Psychology

"Maturity consists in having rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play."

"Everyone who achieves strives for totality, and the value of his achievement lies in that totality—that is, in the fact that the whole, undivided nature of a human being should be expressed in his achievement. But when determined by our society, as we see it today, achievement does not express a totality; it is completely fragmented and derivative. It is not uncommon for the community to be the site where a joint and covert struggle is waged against higher ambitions and more personal goals. ... A more profoundly organic individual development is obscured. The socially relevant achievement of the average person serves in the vast majority of cases to repress the original and nonderivative, inner aspirations of the human being."

"Three years ago you were a kid. You didn't have a single feeling worth having—cocky and shallow. Like most kids. Then you got picked up by the scruff of your neck and dumped into life. You actually did things you didn't want to do, because they were right. You learned how to feel other people's pain—and finally the Lord faced you with pain of your own. Someday you're gonna stop cringing in front of it. you'll pick it up and carry it with you, and you'll be a man for the rest of your life; with a hurt hid inside you—but it'll make your joy all the richer."

"When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics."

"As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots. In families, schools, workplaces, and religious communities, we are trained away from true self toward images of acceptability; under social pressures ... our original shape is deformed beyond recognition; and we ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray true self to gain the approval of others."

"The law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian."

"Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness."

"As long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir."

"To assume that one’s existential task is completed when the individual is brought into right relation with society, that is, when the individual has been socialized, is to absolutize society and confuse society with God."

"Socialization consists of those patterns of action or aspects of action which inculcate in individuals the skills (including knowledge), motives, and attitudes necessary for the performance of present and anticipated roles."

"There is a socialization which turns curious children into adult automatons in a social environment of repressive uniformity, and there is a socialization which turns selfish, impulsive children into self-aware and deliberate participants in a larger community."

"Socialization refers to the whole process by which an individual born with behavioral potentialities of enormously wide range, is confined within a much narrower range -- the range of what is customary and acceptable for him according to the standards of the group."

"Social scientists ... do not like to think that fighting and dissenting are proper social functions, nor that rebelling or initiating fundamental change is a social function. Rather, if something does not run smoothly, they say it has been improperly socialized; there has been a failure in communication. ... But perhaps there has not been a failure in communication. Perhaps the social message has been communicated clearly to the young men and is unacceptable. ... We must ask the question, “Is the harmonious organization to which the young are inadequately socialized perhaps against human nature, or not worthy of human nature, and therefore there is difficulty in growing up?”"

"Socialization through schooling, as it takes place here, and in Western societies, in general, is a priori stupefaction"

"Our confirmation bias then leads us to seek our further information to confirm those existing views, or to reject information that challenges them."

"Confirmation bias is a helluva drug."

"It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike."

"It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other."

"Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid."

"The Art Snob can be recognized in the home by the quick look he gives the pictures on your walls, quick but penetrating, as though he were undressing them. This is followed either by complete and pained silence or a comment such as 'That's really a very pleasant little water color you have there.'"

"Always judge your fellow passengers to be the opposite of what they strive to appear to be. For instance, a military man is not quarrelsome, for no man doubts his courage; but a snob is."

"The Art Snob will stand back from a picture at some distance, his head cocked slightly to one side. … After a long period of gazing (during which he may occasionally squint his eyes), he will approach to within a few inches of the picture and examine the brushwork; he will then return to his former distant position, give the picture another glance and walk away."

"And here's a marvelous one, quoted from Sonia by Stephen Spender. "Auschwitz, oh, dear no! That person was never in Auschwitz. Only in some very minor death camp." The ultimate in English snobbery."

"Mike: What do you mean snob? Tracy: You're the worst kind there is. An intellectual snob. You made up your mind awfully young, it seems to me. Mike: Well, thirty's about time to make up your mind. And I'm nothing of the sort, not Mr. Connor. Tracy: The time to make up your mind about people — is never."

"A man is not more entitled to be "received in good society," or at least to wish to be, because he is more intelligent and cultivated. This is one of those sophisms that the vanity of intelligent people picks up in the arsenal of their intelligence to justify their basest inclinations. In other words, having become more intelligent creates some rights to be less. Very simply, diverse personalities are to be found in the breast of each of us, and often the life of more than one superior man is nothing but the coexistence of a philosopher and a snob. Actually, there are very few philosophers and artists who are absolutely detached from ambition and respect for power, from "people of position." And among those who are more delicate or more sated, snobism replaces ambition and respect for power in the same way superstition arises on the ruins of religious beliefs. Morality gains nothing there. Between a worldly philosopher and a philosopher intimidated by a minister of state, the second is still the more innocent."

