Holistic understanding and mythical thinking.

Growing up, I read the fairy tales of practically all peoples of the world: from Persian, Chinese and Russian, to Madagascan, Georgian and Aboriginal. It wasn't, however, before decades of life experience, meditational and yogic practice and, finally, an encounter with structural anthropology and depth psychoanalysis, that the actual meaning of fairytale metaphors has finally dawned on me. If Jesus Christ had to use similes to explain the intangible structures of reality, so should social sciences, instead of confusing themselves and everyone around with the sky-high castles of educated guesswork and terminology.

Seeng both sides: combining social and psychological approaches in understanding the human condition

From my experience, it appears that only those who have looked  into both the social and the psychological, achieve any kind of meaningful understanding of how society and humans work. When the scientist's blind spot includes an entire dimension of the human condition, all their work will amount to an exercise in futility. In (the more familiar to me) case of anthropologists, often deliberately ignoring the psychological aspects of observed practices (e.g., in  Rabinow's Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco) results in culturalist reductionism, where perhaps the most important aspect of a ritual is omitted. 

This understanding, however, is hard to win allies for. I remember Scott Lash, who himself studied both sociology and psychology, warning me that I would hardly come across academics even aware of the issue, let alone interested in any aspects or implications of it. Looking on both sides of the dark veil separating social and psychological facts, creates a transformational experience, a true Zen moment, a temporary dissolution of the object/subject separation, whose memory, however, lasts and influences all your perceptions for the rest of your lifetime. That is why, I would never be truthful, should I have to stick to only one part of the proverbial elephant. The blindfold may have been off for just a moment, but after that there's no way back. 

Understanding mental illness

The biggest fallacy in understanding mental illness is ascribing its causes to one factor or locus. The psychological, the physiological and the social do not exist separately, that separation is a mental abstraction. Hence, any treatment should deal with all the aspects. Talking therapy + lifestyle changes + breathing techniques to re-balance your glandular system.

Social sciences and the culturalist bias

The assumption that enculturation rationally responds to/replicates social structure is itself a product of rationality and is thus only self-referential at best, and most of times very misguiding. It bypasses any awareness of psychological processes and how responses are produced and internalised. This lack of self-knowledge/reflexivity (from the famous "know thyself" maxim) is the main obstacle in the modernist scientific method, the blindfold that keeps the blind men from seeing the entire elephant.

One keep getting reminded of that beautiful Dostoevsky's question (to the effect of): "So what happens once we've fed everyone?" Is it going to be a better society once wealth is redistributed more evenly? Not that I'm against it, by the way. It's just that the effects will be mostly limited to welfare and economy, more purchase power and people engaging in ever new consumerist frenzies, inventing new hierarchies and guarding their wealth from outsiders. Same ole, same ole...

The compartmentalisation of science

Anthropology studies cultures without individuals. Psychology studies individuals without cultures. Sociology studies societies without cultures. Cultural Studies studies  cultures without societies. Economics studies economies without societies. Political Science studies states without societies.

What is Lacan's mirror stage?

What is Lacan's mirror stage?

1. Many invited, few chosen
2. Borges and mirrors
3. Koans and duality
4. Empirical knowledge vs. intellectual knowledge

Briidging the irreconcilable in earthling studies

Bridging social and psychological studies is notoriously difficult. First of all, the two realities they explore are based in two fundamentally different planes of existence: social life is spread over time and space and subject to constant change, whereas the primary thinking process is timeless and spaceless. Caught up between the twain is the human being with their limited conscious mental capacity, to which the mechanisms of both the social and the psychological are mostly beyond comprehension.

As opaque and incompatible as the link between the two may appear, as long as skirting this most fundamental issue continues, no social sciences research can hope to offer any satisfactory results. 

That said, we need to be wary of attempts made to marry the two on a superficial level, like in uncritical sociology and behavioural psychology, where observable facts are taken for their face value. That way, we only end up with a deeply misguided, epistemologically shaky, analysis prone to gross ideological biases.

Endeavours to go deeper, which are fortunately, rather prolific, then run into methodological challenges: quantitative vs. qualitative and staged experiment vs. various varieties of participant observation. The former approach is theoretically linked to the quantitative approach: two traits are painstakingly isolated to be expressed as a dependent variable and independent variable, which would later allow to quantify that relationship. The hard to bear truth that all social as well as psychological phenomena are overdetermined (re. Freud and Althusser) and hence cannot be reduced to two variables is conveniently shoved under the carpet in the process of operationalising (turning concepts into numbers). The main motivation here appears is trying to come across as a "proper science" with "hard data" (i.e., numbers) -  the patently obsolete, if sadly persistent, positivist slant, that many people just can't seem to kiss goodbye.  

Participant observation that results mostly in qualitative research is hard to produce and as hard to consume. It requires time- and effort-consuming training in understanding complex issues by way of mastering abstract principles of analysis that are much harder to get under your belt than maths. It also brings in philosophical and epistemological concerns that cannot be decisively resolved, only accepted as paradoxes at the heart of human existence. That leap into uncertainty proves too much for most people, so they stick to tossing numbers and flashing PowerPoint presentations. 

Another leap, from analysis to synthesis, that Weber refered to as Verstehen, turns out beyond what many are prepared to deal with, too.