Blog: September

Imperialisit rhetoric

Much of the rhetoric of the "New World Order" promulgated by the American government since the end of the Cold War--with its redolent self-congratulation, its unconcealed triumphalism, its grave proclamantions of responsibility--might have been scripted by Conrad's Holroyd: we are number one, we are bound to lead, we stand for freedom and order, and so on. No American has been immune from this structure of feeling, and yet the implicit warning contained in Conrad's portraits of Holroyd and Gould is rarely reflected on since the rhetoric of power all too easily produces an illusion of benevolence when deployed in an imperial setting. Yet it is a rhetoric whose most damning characteristic is that it has been used before, not just once (by Spain and Portugal) but with deafeningly repetitive frequency in the modern period, by the British, the French, the Belgians, the Japanese, the Russians, and now the Americans.

[...]

First is a depressing sense that one has seen and read about current American policy formulations before. Each great metropolitan center that aspires to global dominance has said, and alas done, many of the same things. There is always the appeal to power and national interest in running the affairs of lesser peoples; there is the same destructive zeal when the going gets a little rough, or when natives rise up and reject a compliant and unpopular ruler who was ensnared and kept in place by the imperial power; there is the horrifically predictable disclaimer that "we" are exceptional, not imperial, not about to repeat the mistake of earlier powers, a dispcaimer that has been routinely followed by making the mistake, as witness the Vietnam and Gulf wars. Worse yet has been the amazing, if often passive, collaboration with these practices on the part of intellectuals, artists, journalists whose positions at home are progressive and full of admirable sentiments, but the opposite when it comes to what is done abroad in their name.

Culture and Imperialism
Edward Said

Posted on:
2008.09.29 -0500

Tags:
homo homini lupus , texts

Statistical models vs. "expert" psychologists

The superiority of statistical formulas in predicting gives rise to what can be termed a "base rate" psychology. People's behavior and feelings are best predicted by viewing them as members of an aggregate and by determining what variables generally predict for that aggregate and how. That conclusion contradicts experts' claims to be able to analyze an individual's life in great detail and determine what caused what. Unfortunately, it is exactly the individualized-causality type of analysis that is most expected of professional psychologists and other mental health professionals. This expectation arises not only from our intuitive beliefs about the world but from these psychologists' own declarations about their abilities. [...]

Moreover, as we have seen, the inability to predict implies a lack of understanding--not because understanding and prediction are synonymous but because a claim to understanding implies an ability to predict. Evaluating the efficacy of psychotherapy has led us to conclude that professional psychologists are no better psychotherapists than anyone else with minimal training--sometimes than those without any training at all; the professionals are merely more expensive. Moreover, in predicting what people will do, clinicians are worse than statistical formulas, and statistical formulas are a lot less expensive; [...] Why not instead put our efforts into improving the methods we know to be superior by developing better statistical models? That should benefit almost everyone--except, of course, the people who are being highly paid to make inferior predictions.

House of Cards: psychology and psychotherapy built on myth
Robyn Dawes

Posted on:
2008.09.23 -0500

Tags:
texts

Regression effect

[...] A much more subtle flaw is technically termed a regression effect. That is, processes appear to "regress" from less likely states to more likely ones simply because the more likely ones are likely to occur at later points in time. For example, people are not often extremely happy (or extremely unhappy). It follows that when they are, they are less likely to be as extremely unhappy (or happy) later--no matter what happens in the meantime. Because most people enter therapy when they are extremely unhappy, they are less likely to be as unhappy later, independent of the effects of therapy itself. Hence, this "regression effect" can create the illusion that the therapy has helped to alleviate their unhappiness, whether it has or not. [p.44]

[...]

The direct relevance of regression effects to evaluating psychotherapy is that people often enter therapy at times when they are particularly unhappy and distressed. But if their problem is one that varies over time rather than having a consistently downward course, regression effects alone could result in "improvement"--and an illusion that the improvement is due to psychotherapy: "If treated, a cold will go away in seven days, whereas if left alone, it will last a week." [p.45]

House of cards: psychology and psychotherapy build on myth
Robyn Dawes

Posted on:
2008.09.13 -0500

Tags:
texts