In 1750 a thirty-eight-year old man from Geneva, whose life thus far had been inconsequential, responded to an essay contest sponsored by the Academy of Dijon. The question was posed in the periodical Mercure de France “Do the Sciences and the Arts contribute to the corrupting or to improving morals?" His answer titled “A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences" won him first prize, launched his career that would make his subsequent works popular to this day, and gave him a permanent place as a major voice in the Age of Enlightenment.
His name was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. And what made such a stir was his assertion that the sciences and arts have had a corrupting affect on society. The phrase, ‘the noble savage’ has been associated with his name, (although he never used it) and, in fact, he grew less enthusiastic about the ideas in The Discourse later in his career.
The reason I bring this up is that I doubt anyone expected the arts and sciences to go anyway in Rousseau’s time. And I don’t think any sane person expects the discipline of psychology to go away. Still, I think it’s worthwhile to ask whether psychology over the last 120 years has had a net positive affect on civilization. James Hillman and Michael Ventura considered the effect of psychotherapy 20 years ago in this published dialogue
We’ve had a hundred years of psychotherapy – And the World is Getting Worse
In 1972 Joseph Campbell considers the role of psychology for the modern crisis; the problem of the loss of myth in an age of scientific truth:
This sounds all well and good. But I have to wonder now 37 years after this was written, how we're doing, and just what the net affect of psychology has been. Are we better off as a people for having in our language such meaningful words as the anima, the shadow, and the integration of personality; the superego, libido, transference and projection; identity crisis, self-actualization , and [some adjective] complexes?
P11 It is my considered belief that the best answer to this critical problem will come from the findings of psychology, and specifically those findings having to do with the sources and nature of myth. For since it has always been on myths that the moral orders of societies have been founded, the myths canonized as religion, and since the impact of science on myths results – apparently inevitably – in moral disequilibration, we must now ask whether it is not possible to arrive scientifically at such an understanding of the life-supporting nature of myths that, in criticizing their archaic features, we do not misrepresent and disqualify their necessity – throwing out, so to say, the baby (whole generations of babies) with the bath.
- Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By, 1972
William James once said that the first lecture he heard in psychology was one that he gave. He was a professor of philosophy. Now I’m wondering if psychology has ever made it out of the realm of philosophy to become a discipline in its own right as did economics and physics. Or are psychologists more like philosophers circling around the same questions again and again, developing new terms, defining those terms, criticizing each others presuppositions, and becoming famous for the force of their arguments without any measurable progress?
There are a couple of things I accept in asking this question. First, I enjoy philosophy as much as anyone. Something doesn’t have to have a practical application to be enjoyable. For me anything enjoyable is worthwhile. It’s fun to speculate on the mind. Secondly, I’m not talking about clinical psychiatry. I’m well aware of the many advances in the hard science of psychophysiology. But has psychology, the study of mind, the conclusions drawn and advice given; has this branch of psychology delivered for the vast majority of people in the West who are generally well, but who are often, shall I say, in need of healing?
I tend to agree with JJ’s Mythblog that the Buddha was a psychologist. But this begs a question: Is modern psychology necessary? Is it anything more than traditional religion and philosophy masquerading as modern science, drawing on the clout of the modern hard sciences, including neuroscience, for all of their marvelous discoveries, but offering little substance of its own?
Or to phrase the question in the same way as the famous essay question that Rousseau answered in 1750: Has modern psychology, since 1890, contributed to the improvement or the corruption of society and of individual’s lives?
- NoMan