problem in favour of some Instagramable snapshot of a solution.

When I see people tearing down a statue of a notorious slaver and then refusing to buy any products from companies who benefitted from slavery, now or then, I'll be more content.

As it is, I see people turning up to tear the statue down in the very fucking clothing that's being made by actual slaves right now. Taking photos of it on phones whose minerals are mined by actual slaves, right now. Telling all their friends about it on social media platforms hosted by companies supporting actual slavery right now.

Should statues be removed by public consent etc. — Punshhh

It doesn't matter one tiny bit. People are dying, or being forced into slavery by the thousands as a direct result of decisions made by corporations to lower the prices on products. People are being forced into situations where they have little alternative to crime (and so meet the excessive, often fatal, violence of the police), just because they're not being paid enough by the same people.

Who gives a shit about a statue?... The people who'd rather post themselves on Facebook making some self-serving gesture than actually do what is in their power to undermine the economic problems causing such widespread and disproportionate suffering.

And what Bezos has to do with it is beyond me. — Baden

If the police force are disproportionately made up of racists, those with sub-concious bias, or even those whose mere appearance of bias exacerbates a problem then it a good part of the solution to disband. This was almost certainly the case with the RUC who arguably satisfied all three criteria insofar as they caused a perpetuation of sectarian violence.

None of those three criteria have been demonstrated to be the case insofar as they cause or exacerbate the racial disparity in Fatalities resulting from police activities. As far as the statistics seem to show, police fatal intervention against minorities seems to be aligned with the extent to which those minorities are likely to be involved in crime. Theres been no evidence presented (to my knowledge) that the racism of individual police officers is actually having a substantial influence on fatality rates.

The police force (like so many other institutions) is systemically racist because the consequences of its actions disproportionately affect minority groups, but this is to do with the status of minority groups in society, not some factors contained within the human element of the institution in question, so removing that element has little effect (or even no effect at all depending on what it is replaced with).

The status of minority groups in society is a a consequence of, and perpetuated by, those who have power and resources suppressing the collective power of those groups in order to maintain the artificial power of capital over collective action.

So if we want to tackle the problem, we need to remove the power and capital from those responsible (making a broad assumption that anyone who has power and capital is probably in that group).

Making this a single issue myth complete with heroes and uniformed (easy to identify) villains just makes it laughably easy for those who benefit from the disparity in power to set the real issues aside for another few years, install some paper cut-out version of a solution, and carry on reaping the reward. Hence Jeff Bezos.

Really? You think all this involves is changing the uniform colour? That's rather silly. — Baden

It was obviously rhetorical hyperbole. Has my prior posting history really given you justifiable reason to think I actually am that stupid such that you'd even need to ask?

There is a debate raging in the UK about which statues should be pulled down and if it is justified to pull them down and how to determine which should, or shouldn't be pulled down. — Punshhh

Anyone debating this is missing the point entirely. Pulling down a statue of someone associated with the the oppression of your community (or some community you feel solidarity for) is a visceral act, not a strategy. Is like a yell, or punching the wall. The only people who 'discuss' it are people who don't have that visceral reaction but are interested in making it look like they do.

I'd like to illustrate this a little. — unenlightened

Your example doesn't illustrate the point in the slightest. The point was

The role of psychology in society is to scare you away from doing any such breaking down; the role of philosophy is to invite you to see clearer what is worth tossing aside and what is worth building upon. — boethius

How does your example show where psychology got involved to prevent the breaking down of an old structure to build a new one. How does it show philosophy helping in that endeavour?

All your example has shown is that the beliefs of society as a whole meant that people like Turing grew up denying their own reality. This caused him such distress that ending his life was preferable (for an instant) to continuing in those circumstances. Some people in society helped him a bit (including perhaps a few psychiatrists, who, as you say, may have taken the edge off some of the abuse people like him might otherwise have suffered), other people made his life a living hell.

Where in all that does it bring anything to Boethius's utterly ludicrous point that psychology prevents new mental structures toward truth while philosophy encourages them?

The removal of draconian anti-homosexual laws and treatments involved psychiatrists like Laing and Szasz, philosophers like Foucault, psychologists like Cooper and Antonucci. It also involved a lot of ordinary activists, lawyers, doctors and journalists.