"It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob."

"He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob."

""Snobbery" is here used without disrespect, as a convenient term to denote the element of strain involved in the quest for gentility on the part of persons whose accustomed social standing is less high or less authentic than their aspirations."

"The periodical press is not only a purveyor of news, opinions, and admonitions; it also supplies the greater part of the literature currently read. ...The standards of excellence that govern this periodical literature... must in no way hamper the purposes of the advertisers. ...Taken in the aggregate, the literary output is designed to meet the tastes of that large body of people who are in the habit of buying freely. The successful magazine writers... follow the taste of the class to whom they speak... They must also conform to the fancies and prejudices of this class as regards the ideals—artistic, moral, religious, or social—for which they speak. The class... is that great body of people who are in moderately easy circumstances. ...the respectable middle class ... of various shades of conservatism, affectation, and snobbery."

"Either one defines “personality” and “individuality” in terms of their possibilities within the established form of civilization, in which case their realization is for the vast majority tantamount to successful adjustment. Or one defines them in terms of their transcending content, including their socially denied potentialities beyond (and beneath) their actual existence; in this case, their realization would imply transgression, beyond the established form of civilization, to radically new modes of “personality” and “individuality” incompatible with the prevailing ones. Today, this would mean “curing” the patient to become a rebel or (which is saying the same thing) a martyr."

"Whenever the therapist stands with society, he will interpret his work as adjusting the individual and coaxing his 'unconscious drives' into social respectability. But such 'official psychotherapy' lacks integrity and becomes the obedient tool of armies, bureaucracies, churches, corporations, and all agencies that require individual brainwashing. On the other hand, the therapist who is really interested in helping the individual is forced into social criticism. This does not mean that he has to engage directly in political revolution; it means that he has to help the individual in liberating himself from various forms of social conditioning, which includes liberation from hating this conditioning - hatred being a form of bondage to its object."

"If this truth has once and for all been discarded and men have decided for integral adjustment, if reason has been purged of all morality regardless of cost, and has triumphed over all else, no one may remain outside and look on. The existence of one solitary “unreasonable” man elucidates the shame of the entire nation. His existence testifies to the relativity of the system of radical self-preservation that has been posited as absolute."

"Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in psychology. It is the word "maladjusted." ... There are some things in our society and some things in our world to which I am proud to be maladjusted and I call upon all men of good-will to be maladjusted to these things. ... I never intend to adjust myself to racial segregation] and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few."

"There is a therapy of self-indulgence and adjustment which is little more than another weapon in the arsenal of social conformity, and there is a therapy which “makes the unconscious conscious, enlarges the scope of awareness.” There is a socialization which turns curious children into adult automatons in a social environment of repressive uniformity, and there is a socialization which turns selfish, impulsive children into self-aware and deliberate participants in a larger community."

"Many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity. They hold that the problem of mental health in a society is only that of the number of ‘unadjusted’ individuals, and not of a possible unadjustment of the culture itself."

"The aim of therapy is often that of helping the person to be better adjusted to the existing circumstances, to ‘reality’ as it is frequently called; mental health is often considered to be nothing but this adjustment. … The psychologists … become the priests of industrial society, helping to fulfil its aims by helping the individual to become the perfectly adjusted organization man."

"The world is so possessed by the power of what is and the efforts of adjustment to it, that the adolescent's rebellion, which once fought the father because his practices contradicted his own ideology, can no longer crop up. ... Psychologically, the father is ... replaced by the world of things."

"The two-person iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is the E. coli of the social sciences, allowing a very large variety of studies to be undertaken in a common framework."

"I will argue that group selection is important, contrary to the prevailing dogma among biologists. If group selection is important, Prisoner's Dilemma is not a good model for evolution. It is still an amusing toy for mathematicians and game-theorists to play with."

