THE MEANING OF PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER XVII : LOOKING FORWARD
Man's Protracterd Infancy.
School Education.
The Transfer of Training.
The Case Against Education.
Vocational Training.
Incentives.
Mental Types.
Mental Tests.
The Future of Communication . The reader will have noticed the stress laid upon language in these
pages. The center of interest in psychology has of recent years shifted considerably and the symbolizing
activities of the mind are more and more becoming its main concern; but in many respects the significance of this trend has been insufficiently appreciated by workers in experimental fields. The majority of
intelligence tests, for instance, are essentially tests in the handling of linguistic material, though they are
seldom regarded in this light. Even the best non-linguistic mind naturally makes a poor showing. In
some quarters there is actually a tendency to overestimate the importance of the language factor. Many
behaviorists in reducing thinking to sub-vocal talking overlook the fact that one of the chief practical
problems of psychology is to distinguish verbal from non-verbal thinkers another, perhaps fundamental, division of the types which are discussed above. And even among verbalizers we must distinguish those who are at the mercy of their expressions from those who are not, a distinction of great
practical importance in all discussion. There are some people, and those not the least eminent, who can
only be persuaded to change their opinion when they are presented with a formal rearrangement of their own vocabulary, while others can grasp a
point, however it is put. In university and adult education generally this is of supreme importance, and
the technique by which men can be delivered from the bondage of set phrases earlier years is slowly
being evolved. One of the first tasks of those who appreciate the bearing of this aspect of the psychology
of thinking on human progress must be to make conscious the manifold strivings towards such a
technique, which are found, for example, in grammatical reform movements, lathe study of semantics, in
new methods of language teaching, and even in simplified spelling.
Another sign of this endeavor is seen in the steady decline in psychology of the traditional type of
argumentation in which the disputants revolve patiently cads in his own closed system of linked
definitions, and keep in touch with one another only through the fact that each is using the same words,
though in different senses. The freedom with which psycho-analysts, behaviorists, and even
traditionalists are busy coining new vocabularies on the whole an encouraging symptom, since it at least
prevents the general student who is linguistically plastic from becoming prematurely encaged in too
narrow a symbolic system.
But if this happy result is to ensue it is essential that men become word-conscious. A similar
multiplication of technicalities is occurring in all the sciences, and is particularly embarrassing in the
social sciences. It may lead to great difficulties if not to general unintelligibility and a sterilizing isolation of
specialists, unless psychology comes to the rescue by inducing a new attitu4c towards speech based on n
understanding of what is happening when we speak. The important point is to remember that what any
thought is 'of' or 'about' (its Referent, to use a convenient technicality) and the formulation of the
thought, must never be confused. Every statement is translatable, and translation should form a chief
part of intellectual training at all stages; not only translation from foreign languages into our own,
though this is at present probably the most valuable part of the general curriculum, but also, and still
more urgently, translation from one formulation to another within the bounds of our native tongue. By
this means we may best become word-conscious, that is, become able to look beyond our forms of
speech to the things we are talking about. A truly sagacious Dictator would make it his first business to
create a Word-conscious Proletariat.
The Need for Conscious Control . This need for increased conscious control of the machinery of life
is even more evident when we turn to the influence which modern psychology is exerting in medicine,
Why have we this sudden universal emphasis on the psychological origin of so much mental and
physical disease? Is it not because the problems of existence which a litt1e while ago were so simply
solved, have, with the increasing comp1exity of modern civilization, begun to put a strain upon the old
mechanisms? Just as we should take over conscious control of the Words which have set men chasing after so many
unrealities, in the same way we must learn to take charge of our Minds. We are beginning to realize,
with the aid of the doctor, that our neuralgia, our headache, our migraine, our dyspepsia, and even our
phthisis, are, no less than the phobias, the hysterias, the anxieties, and the other neuroses which loom so
large in the contemporary social picture, as often as not ways in
which we are dodging some awkward situation or decision. We have been evading the issue. We have
lost touch with reality. And again, just as we evade the personal problem, so civilization as a whole is
evading the cosmic issue. Vaguely apprehensive that the old solutions in their traditional form can no
longer be squared with the facts, we either look wistfully backwards, or compromise with some morbific
phantom which we conjure up to screen w from the abyss. But we must dare to be wise, and the way to
wisdom lies through knowledge of ourselves. The facts which we can least afford to neglect are those
which it is the object of psychology to present.
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