The fight against such removal, as well as the creation and maintenance of these pernicious structures in the first place, likewise involved a lot of psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, activists, lawyers, doctors and journalists.

So all that's been demonstrated here is that there used to be draconian structures in society which denied the reality of homosexuality and then later they were broken down. Blaming one academic field for them and claiming another is responsible for their removal is beyond stupid.

We might well profit by examining psychology's role in maintaining such structures - and we did. But the people who largely did that were psychologists themselves because they know the field and are best placed to plan a way forward. All social structures and institutions have a history of systemically maintaining oppression. All also have a history of fighting that oppression from within their own field, as well as benefiting from influences from outside their field.

This absurd notion that 'psychology' as a whole is responsible for anything, or that 'psychologists' are complicit in something beyond that which each and every person is responsible for and complicit in, has no justification.

It seems words only have meaning when the experience the worst is based on is shared by more than one witness. Otherwise the information cannot be conveyed. — Benj96

Yet another conclusion about the real world (the one in which we use words to communicate with each other) drawn from a set of imagined properties of a non-real world, thus rendering the conclusion entirely useless.

If your imagined world where such a colour/shape/size is possible is like the real world, then your conclusion follows. If it isn't then your conclusion does not follow.

So why not skip the set up entirely and simply say "Imagine a worlds where its true that 'words only have meaning when the experience it is based on is shared by more than one witness'", well if such a world were like ours then words only have meaning when the experience it is based on is shared by more than one witness!

We can heartily congratulate ourselves on a another philosophical contribution to our understanding of the world.

Next I propose we imagine that the gravitational constant is 4. In such a world the gravitational constant would be 4! Wow, now we've just worked out what the gravitational constant is from our armchairs (assuming our imagined world is actually like the real one - but we can leave such trivial detail-filling to the scientists, we've done the bulk of the work by pointing out that if A=B then A=B)

Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?

This: — Baden

Yeah brilliant. Perhaps the uniforms will be a different colour. I'm sure Jeff Bezos is quaking in his boots. Perhaps next week we could have another set of country-wide riots and get them to change the logo too.

I just disagree that that is an accurate characterization of what philosophy, either historical or contemporary, is trying to do. — Pfhorrest

The first is an empirical question then, for historians, yes? It's an interesting one, but not outside of philology. Did people, in general, use "philosophy" to describe their empirical investigations? That seems like a very specific question answerable only by reference to surviving texts of the period.

The second question I take it you'd like to answer with...

contemporary philosophy isn’t usually trying to directly answer questions about the world (but rather about how to answer such questions). — Pfhorrest

...and the progress you think is made in this respect is the broad outline of what you're calling the 'scientific method'.

So firstly, but perhaps most trivially, it's hard to fit about 99% of modern philosophy into the category of texts answering the question 'how should we best answer questions about the world'. Treatise on ethics, political theory, semantics, concepts, reference... These don't seem to me in any way directing themselves to the question of how to answer the 'big questions'. They seem concerned primarily with definitions, or framing some idea (which often boils down to definitions anyway). You might need to spell out, perhaps with examples, how you see these works as addressing the question as you phrased it.

But secondly, the point of my mentioning the six month old is that it can hardly be considered progress to simply establish that we should carry on doing as we had done since we were toddlers. Do we have a whole discipline dedicated to checking if we should still eat by placing food in our mouths?

I realise it might seem, superficially, as if there's some choice of method to be made, but it's not philosophy which determines that choice.

I think it is fair game to offer the answer 'no' to a question when someone asks it. The fact that Pfhorrest did not like the answer and refused discussion when it was given, wondering why anyone would ever answer in this way, shows that he was not serious in asking. — Snakes Alive

I'm inclined to agree. There's a certain degree of defensiveness around philosophy which seeks to shut off certain avenues of meta-analysis using exactly this kind of rhetorical trick. One has to understand philosophy to reject it, and the very act of rejection proves one does not understand it because anyone who did wouldn't reject it that way. QED.

The other is "Ah! But you're doing philosophy by constructing an argument to reject it" Like all thought is somehow philosophy.

apparently anything but agreement with him would just get shut down without consideration. — Pfhorrest

I don't think arguments have been shut down without consideration have they. Perhaps review the line of argument?

Make me, big boy. — unenlightened

That's exactly what I'm trying to do here. Show you how unfair it is to make such unpleasant insinuations and then dismiss any attempt at defense as unreasonable. Show you how offended I am that the careers of myself and my colleagues working with some of the most troubled and disadvantaged groups in society have been reduced to a simplistic conspiracy theory without even bothering to check if any of it is true.

So yes, I'm trying to make you. The fact that it's not working is a reflection on you, not me.

I don't have to prove every fucking word — unenlightened

You wrote a post, in a thread about the modern institution of psychology, which was entirely about how banking is still working for the benefit of prior slave owners. Either the insinuation is that the institution of psychology might be similarly afflicted (in line with the rest of the thread, and your previous posts - class oppression, racial segregation, genocide, torture...), or your post was a bizarre off-topic intervention without any purpose.

If the latter, then I suggest that you take a little more care over the the possible misinterpretations of your odd posting habits.

If the former then yes, you absolutely do have to prove every fucking word. You don't get to just accuse an entire institution of such offensive activities or attitudes and then just deflect any attempt to defend ourselves with a faux show of horror that we should dare ask for the evidence.

You are telling me that you know of no cases in your field where people's research or practices that have been stopped by the state throughout the history of psychology? — boethius

You weren't making an historical point. Your claim was the all of psychology is complicit in Chinese genocide and that we all are agents of the state. I can certainly think of disastrous routes psychology has previously taken. I can think of a time when only white men were allowed to study it too, does that somehow prove the institution is still sexist (despite now having more females than males)? I'm asking for current examples in numerous countries (not just the US and China) where research practices have been stopped by the state on the grounds of current policy. I don't have anything whatsoever to do with the state. If I want to carry out some research, at no point in time do I even have to consult the current government, and at no point in my entire career have I even heard of a government agent stopping anyone's research.

I never said the process was "endemic". — boethius

I presumed you were capable of judging what the term meant in context. You said that all psychologists were agents of the state because they needed state permission to carry out research. I'm using endemic in place of 'all'.

what is your view on the re-education camps?

Let's continue the conversation from there. — boethius

It's painful enough to go through the process of dismantling your egregious claims about a subject you clearly have no knowledge of. I'm not about to start another voluntarily.

Notice that the argument style never has to offer substantive content on the issues of the effected group. It's an effective way to gainsay any progressive point. — fdrake

True, but this only acts as a bump along the road. We pounce on the Conservative's lack of substance by saying "well what would you do instead to improve the lot of the affected group"? They provide some supposed solution (usually always the free market) and now we're into discussing the merits of each proposed solution. Which is where we should have started. So why the deflection? Because for the conservative, being anti-anti X is their only trick. Take that away and conservatism is just apathy.

if the claim is that institutions are by nature, or at least Western institutions, incapable of involvement in oppression, then it seems you have a psychological problem of interpreting reality. — boethius

Fortunate then, that it isn't.

the legitimate state will still stop you from conducting research it views as threatening. — boethius

So you should have no trouble providing evidence of cases where this has happened, together with an explanation of the mechanism that was used.

If you engage in human experimentation the state views as illegal and unethical, the state will stop you, arrest you, or then send you back to where you came from. — boethius

Again, with examples please. From a range of countries.

there is always a point beyond which the state will directly interfere, and, more importantly, what the state learns from such experience is that it needs to better filter out such people from getting the token of credible expertise to begin with. — boethius

Once more with actual evidence. You seem to somehow be confused into thinking that because you can come up with a possible state of affairs that state of affairs must therefore be the case. This is not a test of your imagination, it a test of what is actually the case, for which you need to provide actual evidence.

You say "anywhere in the world" and I use the example of China — boethius

I said 'anywhere in the world' by way of asking for proof that such processes were endemic. Picking the most oppressive state in the world as an example hardly makes your case.

your own claim that "I was not under the impression they're premised on mental disease at all, but rather on lack of proper socialisation" — boethius

That was not my claim, it was @Echarmion's. You know, the one whom you earlier accused of not reading the posts carefully.