"I do not believe the fashionable dogma. Here is my argument to show that group selection is important. Imagine Alice and Bob to be two dodoes on the island of Mauritius before the arrival of human predators. Alice has superior individual fitness and has produced many grandchildren. Bob is individually unfit and unfertile. Then the predators arrive with their guns and massacre the progeny indiscriminately. The fitness of Alice and Bob is reduced to zero because their species made a bad choice long ago, putting on weight and forgetting how to fly. I do not take the Prisoner’s Dilemma seriously as a model of evolution of cooperation, because I consider it likely that groups lacking cooperation are like dodoes, losing the battle for survival collectively rather than individually."

"The original Golden Dawn was not always as serious as it should have been. Mathers was a clown, and Yeats was just a romantic trying to deceive himself. Most of them were interested in personal power, and it ended up by destroying them. The aim of our group is the scientific exploration of the hidden powers of the human mind."

"An enormous amount of behavior grows out of genetic imperatives."

"The conclusion this article reaches, based on the presented arguments, is that [Evolutionary Psychology] EP may be a contribution to psychological science at several different, important levels. First, EP allows psychologists to communicate between different areas of psychological interest, and with other branches of science relevant to psychology as a life science. Second, EP provides a well-researched, rigorously formulated theory for evaluating any other psychological theory. The theory may prevent one from suggesting abilities that could not evolve but have been suggested within almost all psychological disciplines. The versatility EP shows as a theoretical framework for disciplines as different as psychoanalysis and cognitive science, suggests that EP may succeed in integrating psychological science. It also supports the claim that EP is as theoretically valid a science as cognitive science and evolutionary biology. EP also brings to psychology the focus on a theoretically rigorous and predictive theory of Human Nature, and the functional approach, which may provide maturation from the level of mere descriptive science. At the level of generating new theories and insights about Human Nature, EP seems to have proven its worth."

"In order to understand relationships you need to understand Sigmund Freud's Oedipus complex."

"The huge human brain, approximately 1,350 cubic centimeters, is the most complex organic structure in the known world. Understanding the human mind/brain mechanisms in evolutionary perspective is the goal of the new scientific discipline called evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology focuses on four key questions: (1) Why is the mind designed the way it is—that is, what causal processes created, fashioned, or shaped the human mind into its current form? (2) How is the human mind designed—what are its mechanisms or component parts, and how are they organized? (3) What are the functions of the component parts and their organized structure—that is, what is the mind designed to do? (4) How does input from the current environment interact with the design of the human mind to produce observable behavior?"

"An evolved psychological mechanism is a set of processes inside an organism with the following properties: 1. An evolved psychological mechanism exists in the form that it does because it solved a specific problem of survival or reproduction recurrently over evolutionary history. [...] 2. An evolved psychological mechanism is designed to take in only a narrow slice of information. [...] 3. The input of an evolved psychological mechanism tells an organism the particular adaptive problem it is facing. [...] 4. The input of an evolved psychological mechanism is transformed through decision rules or procedures into output. [...] 5. The output of an evolved psychological mechanism can be physiological activity, information to other psychological mechanisms, or manifest behavior. [...] 6. The output of an evolved psychological mechanism is directed toward the solution to a specific adaptive problem. An important point to keep in mind is that a mechanism that led to a successful solution in the evolutionary past may or may not lead to a successful solution now. [...] In summary, an evolved psychological mechanism is a set of procedures within the organism designed to take in a particular slice of information and transform that information via decision rules into output that historically has helped with the solution to an adaptive problem. Psychological mechanisms exist in current organisms because they led, on average, to successful solutions to specific adaptive problems for that organism’s ancestors."

"An evolutionary approach provides powerful lenses that correct for instinct blindness. It allows one to recognize what natural competences exist, it indicates that the mind is a heterogeneous collection of these competences and, most importantly, it provides positive theories of their designs. Einstein once commented that "It is the theory which decides what we can observe". An evolutionary focus is valuable for psychologists, who are studying a biological system of fantastic complexity, because it can make the intricate outlines of the mind's design stand out in sharp relief. Theories of adaptive problems can guide the search for the cognitive programs that solve them; knowing what cognitive programs exist can, in turn, guide the search for their neural basis."

"Behavior evolves through natural selection, just as anatomy does."

"…realizing how my co-morbids are just damned hard for me and confusing to others has helped me chill out about their frustration…in real-time processing I had no idea other people were being so effected by my chaos. I do feel I unreasonably expected people to work from my ‘normality’ without having to explain it to them or help them adapt."

"Massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism"