Excerpts from an
article published by
ThePublicInterest.com
http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2000spring/article1.html
When Psychotherapy Replaces
Religion
By James Davison Hunter
Author of Culture
Wars and director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at
the University of Virginia.
"When it comes to the moral life of children,
the
vocabulary of the psychologist frames virtually all public discussion.... B.
F. Skinner, Benjamin Spock, Havighurst, Carl Rodgers, Jean Piaget, Abraham
Maslow... their assumptions, concepts, and paradigms have largely
determined how all of us think about the moral lives of children....
"The discipline itself has maintained over the
years that, as the science of human motive and behavior, it comes closest to
a rational understanding of that difficult and elusive phenomenon, human
nature.... With theology in all it forms discredited as a public language,
psychology has offered a seemingly neutral way to understand and cultivate
the best qualities of the human personality. It is 'science' after all - and
science, we are inclined to believe, is 'objective.' In the wake of the
diffused Christian consensus dominant through the first half of the
twentieth century, the psychological approaches to moral education seem so
much more inclusive, less offensive.
"...the centerpiece of the psychological strategy
of moral education has been the concept of 'development.'...
"...since the 1960s, much of the research has
given even greater prominence to the role of emotions in the development of
moral understanding. It is our empathy with the plight of another that
prompts ethical demands for justice; it is our uncertainty in the face of
confusing events that prompts the effort of self-understanding.
"...the centerpiece of this orientation has been
the panoply of emotions surrounding one's own self-understanding and
well-being - captured in the concept of 'self-esteem.' ... Though the
'self-esteem' concept lost some currency in the 1990s, other terms have
arisen to take its place - for example, 'emotional intelligence,' or what
its theorists call the EQ or 'emotional quotient.'...
"The urgency of Dewey's educational vision - and
those of Piaget and Kohlberg and their successors - was based on a
straightforward logic: If we know what moral development is, then we will
know what moral education ought to be. ... Dominated as it is by
perspectives diffused and diluted from professional psychology, this regime
is overwhelmingly therapeutic and self-referencing; in character, its
defining feature is the autonomous self. This regime's strategy of moral
education now pervades all of the mainstream institutions that mediate moral
understanding to children - schools, youth organizations, family counseling,
and, most curiously, faith communities....
"One would think that religious faith and
religious communities would constitute a protective enclave against the
influence of secular psychology....
"Dobson's 1989 book Preparing for Adolescence...
depicts self-understanding and moral action as dependent upon the categories
of contemporary psychology. The message is implicit but sustained
throughout: Growing up requires ongoing introspection - about one's feelings
of inferiority, sexual identity, problems, looks, indeed, every aspect of a
teenager's emotional life.... He enshrines self-esteem as the adolescent's
most significant category in thinking about moral questions. Biblically
based moral standards are framed within the language and concepts of popular
psychology; not the other way around. ...
"As an Evangelical, Erickson grounds the idea of
self-esteem in the love of God. ... Beyond this important theological caveat
and occasional Bible verse, however, there is little to distinguish his
advice from that of secular family therapists. On the one hand, he
emphasizes the building of self-esteem and self-confidence as ends in
themselves... on the other hand, he criticizes perfectionism and shame-based
morality. While he writes of the importance of forgiveness, the problem of
sin is all but absent. ...
"The message to young people is that the
foundation of goodness, and especially altruism, is love of self: "We cannot
give love if we don't have the love to give. And the love we have to give
has its roots in our love of Self." The booklet even goes on to counsel its
readers that to love oneself "is holy."
"...the implicit lessons of contemporary moral
education speak powerfully to the moral imagination. Here, the self - its
appetites, preferences, and interests - is at center stage, without serious
rival or competition. Thus, while nearly all moral educators disparage the
subjectivism and individualism of our time, none of the alternatives
presented are able to transcend or escape them.
"The purpose of moral education is to change
people for the better and, in so doing, to improve the quality of life in
society. The difficulty is that moral education, as it is presently
configured and institutionalized, is utterly captive to the society in which
it exists. ... It is... a reflection of the moral order it seeks to
transcend and then transform. In this regard, moral education, even in its
diversity and its apparent oppositions, is more a story about the
legitimation of American culture than it is about its transformation."
James Davison Hunter is director of the
Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia
and author of Culture Wars. This article was published by
ThePublicInterest.com
in the spring of 2002
Please read Mr. Hunter’s entire article at
http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2000spring/article1.html