OK. I' try not to do that. — unenlightened

Too late.

Some institutions are banned by the state.Others are heavily regulated, and some heavily influence the functioning of the state. Life is annoyingly complicated. — unenlightened

Not so complicated that we can't, when accusing one institution of being complicit in class oppression, racial segregation, genocide...produce just the tiniest shred of actual evidence beyond insinuation and conspiracy-theorist level speculation.

Oxford and Cambridge deserve a mention. there are even more of their graduates in government than there are in comedy — unenlightened

And this affects policy how? Those institutions influenced future politicians how? What laws have Oxford and Cambridge psychology professors had instigated which would not have otherwise happened?

This is exactly what I mean by presumptive insinuation. It's like noting that someone used to give to the homeless and with a nod and a wink we're all supposed to know that means they'll be at the head of the next communist revolution.

Yes, Oxford and Cambridge are over represented in government. The next necessary stage of the process is to establish if that's had any effect and to what extent.

It's unarguably the case that institutions (being slow to adapt) tend, systemically, to support social structures more suited to the society at the time of their foundation than the one we have now. Banks are a good example.

That doesn't make it at all helpful to start throwing around accusations that some specific institution is a particularly pernicious example of this tendency purely on the grounds that it might be.

Some institutions have adapted better than others, so the mere existence of trend is not sufficient grounds to accuse any given institution of being at the worse (rather than better) end of this scale.

If you go to a state and threaten state policy, you will be stopped if not removed from the country, if not arrested and placed in prison. — boethius

No, you absolutely will not. There are very few states left in the world where all forms of threat to state policy results in expatriation or imprisonment. Some will, others won't.

Besides which, I asked you about your claim that

Psychologists are agents of the state because they need state license to practice psychology (whether clinical or research) and therefore must conform to state policy to get and maintain such license. — boethius

Rambling on about China for a few paragraphs is not an answer.

insofar as you, or any in your profession anywhere in the world, lend your credibility to Chinese state agents as well as communities and institutions that help train Chinese state agents, then you are party to the crimes of the Chinese state. — boethius

But we don't 'lend our credibility to Chinese state agents'. Why would we? We might help train them, but I think its arguable that spending three years in a free democracy is as likely to promote the decline of support for the regime as it is to produce willing enablers of it.

But again, you've deflected from the difficult questions. Why psychology? Why academia? Anyone buying Chinese goods is directly funding the Chinese regime. Do you boycott all Chinese products? Anyone trading with China is supporting the regime. Are your supply lines and those of all your colleagues in the world of corporate executives free from Chinese products and services?

The university admin had had a lot of difficulty and the place had become associated with trouble. So they were concerned to forestal any continuation of the trouble by selecting out the trouble makers.... But even before one's first degree, never mind the PhD, 'the state' or as i tend to call it 'the status quo' selects and filters. — unenlightened

Well, my first doctoral supervisor was a paid up member of the communist party so anecdote for anectode we're 1-all. Next shot?

Is it like the old usenet trolls who would go into comp.sys.foo.advocacy and argue that Foo is the worst OS ever and everybody who uses it is stupid? — Pfhorrest

I get what you're saying, but I think there's an important difference. In philosophy people are actually trying to use the authority their method provides to have some impact on society (be it ethics, religion, scientific methodology, political direction). It's not like advocating an OS where it doesn't matter at all to anyone not using it that it doesn't work. It more like (to continue your analogy) finding out that the world's missile control systems are run on Microsoft Windows. Then it would matter to users and non-users alike whether it works or not.

I agree that no one should really get involved in a discussion about the nature of, say, set theory if they don't actually agree with the whole premise. But if people are advocating a process whose outcomes supposedly include ethical board decisions, research methodology statements, political strategies etc., then I think it's fair game to get involved with that discussion at any level, even if it's to reject the whole premise.

I have already stated that the mechanism is the state selecting for people who already believe in state policy, most importantly of all that the state is legitimate. — boethius

No, you stated that all psychologists (clinicaland research) need a state license to practice. I'm asking you what form that licence takes around the world and where, in it's provisions, is the requirement to uphold state policy.

