WHAT IS GOING ON?

In these days of multimedia communication, manipulation of our language can happen without many of us being aware of it: like an invisible plague. Manipulation of our language is one of the most  important and dangerous tools of those who seek power. For example, let's start with the most important example of all: the perversion of the word 'education'.

Education used to be about giving people, especially children, the knowledge and skills to deal with life. One of these important skills was the ability to critically analyse and assess the knowledge and values that were offered by the education process itself. So when we hear the word 'education' we can easily assume that it refers to an open and free process of discovery and learning. In reality, we find that we have been accepting a so-called education system that is a means of pressurising people into unconscious belief in a particular set of values. This has been done using the methods described above under the title: 'The Warning Comes True'. Note also how this manipulation of the word 'education' corresponds to the Chinese Communist use of the word in ‘re-education’; as in ‘Re-educating the Prisoners’ above. How did this underhand manipulation of language and infiltration of values happen? To answer that question we need to understand the difference between:

Descriptive Psychology versus Prescriptive Psychology

Descriptive Psychology gathers evidence to describe how human beings behave, by making theories that attempt to explain such behaviour. But, like any science, its theories have to stand up to  being tested against the evidence that comes from observing real-life. If I have a theory that all cats are green coloured, then I go and observe cats. When I find that observation of cats shows me that all cats are not green, then I don’t blame the cats for not obeying my theory. Neither do I insist that all cats should be dyed green to make my theory right. Instead: I scrap the theory that ‘all cats are green’ as rubbish.

Prescriptive Psychology does not describe how human beings do behave; instead, it prescribes how they ought to behave. When psychologists tell us that we ought not to discipline a child, or we ought not punish criminals, or we should be prepared to accept sexual diversity; they are not offering theories that are open to questioning, testing and rejection. Instead, they are stating beliefs and values which they want to spread to other people, if not by inspiration, then by compulsion. (If the cat isn't green, then we need to paint it that colour!).

Where psychology as a descriptive science has been shown to be supported by evidence, it is not surprising that our society has listened to it and learned some useful practical lessons. But if we accept everything called ‘psychology’ as a science, without distinguishing whether it is descriptive or prescriptive; then prescriptive psychology slips unnoticed into our thinking, our values and our laws.

Psychology as Prescription . . .