Having witnessed first-hand a crucial vote by the American Psychological Association's governing Council of Representatives earlier this month in Washington, DC, I couldn't decide whether to begin this commentary with a quote from Lewis Carroll or George Orwell. So here are both:"
Carroll's Through the Looking Glass includes this memorable exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice:
Humpty Dumpty (scornfully): "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less."
Alice: "The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things."
Humpty Dumpty: "The question is which is to be master that's all."
And in Politics and the English Language, Orwell wrote, "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink."
Both quotes seem painfully apt when trying to make sense of the Council's approval of a set of wholly inadequate professional practice guidelines for operational psychology. If this domain is unfamiliar to you, operational psychologists are primarily involved in non-clinical activities linked to national security, national defense, and public safety. Their largest source of employment is the military-intelligence establishment, which includes the Department of Defense and the CIA. Of particular concern from the standpoint of professional ethics, in some cases these psychologists are called upon to inflict harm, to dispense with informed consent, and to operate in a covert manner such that external oversight by professional boards becomes difficult or impossible. They're eager to have the APA's official blessing of this weaponization of the profession because it's a step toward achieving greater recognition and legitimacy for this kind of work.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
