This tome comprises 11 chapters in two sections. Part I, ‘Central Dimensions of Rethinking a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era’, lays the groundwork and Part II, ‘Pressing Global Issues’, applies the ideas presented in Part I to issues ranging from nonviolence, racial justice, stopping the oppression of women and the relationship of poverty to degradation of the environment, to the role of religious and spiritual communities in helping develop a sustainable world and global ethic. The entire book is oriented toward the moral education of psychologists and the institutions related to psychologists (academia, the American Psychological Association, etc.). Every chapter has worthwhile advice regarding the moral development of psychologists, and often specific advice for reframing the moral education of psychology majors and graduate students and psychology programs. The moral message of this book could not be more important: humanity is one. The editors write, ‘We envision the discipline of psychology developing as an effective intellectual and moral resource at this critical time for addressing the interdependent nature of biological, psychological, social, spiritual, and planetary health and wellbeing in our global era’ (p. xi).
The lead editor of this volume, Elena Mustakova-Possardt (a past winner of the dissertation award from the Association for Moral Education), is also lead co-author on six of the chapters. Her chapters, as well as the book’s other five chapters, emphasize the importance of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Earth Charter as the two ‘key documents that provide the ethical underpinnings and guiding moral vision’ (p. 8) for developing a socially responsible psychology in the global era. I cannot think of two better secular statements for guiding humanity toward a unity-in-diversity approach to creating a sustainable and healthy world. However, these two documents have their shortcomings. The UDHR, adopted by the General Assembly in 1948, has the typical sexist language of its time; that points to the likelihood it was drafted without the voice of women. Dana Jack and Jill Asbury write an excellent chapter on overcoming discrimination, persecution and violence against women. Their chapter implies that if women’s voices are not globally freed to be equal to men’s voices, we will not be able to create a sustainable and peaceful world society. An additional possible shortcoming of the UDHR is that its creator, the United Nations, suffers from the same adversarial ideology that constitutes the political, economic and legal systems of most (if not all) countries. That is, political parties are adversarial, capitalist economic systems are adversarial and most legal systems are adversarial (lawyers battle in court)—they all have opponents and ‘fight’ each other. This causes me to wonder how truly universal, and applicable to developing a non-adversarial peaceful world, the UDHR really is.
As to the Earth Charter (EC), it is a magnificent document with a wonderful vision of the future and should be read and actualized by the international psychological community. But then, I would think so, as EC speaks with the language of the industrialized culture that co-created my mind. I wonder how many indigenous peoples from South America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific had an authentic voice in writing the document. I worry that perhaps the document itself, and surely the minds of its promoters, are also influenced by the structures of dominance and adversarialism—the Earth Charter International council’s three co-chairs are Steven Rockefeller (United States), Razeena Wagiet (South Africa) and Brendan Mackey (Australia), and all three have elitist backgrounds.
Despite my concerns about the UDHR and the EC, they appear to be the best statements available of a vision of values with which to build a just, caring global society. If psychologists actualized the values of these documents in their personal and institutional lives, I am confident the world would be a better place.
One of the chapters in Part I, Kenneth Gergen and Michael Basseches’ ‘Practices of Psychological Inquiry: The Global Challenge’, reminds psychologists of the importance of understanding that knowledge generation is a social epistemology; that is, knowledge is socially constructed. I agree with the authors that it would be very helpful to the intellectual and moral education of natural and social scientists if they could be taught in higher education that the ‘facts’ of their discipline are social creations. Gergen and Basseches recommend ‘a turn away from the traditional quest in psychology for universal, transhistorical, and culture-free knowledge’ (p. 54). Instead, they recommend a pragmatic approach that privileges research on ‘the creation of socially beneficial practices’ (p. 62). I applaud this morally worthwhile direction, yet it is also important to recognize and reconcile the dialectical tension between the universal and the particular and the transcendent and the applied. There must be some universal, cross-cultural psychological truths, or we would have no common humanity.
A recurrent theme across most of the chapters co-written by Mustakova-Possardt is that of critical consciousness. She convincingly argues that critical moral consciousness, motivated by a love of truth, beauty and goodness and integrating knowledge, love and volition in action, is necessary for psychologists—indeed for all people—to work together to create a sustainable and healthy world. Another recurrent theme throughout the book is the dialectical tension between the individual and the collective: that we need to realize that self is a social creation. The western individualism that has infected the institutions of psychology is a major cause of not moving toward a global ethic. This is poignantly explained in the chapters ‘Toward Socially Responsible Clinical Practice Suited to the Needs of a Global Community’ and ‘Toward Social Health for a Global Community’. These chapters enlighten readers that the individualistic ideology of mainstream counseling and clinical psychology tend to place the source of mental disorder within the individual, rather than in the interaction between the individual and oppressive aspects of their physical and cultural environment.
To summarize, this is an excellent read in regard to reframing the field of psychology in terms of its responsibility as a healing science and force for social justice on a global basis. Beyond psychologists, this book would be morally and intellectually informative for and has implications useful to any educator from primary through tertiary stages.
Rhett DiessnerPsychology Department, Division of Social Sciences, Lewis-Clark State College, Lewiston, Idaho, 83501, USA
Email: [email protected]
© 2014, Rhett Diessner
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2014.886424