AFTERWORD:

TOWARDS A SUBVERSIVE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Formatted: Font: 14 pt, Small caps

Formatted: Font: 14 pt, Small caps

Formatted: Font: 14 pt, Small caps

Though without having devoting to it a considerable discussion, at the end of our introduction
in the present book we quoted a statement of Serge Moscovici (1989) according to which
Social Psychology represents a subversive attack against the existing division, a challenge to
the fragmentation of reality (p. 412). Before concluding our effort to outline a different
agenda for social psychology, we consider it purposeful to examine somewhat more carefully
the above statement, one that many participants in the field of social psychology, even those
whose work follows the theoretical guidelines of Moscovici, tend to overlook.

The first thing that arises from the above quotation concerns the breakup of the social
sciences and, consequently, the conceptual fragmentation of social reality, an issue, that is,
we have already touched upon at several points of the present book. The subject matter of
social psychology in its predominant model is always defined as different than that of
sociology, and, in their turn, these two different subject matters are defined differently, and
tackle different issues, from those of political economy, (social) anthropology, history,
linguistics and all the other social sciences. In other words, what is called society is broken
up in particular fields, and it is studied, analyzed and conceptualized in a different way by
each of the various social sciences, depending on, and according to, the particular subject
matter and interest of each one. Within this division of the social sciences and the factitious
conceptual multifragmentation of social reality, the predominant social psychology is
content with simply securing its own small share in the explanation of some functions,
relations and phenomena established as the scope of the scientific discipline in question
and nothing further than that. Thus, the predominant social psychology constitutes a sub-
area of psychology which mainly carries out something called primary (empirical) research,
focusing on studies usually experimental of small scale social phenomena (i.e., the
change in attitudes, the internal structures of groups, etc.,), the aim of which is to discover
such mechanisms that will be in force over and beyond any particular social circumstances.
In other words, the aim is the formulation of mechanisms and deterministic laws equivalent
to those aspired to be discovered by General Psychology. For whose sake, though? Because,
apart from the cases where social psychology provides, for political reasons, the various
state mechanisms with the know-how they need for the control and manipulation of the
populations, as it is aptly noted by the German psychologist Uwe Flick (1995), if one is
interested in understanding and solving social issues and problems, they will rarely think to
ask for the assistance of the academic social psychology and its research studies. Therefore,
the question of where one can find the social dimension of such a social psychology is a
legitimate one?

Taking seriously into consideration the words of Moscovici in our initial quotation, what we
propose is the development (cultivation?) of a different social psychology, of a social
psychology that will not be seeking to entrench and secure a small field of experimental, or
even qualitative, research, by following the patterns of the overall psychological
individualism, but, rather, to create conditions for the reunion of the social sciences. Of
course, such a reunion can never be complete or definitive (conclusive?). As with
psychology, it is also true in the other social sciences that the different social and political
agendas, as well as the contravening and irreconcilable with each other ontological,
epistemological, and methodological presumptions, make it impossible to accomplish any

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closed and definitive unity. Nonetheless, social psychology is capable of creating the
conditions for the findings of the various social sciences (both those characterized by
consistency with each other as well as those which are non-compatible at first glance) to be
capable of coexisting within one conceptual and explanatory context, within a context
oriented toward a broad understanding of the psychosocial, a context which will examine,
connect and interlock a range of dimensions (e.g., classness, historicity, gender, economic
structures, cultural characteristics, language etc.) that constitute the subject matter of different
social sciences. A small example of such social psychology is the one we have set out in
Chapter 5 with reference to the Indian communities of Chiapas.