Notwithstanding that. How does the state carry out this selection procedure. What is the actual mechanism? I was never asked if I thought the state was legitimate, nor was I queried in any way about its policies (directly or indirectly) at any point in my academic career. In fact, I've been quite vocal in my professional criticism of government policy and most students I've had have made Che Guevara look a bit conservative. Where in all this is the state vetting who is going to make it into academic research and by what means?

Oh and just so we don't get too distracted by this diversion. I'm still waiting on your exposition of

Psychologists are agents of the state because they need state license to practice psychology (whether clinical or research) and therefore must conform to state policy to get and maintain such license. — boethius

Where, in non-clinical psychology, does the state dictate research policy? Which psychology policy document has the state been in executive control of, and which sections of it represent restrictions based on state policy?

I am also an agent of the state as a corporate executive. From time to time I de facto represent the state and state policy in diplomatic engagements, and, most importantly, I receive state subsidy to carry out state policy.

The modern corporations are extensions of state power, they cannot even formally exist without the state, are the primary beneficiary of the state judiciary, police force, infrastructure, defense activity etc. — boethius

So why not set your own house in order before embarking on a rant about some other group of people who's methods and restrictions you're clearly completely unfamiliar with, and over whom you have no influence? Why isn't this a rant about the role of the corporate executive in propping up illegitimate states, you'd know a lot more about the subject, could actually enact any ideas which arose and can influence others in the same field.

As it is, it just sounds like an attempt to pin the blame on anyone but yourself.

Psychologists are agents of the state because they need state license to practice psychology (whether clinical or research) — boethius

Interesting. Talk me through the licensing process for research in the UK. I'm concerned I might have been seriously breaking some rules for the past 18 years.

I am referring to academic psychologists and clinical psychologists, both, of whom, cannot "do their work" without the state. — boethius

In what way do they differ from your own work in that respect? Are you independent of the state somehow? That would truly be a remarkable feat and an account I'd love to hear.

I have already explained that they are selected because their beliefs conform to state policy. — boethius

You are confusing 'explaining' with 'delerious ranting'. Explaining involves evidence and a reasonable sequence of cause and effect.

academics need to "adult up" and realize there is no point teaching the young to manage a world that cannot plausibly be argued will be there. There's not even any plausible jobs now, so I'm not sure what their apologetics even consists of today, justifying why these "lefty professors" go through the motions anyway ... ah yes, the money, I agree there. — boethius

Well, why don't you show us the way? What is it the world of the

privileged corporate executive — boethius

is doing that's not just going through the motions for the money.

the last time I saw a therapist it was about work specifically, about how I was self-harming in fits of rage over stress at work, and her recommendation was to leave that job. — Pfhorrest

Yes, but she didn't immediately strap on an AK47 and storm the White House for you, so she's basically just a capitalist shill!

Point is, my experience kinda flies in the face of boethius’s account. — Pfhorrest

Hardly surprising as

I have no experience with psychologists — boethius

It would seem there's no 'account' at all, just some fantasy being played out where psychologists are agents of the deep state - we're hoping to secure the film rights.

Right you are. I was referring to American psychologists, the American Psychological Association, and good old all-American torture. USA! USA! USA! — fishfry

You need help with your sociopathic attitude. I'm going to recommend a course of increasing civil unrest, demonstration and finally the overthrow of your fascist oppressors. If that doesn't help you can come back next month and we'll put you on Benzos.

Psychologists did a lot more than "study" torture. If you're unfamiliar with the voluminous body of evidence of the complicity of the psychological profession in the US's torture regime, you're ignorant. — fishfry

I didn't say otherwise. I said that the only thing I have in common with them is that we study the same subject. I'm asking why that makes me complicit in their actions. Restating what their actions were is irrelevant. I'm asking you about the ethical principle you're applying by which I'm complicit in the activities of those with whom I share nothing more than a common area of study.

Why, for example, does commonality in a broad field of study imply moral complicity where commonality of study in, say, politics, does not morally tie the peace activist to the activities of violent fascists? Both study politics and use that study to further their activities.

