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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/bond01132010.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/bond01132010.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">January 13,
2010<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>An Open Letter
to Dr. Carol Goodheart <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Psychologists in an Age of Torture
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By Dr. TRUDY
BOND <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd><font face="Verdana" size=2>"We've seen a lot of negative e-mail
discourse in recent years as APA has made decisions and released reports
that have triggered controversy among our members . . . We also saw
heated disputes over APA's stance on the role of psychologists in
interrogations . . . The difference is that in the new age of outrage,
criticism on these issues quickly escalated to unwarranted heights. In
24/7 instant communications, extreme voices dominate . . .I see four
elements converging online to strain the collegiality within APA . .
.viral distortion (a small number perpetuate shocking misrepresentations
about APA's actions, policies and procedures). The effect on APA is
damaging when members and the public believe the distortions . . . Let's
turn down the temperature on outrage."<br><br>
<dd>APA in the age of outrage<br>
<dd>by Dr. Carol D. Goodheart<br>
<dd>President, American Psychological Association<br><br>
<dd>I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is
there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as
uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to
speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on
fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife
from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate
her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to
use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I will not
equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch --
AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every
statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the
dead.<br><br>
<dd>William Lloyd Garrison<br>
<dd>White Abolitionist, 1831<br><br>
</dl>Dear President Goodheart:<br><br>
I take issue with your column, “APA in the Age of Outrage” in January’s
APA Monitor. As president of the APA you seem to have diminished the
concept of outrage, defining it as the freedom of others to express their
disagreement with your "majority opinion." In my universe,
there will never be enough outrage to counteract the injustices in the
world. Rather than "turning down the temperature" as you wish
to do in your universe, which I assume would make you more comfortable,
ratcheting up the outrage is necessary to save humanity.<br><br>
In the universe where I live, people with malevolent intentions are
sometimes elevated into positions of power over thousands or even
millions of other people. When their actions are murderous, or physically
threatening, or destructive of others’ life chances, or are unjust,
others who do not share their belief systems take measures, ranging from
reasoned criticism to election participation to organizing others against
such actions. When the actions of those in power, such as experimentally
calibrating just how much physical or mental torture is enough to make a
human prisoner confess, are violations of international law and human
rights, many are outraged.<br><br>
In my universe, "outrage" did not come into being only with the
latest communication technologies, including the internet. Unlike your
universe, these “outrages” predate the latest communication technologies,
including the internet, sad to say. Our history is replete with dreadful
and callous “outrages”, going back to very nearly the beginning of human
existence.<br><br>
In my universe, I and others find it necessary to work with real facts
and circumstances. For example, while some insist that we must fight a
“war on terror,” others of us - who, I admit, become a little “outraged”
at the irrationality of “terror” as an enemy - try to reason that wars
are fought against human beings, not abstract concepts. And that before
human beings must be exterminated or tortured in the name of fighting
“terror,” certain reality-based accountings and considerations, such as
the law, should be unavoidable. When they are not, I am
outraged.<br><br>
In your column it seems that your universe has suddenly become populated
with abstractions to be eradicated. “Email tyranny,” and “viral
distortions” appear to be causing a “lack of civility.” This “lack of
civility” seems to be one of the very worst things that can happen in
your universe, enough to devote a presidential column to the subject. I
must admit to a certain amount of jealousy here, because in my universe,
facts and circumstances reveal vastly different problems.<br><br>
In my universe, illegally-undertaken wars have killed tens of thousands
of people and thousands are jailed because of “terror” when most of the
time there is little or no factual reason for them to lose their rights
and recourse, their lives and their families. In my universe, some
psychologists who have taken an oath to use their educations and healing
abilities only for beneficent purposes instead have deliberately and
knowingly used them to oversee the intentional infliction of physical and
mental harm to others. <br><br>
Those of us who are “outraged” by the misuse of psychologists'
intellectual gifts and skills have demonstrated that laws and standards
are being unmistakably violated. Yet in your universe, you are more
outraged by the communication of these atrocities.<br><br>
Most recently in my universe (and yours), a new abstraction has been
posed: “operational psychology,” the deliberate use of psychological
principles in warmaking and intelligence. In my universe, many think this
abstract “operational psychology” isn’t a legitimate field of psychology
at all, but is a deliberate attempt at the misapplication of humane
learning to do harm to others, illegal, inhumane and, yes - outrageous -
transmutation of a great good to something unmistakably evil.<br><br>
In my universe, those who promote abstractions like “terror”, “email
tyranny” and “viral distortion” as disembodied enemies of “civility” tend
to be people who rotely repeat untested notions, subjective beliefs and
unconsidered generalities so often that they come to mistake phantasms
for facts. By quarreling with the means of communication, they avoid
looking at the content of communications. They shut themselves off from
learning by coming to view those whose opinions differ with their own as
viruses or people whose mission is simply to not be civil because they’re
“outraged.” <br><br>
Those who traffic in abstractions destroy their own credibility with
their decided anti-intellectual stereotyping. Accusations that those who
use email are “distorting” and amplifying their misplaced “outrage” to
destroy “civility” are peddling diversionary tripe. They are refusing to
do the intellectual work they were trained to do and are obligated to do
as thinking human beings: engaging in fact-based, science-implicated
investigation and discussion. <br><br>
One final outrage: almost three years ago I submitted a professional
ethics complaint to the APA over which you now preside. This complaint
concerned the alleged involvement of Major John Leso, psychologist and
APA member, in the planning and use of torture on prisoners at Guantanamo
Bay. Two years later, your ethics office acknowledged receipt of that
complaint. To date, no further action has been taken. That is an
outrage.<br><br>
Dr. Trudy Bond </b>is a licensed independent psychologist in Toledo,Ohio.
She can be reached at
<a href="mailto:trudybond@att.net">trudybond@att.net</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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