The social science of economics produced a trillion-dollar bust when the American financial system went over the edge in 2008. The financial chicanery engineered by Wall Street was staged and directed by a circus troupe of economists who graduated from (and taught at) America’s top universities. Will some of these economists do the honorable thing and, before they pack up their tents and pet theories, tell us exactly how their so-called scientific discipline produced so much falsehood?
Yes, we have a legitimate gripe with economics. But we can be equally disgusted with the field of psychology. It is producing its own brand of second-rate information and subprime factoids that are preventing us from getting to the heart of our personal and national dysfunction.
Academic psychologists have borrowed their knowledge from books. They have not plunged into their own unconscious mind to discover essential truths about human nature. Instead, they have run off with their so-called scientific method to count all the correlations dancing on the head of a statistic. Hence, they flood the marketplace of ideas with second-rate and misleading information.
I believe that these psychologists are choosing, unconsciously, to avoid putting themselves on the firing line in their study of human nature. They’re declining to undergo a full examination of their own issues and weaknesses. In so doing, they only half-heartedly fulfill the calling of their profession. They lack the courage to pursue self-knowledge, which is the hero’s inner journey toward wisdom and awakening.
In the past 100 years, psychoanalysis has produced essential truths. These truths involve, for starters, the existence of unconscious dynamics such as transference, projection, identification, displacement, defenses, self-defeat and denial. We can only fully appreciate the reality of these dynamics by seeing personally how they operate in each of us. These inner dynamics influence our capacity for self-regulation of behaviors and emotions, and also affect to what degree we are able to be rational and objective.
However, psychological truths can't be taught to others unless the teachers have some personal understanding of them. Psychologists are not achieving this inner level of awareness. And they have not insisted, as a united voice lobbying for human progress, that these inner dynamics be taught to children and students. As a result, only a small percentage of the American people understand how these dynamics affect them personally. This limits our intelligence and hinders our evolution.
If we value the truth that pertains to our existence, we have to look inward. Powerful knowledge is available to help on this quest, and we want to be able to recognize and appreciate it when we find it.
