Last night Dr. Cornel West spoke at GBPAC ( http://www.uni.edu/cme/events/spring2010/032510_cwest.htm ) I made a special point to see it because of his special ability as an orator and his unmatched intellectual and philosophical prowess. I would suggest a visit to his website or a search on Youtube for some of West's presentations and publications. In my opinion, we spend way too much time hearing from pundits and politicians, acquiring information that is cut and packaged into bite sized pieces that are easily digestible into our comfortable worldviews. We do not spend enough time looking for those individuals that are intellectually stirring and provocative. West is a living example of one of those public intellectuals. His philosophy is a testament to the idea that the path to social justice is a multi-faceted and inter-disciplinary objective, grounded in the intellectuals of history and in the complex dynamic of contemporary society.
http://www.cornelwest.com/
http://www.cornelwest.com/
As per my expectation, I was deeply moved by Cornel West’s presentation. I could go on and on about the substance of his talk, but instead I would just like to comment on one thing that he said relating to SPD class. He asked the question, "When are we going to talk about love in public discourse and stop talking about power?" I feel this is an appropriate question especially in looking at it through the lens of social psychology. We know empirically that love (a.k.a. empathy) is one of the best remedies of intergroup bias. We also know that competition for power and resources is inflammatory to intergroup conflict. I mean, these are some of the more basic and well versed findings in prejudice literature going all the way back to the early 20th century. So why then is public discourse so centered on the idea of power and control? Why is there such an aversion to looking at the world in terms of love? There are theories for this (i.e. Just world theory, system justification, realistic conflict, etc.) but how are these theories useful to those that do not specifically study them?
What social psychology is trying to do is understand how and why people are drawn to power and resources and then researching ways to communicate these findings to the general public in order to inoculate ignorance regarding these harmful behaviors. It is hoped that understanding the innards of the disease will give us wholesale remedies to prejudice, but as I assimilated West's presentation, I found that we already have a wholesale remedy. Love. As ill-defined and unempirical as the concept is, love is ultimately a construct which encompasses any and all suggestions the social sciences have made to solve intergroup conflict. It is accessible to the masses and persists always as a better angel of the human condition.
So why then are social scientists at odds with love? Is it simply because we have not been able to define it as a concrete construct and therefore unable to be empirically studied? I would not try to suggest that love be infused to extant programs of research, but I would suggest that the prize at the end of the tunnel or the ultimate implication of the program of research be one of love. If your results don’t connect with love at some level down the line, then you ran your analyses wrong. If you are setting out to discover what is at the core of inequity, injustice, and conflict, the idea of love will ultimately be the solution. I realize that this is a thesis that abandons all of the esoteric theories which are loved by Psychology, but I also realize that at some point research in the social science is futile without a measure of perspective. Too often in the field of Psychology, scientists get wrapped up in their programs of research, too focused on publications or academic prowess to take a step back and realize what it is that they are actually contributing to the world outside the field. It is difficult to contribute research that is focused on more optimal usage and communication of love when their motivation lies in accumulating power and resources. As Pollyannaish as these sentiments are, my personal opinion is that love should be the alpha and the omega of scientific inquiry. To put more simply, there should be inquisitiveness with a sense of purpose (love) and rigor with a sense of perspective (love).
Dr. West’s question is one that is not new by any stretch of the imagination. Why is love so difficult to maintain? Why does “love they neighbor” fall on so many deaf ears? These are old questions, but they have the most importance of any. These are the research questions which social psychology should be always seeking to answer—the point where deductive reasoning should start. We are already working on things like justice, happiness, and peace, but we always need to seek to generalize, even if it is only abstractly, to the construct of love.