Evidently, at this point there recurs the question of the recipients of social psychology: who
will such a social psychology concern, whose needs will be serviced by it? Though the
creation of conditions for a synthesis of the findings of the various social sciences and,
therefore, the positioning, the contextualization of the psychical may constitute a
progressive movement as far as its academic dimension is concerned (in the sense of its
attempt to subvert (overturn?) the presently existing breakup/fragmentation), in its political
dimension it does not constitute a progressive movement in and of itself. It is characteristic
that in many cases of popular uprisings and guerilla movements, like the ones in Latin
America in the 1960s and 1970s, the state power did not turn to the findings of the
experimental social psychology but, rather, as this is revealed in the various antiterrorist
manuals of the American army that were being forwarded in those countries to a more
general understanding of the psychosocial, in order for the aforementioned power to
comprehend the psychical makeup of the locals and the social processes at work so as to
achieve the breakup and the deconstruction of the solidarity relationships between the
guerillas and the population. A current example clearly concerning inter-state relationships is
a secret document of the American government in relation to the Iranian self that has
recently come into light (wikileaks, 2010). The text is a poor quality attempt of positioning
the Iranian psychical, intended to be used as a basis for the negotiations of the American
officials with their equivalent Iranian parts. Despite the fact that this text contains several
historical, psychological and cultural references, in essence, it appears to be more like a kind
of a static profiling (as the one of Amy Blue that we have seen in Chapter 4) rather than a
substantial contextualization. Thus, when we talk about a subversive attack against the
fragmentation of social reality and about the need for the contextualization of the
psychosocial, we ought to make it clear that the primary aim must be that of social change to
the direction of the emancipation of all human subjects. The positioning of the psychical, its
contextualization through reference to and conjunction of material from various social
sciences constitutes simultaneously an understanding, but, also, a multilevel critique of the
existing situation, with the aim of the latter being that of a radical social change. The example
of the Zapatistas is one such case of internal positioning of the self on the part (on behalf?)
of the movement, for the purpose of understanding the social reality and identifying the
crevices that could be further eroded in order to make space for different practices in the
context of the Zapatista struggle against the consequences of 500 years of colonialism and in
that of the more contemporary neoliberal (catastrophe?).

Let us return, however, to the adjectival specification social, a specification that the
predominant social psychology tends to adopt for the sole purpose of discrediting it. We
hope that from all what we have said until now there becomes evident the need to take this
specification seriously, shaping a social psychology that will be really social and not a cutout
piece of research, distant from the other social sciences. But, apart from this dimension of the
problem concerning essentially the need for a social psychology that will contextualize the

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psychical of the human subjects by interlocking all the remaining social sciences, there is an
additional and more general dimension we ought to refer to. In this second dimension, the
specification social does not denote exclusively a complete or better coverage of the
subject matter of the scientific area in question, but is based on the more general appraisal
that since the psychical constitutes a social entity, then the entire discipline of psychology is
(supposed to be) social. In other words, an apprehension and conceptualization of the
psychical which is differentiated from the individualism that reigns over psychology even
when the latter takes into consideration social effects and which treats the psychical as a
social entity is one that necessarily treats the entire discipline of psychology as social
psychology. In this case, the adjectival specification social does not any more characterize
only a sub-area of psychology that deals with social effects or with social issues, it does
not imply a field of only a particular research and theoretical interest, but, instead, it
designates the fact that since a human being is a social entity, social psychology is the only
psychology that is possible to exist. This understanding seems to be also in accord with the
perception of the Soviet historian and psychologist Porshnev who, in a discussion of the
difficulty that exists in defining the relation between Social Psychology and General
Psychology, explains that:
the fact that the individual a such is a social entity weighs with social psychology,
which might one day be proven as more fundamental and more general than the
general psychology. It may be that, some day, only [social psychology] will
conform to the name of psychology (1975, 12).

At this point we are going to conclude by slightly paraphrasing what we have mentioned in
the introduction. The current capitalistic savagery that turns both against every single person-
worker and the poor as well as against the whole planet, by means of its uncontrolled
destruction of the environment, forces us to take very seriously - and in its most radical
interpretation - the exhortation of Moscovici (1989) and of other colleagues for a subversive
attack. If not, the missed opportunity will not simply concern social psychology as an
academic undertaking let us all be ready for the worst.