Blog 20: Psychology and the Human Sciences

Blog 20: DUE Saturday, Sept. 21 by Midnight. 


In your last blog responses, most of you referred in some way to the idea of human beings being isolated within the walls of their own, often limited, frameworks of understanding the world. This idea is applicable to people all over the world, as the speaker of the TedTalk made clear. We base our understanding of other places and people on very limited (often controlled) exposure--snippets of news or other media, snapshots that capture seconds instead of entire lifetimes.  Is there a way out of this isolation?

I would argue that, yes, there is and it involves something that all of you actively pursue in your daily lives, and will continue to pursue for the next few years: your education. Trite and cliche as it may sound, taking your education by the proverbial horns, instead of just letting it be something you have to do or are expected to do, will open so many doors and knock down so many walls that leave many as blind as Plato's puppets for their entire lives. Embracing the possibilities that exposure, learning, questioning, and inquiring can provide, however uncomfortable will make you one of the few who base your conclusions (however brief they might actually be conclusive) on more than just what you are fed.

This is the last of the Human Sciences blogs before we launch into Ethics. As a student of the world, we've talked about the importance of also being a student of yourself. When I asked you about your human sciences profile, many of you had a hard time saying who you were psychologically--perhaps because the breadth and depth of your own psychological make-up is more expansive than we often realize. After the Myers Briggs test, we know part of our preferences, but how far does that take us?

In this blog, you can either respond to the TedTalk, or some/all of the questions below:

In our country, psychology is a lucrative profession and many people visit a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, etc, on a regular basis.  Is this a symptom of our affluence--that we are able to spend money on learning about ourselves? Does it signify how advanced and enlightened we are? Do other countries consider "knowing thyself" as a pathway to happiness?

There are some times in our lives that we can actually sense our psychology shifting or changing. Often, this is in the wake of something significant happening in our lives. Sometimes you know beforehand that you will never again be the same; sometimes it's only in hindsight that you realize such a change has occurred. Write about (either in general or in specific reference to something you've experienced) this psychological growth (or regression). Use examples. How do changes like this contribute to the collective knowledge and wisdom? Or...is this purely gains in personal knowledge?