The profession's own ethical standards are at issue and the evidence is clear. — fishfry

I'm neither a member of the APA nor do I have any affiliation with them. It's ridiculous to suggest that one country's professional organisation at one point in history represents the entire global field for all time.

The British Psychological Society...

this [the APAs position] legitimation is in stark contrast to the position adopted by the World Medical Association, its 1975 declaration of Tokyo following the BMA review of the Northern Ireland experience. This declaration proscribed the participation of physicians in designing, or even monitoring, interrogation strategies. This rule was also adopted by both the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association.
Moreover, the 1982 United Nations General Assembly addressed the ethical questions associated with the participation of medical and other health workers in the interrogation of detainees. These principles establish as an absolute rule that health workers ‘may not engage, actively or passively, in acts which constitute participation in, complicity in, incitement to or attempts to commit torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ (cited in Rubinstein et al., 2005).
Therefore, by allowing psychologists to participate or assist in the interrogation process, the APA is adopting a position out of step with both the medical profession (as Anne Anderson of Psychologists for Social Responsibility pointed out in a letter in 2006 to APA President Gerald Koocher) and the wider UN declaration on health workers, while at the same time making a declaration that appears to condemn psychological torture.

The BPS (2005) made a clear declaration against torture and the participation of psychologists and the use of psychological knowledge in its design.

Fucking Americans. There are other countries in the world you know. Why don't you educate yourself about them before making your next neo-colonialist assumption that American institutions represent the whole fucking world.

Collective problems require - in fact can only be addressed by - collective action. Capitalism wins by means of social atomization. — StreetlightX

I think that's what I'm trying to say (though re-reading I can see how it might come across as divisive).

The solution is that we collectively say "we're not going to be complicit in this anymore".

That's not what I see happening here, what's happening here (and has happened before in my country after Stephen Lawrence) is that one institution is pilloried for its part (and the police were shamefully responsible in that case), for just as long as it's in the news, never long enough to get the job done properly (the Macpherson recommendations still haven't been fully implemented). Meanwhile, the problem silently shifts elsewhere (technology manufacturing, for example - see Nigeria's experience with mobile phone companies).

If everyone is primed to join the latest social movement we get great benefits in terms of solidarity and vocal power, but it comes at a cost, it's too fickle, fizzles out too early, and often the very single-issue focus which gives it its power is what allows those very institutions to sidestep the real problem.

Maybe policing reform really will make a huge difference to the lives of minority groups in America, but as I said to Baden, it's not the chief of police who's sitting on his private island. So whatever function the police played in maintaining the flow of money and power from these groups to that guy only need shapeshift to some other institution.

We need to learn to recognise the pattern, not just the instantiation.

How about complicity in torture? — fishfry

Yes, that too. By what ethical standard does studying some subject somehow make me complicit in the actions of others studying the same subject?

Are engineers complicit in the destruction caused by the weapons manufactured by one sub-group?

Why psychology, why not the whole of Human sciences (of which psychology is just a branch? The whole of biology (of which human sciences is just a branch), or all science (of which biology is just a branch), or all human investigation (of which science is just a branch)?

If we're to condemn people for the actions of others with whom they share some common field then we might as well condemn us all, we're not that far removed from each other.

the point I was making was more like depending on how you frame it, the question "where are the good cops?"", is in a sense unfair. — Baden

That pretty much answers my point with regard to the quote. It makes more sense from that angle, but I didn't get that from your original post.

The wider point still stands though, I think. I don't see why anyone (who is undoubtedly complicit in some systemically racist institution) should even really be taking part in the dismantling of another before setting their own house in order first. The feeling is of vacillating capriciously between whatever institution is the bogeyman of popular media at the time. Nothing ever really gets done because that particular devil becomes old news too quickly to really get substantially reformed, and any progress that is made is often held back by the inevitable defensiveness the 'us vs them' framework generates.

It's a lot easier to turn up to a few hours of protest than it is to change one's job, shopping habits, social life and personal habits. And I'm talking here about the 'solidarity' of those privelidged enough to make such changes, not those who are straight jacketed by poverty.