Even the Psychologists have Noticed Human Nature!

Stendhal

Most journalists take a number of psychology, sociology, political science, and humanities courses during their early years in college. Unfortunately, these courses have long served as ideological training programs—ignoring biological sources of self-serving, corrupt, and criminal behavior for a number of reasons, including lack of scientific training; postmodern, antiscience bias; and well-intentioned, facts-be-damned desire to have their students view the world from an egalitarian perspective.

and,

But, having worked among the Soviets, I know that large groups of very intelligent people can fall into a collective delusion that what they are doing in certain areas is the right thing, when it’s actually not the right thing at all. It’s rather like the Skinnerian viewpoint on psychology. For a full half century, psychologists insisted it wasn’t proper to posit anything going on inside people’s heads. Advances in psychology ground to a halt during that time, but it was impossible to convince mainstream psychologists that there was anything wrong to their approach. After all–everybody was using Skinner’s approach, and everybody couldn’t be wrong.

Thinking it must be an aberration, or, perhaps, an example of the tokenism so often found in the mainstream media today, I took a closer look at the PT website. Eureka! I soon began turning up links like this. Evolutionary psychology at Psychology Today?! Can you say paradigm shift?

Well, it’s nice to see that progress actually happens, even in psychology, although I suspect I’ll still consult Stendhal as my primary source for the time being. Meanwhile, it would be nice if all the geniuses in the field who had their heads up their collective behaviorist rectums back in the 60′s and 70′s would visit Robert Ardrey’s grave, perhaps decorate it with a rose or two, and murmur, “Sorry for all the abuse, old man. You were right, and we were wrong.”

On the “Morality” of Nuclear Weapons

There is an interesting post over at ArmsControlWonk entitled “Morality and the Bomb.” Key question posed in the article:

“One notable aspect of the current abolitionist wave is that it is powered by national interest arguments, not moral considerations. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?”

My response:

“It is not a good thing or a bad thing, but a logical thing. Morality is an evolved trait that exists because it promoted our survival at a time when we existed as small communities of hunter/gatherers. Attempts to apply it to the nuclear weapons debate are logically absurd. The basic issue here is very simple. Is it desirable to survive? If so, how should we deal with nuclear weapons?”

This is a good example of an instance in which it’s necessary to step back from morality and think. Morality has a great deal more to do with emotion that logic. It is subjective, and exists only in the minds that host it. Other than that, it has no objective existence in itself. It exists as an evolved trait of our species because it promoted our survival. It did not evolve in response to the threat of nuclear weapons. Therefore, assuming one actually does want to survive, it would be illogical to apply it to the nuclear weapons debate. This is an instance in which one must disconnect the issue from moral considerations, and consider logically what course of action will best promote one’s survival. Survival, after all, explains why morality exists to begin with. To the extent that it doesn’t promote our survival, it is pointless. There can be nothing more immoral than failing to survive.