Brooklyn-born social psychologist and activist Dennis Fox took to the Internet to critique mainstream psychology's support of the status quo with his conceptually stylish web site Fox Professing. A member of the Radical Psychology Network, Dennis Fox revitalizes critical tradition within psychology by reaching out to fellow academics, calling on colleagues to cut corporate control of universities and ease pressure on students to publish, which junks up the literature with trivial research. "The danger, though, is that some students will drop out entirely, discouraged by the senselessness of it all," writes Fox, who presages the likes of expatriate J. Wyatt Ehrenfels, who did not seek employment in the field after conferment of his PhD in 1997. "You say tomato, I say tomato," jokes Ehrenfels, juxtaposing Fox's use of the term senselessness with his use of term pointlessness in estimating the difference between their points of view. After reviewing fireflySun.com, Fox contacted Ehrenfels to survey their similarities and differences.

"I've just gone through more of your website. Our interests overlap to a significant degree, primarily on the impact of graduate school and other professional institutions on students and new untenured graduates. I don't know if you came across it on my site, but my first published article (1983, in Teaching of Psychology) was a rant complaining about the pressure to publish articles that aren't worth publishing. A few years ago a colleague and I wrote an article for Radical Teacher describing the transformation of our university from an interesting experiment in meaningful alternative education to a bland job-training factory for Illinois state workers. In several of my articles on critical psychology, I've noted the obstacles facing grad students whose interest in politically relevant issues makes them targets for those who hold power over them and who use arbitrary professional norms to mold independence of thought and social justice interest into acceptably nonthreatening directions. I've also advocated the use of nonexperimental methods such as open-ended interviewing. So in these and other ways I share many of your concerns.

"Where our interests diverge significantly seems to be our ultimate interests. Unlike you, I'm not primarily motivated by psychology's core; my interest in dreams and therapy and related topics at the heart of your concerns is pretty nil. Basically, much of my early interest in psychology's subject matter has withered away, perhaps because of the initially interesting but ultimately stultifying training I got in social psychology. At any rate, as you might gather from being on the list that receives my essays, my primary interest for some time has been helping instigate social change outside psychology. For me, psychology is, potentially, more a means to that end than an end in itself. And it's not always the best means.

"I'm no longer located on my campus and am now on leave in Boston. Although reforming psychology departments and psychology as a whole still interests me, it's not where I want to put my primary energy. I devote more time these days to a variety of outside political causes and related writing. In any case, I find myself less interested in taking a central role in your efforts than I might have been a decade or so ago, so I don't want to be part of the "Author Alliance" at this time. Of course, I still expect to tell others of your website and book, which I'm noting in one or two short things I'm working on. I've also asked the RadPsyNet webmaster to include a link, which he should do next time he updates the site. I look forward to reading Fireflies when it comes out. Perhaps once it's out and I read it I'll have more to say.

"I should also say I'm glad you're pushing ahead with your effort to contact students. In RadPsyNet, we've often discussed the importance of reaching students before they blunder into situations they're not prepared for. Maybe your example will spur on others. That would be useful, and might also help moderate some of the problems you note on your site related to things like the sour grapes charge. Clearly, one way for academics to dismiss criticism from outside is to say the critic couldn't make it inside and so should be ignored. Unfortunately, that's a hard one to counter. Still, many of your experiences ring very true, and I know many academics have had similar experiences even though they might describe them differently. The list I distributed today of critical American Psychologist articles includes many whose authors would no doubt agree with many parts of your critique. (In fact, you might consider adding a page of links to credible psychologists who have made points similar to your own. They don't need to endorse your efforts for you to point out similarities. That might make your effort seem less idiosyncratic.)

"I guess another difference in approach is that I would be less quick than you to ascribe to malevolence the actions of norm-enforcing professors. This may not be exactly what you mean, but it sometimes seems that you equate action with intent. From what I've seen, destructive norms are often maintained by well-meaning people who simply do what they think is best based on their own assumptions and training, or else are trying to protect their own turf. My own general approach, which I admit I don't always stick to, is to focus on institutional forces and the need for institutional change rather than on personal short-comings of those with more power. Then again, this isn't always easy, especially when we're on the losing end of one battle or another.

I should also say that I agree with the point you make on your site about how the tone and style of your critique sometimes interfere with the credibility of your message. This too is hard to deal with, and I'm not sure how you might get around it. Defenders of things as they are generally first ignore critics; when that becomes impossible they accuse critics of being crazy. I guess our goal is to get to the point where they consider us dangerous to the the status quo instead of just crazy.

"As you know, I have no detailed knowledge of your own experiences. I hope that once your wife finishes graduate school you feel more free to provide details. But even if I decided you were wrong in how you characterize your experiences, I still think you've identified important issues with much wider application. I wish you luck, and will keep track of your progress."

In his response to Fox, Ehrenfels expressed appreciation for the thoughtful and comprehensive review of his web site and minimized their differences. "If this (the sociological analysis) were our only point of convergence, it would be more than sufficient grounds for an alliance. Certainly, we would undermine the advancement of common goals if we required of us critics the same uniformity demanded by the field we are criticizing. Your lack of interest in the core of psychology does not concern me. I accorded my interest in dreaming a salient role in my argument simply to illustrate the sociological properties of the field. A natural phenomenon like dreaming brings out the worst in our field and functions like an electron microscope to expose the absurdity, prejudice, and counterproductivity of its norms." Ehrenfels also offered al alternative perspective on the significance of critical papers published in the American Psychologist. "The American Psychologist (AP) is the signature journal of the APA and thus its contributors are, in the vast majority of instances, professors who can afford to cash in on idiosyncrasy credits earned at the expense of years of towing the company line. Given their tenured status and the nature of the journal, I actually find cause for disappointment rather than celebration in the number of authors represented in this list. Many of the authors are duplicated (I remember Sampson alone accounted for about four or five articles in that list). Moreover, I know two of these authors personally, one who vents frustration over the field's career-long neglect of his writings and one who has not returned any of my e-mails since learning it was I who wrote Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun. Not to hit this point too hard, but I expected more from my undergraduate advisor. The other author to whom I referred, the one who vented his frustration, resorted to rather extreme measures in matching wits with the field. He alienated his colleagues, who perceived his views and outbursts as having been bought by the chair he occupied at the university. With an independent source of funding, he selected and funded his own graduate research assistants, who received double pubishment, one from the author himself, who imposed strict standards on them, requiring them to carry the banner for his diverging views, and the other from the author's colleagues, who vented their frustration with the author out on the students, often putting them on probation and harassing them verbally. Thus we need to exercise caution in reviewing that list. Many of these authors are part of the problem. Most of them would never publicly acknowledge their support of my views out of fear for their jobs, the political standing of their assistants, and their relationship to colleagues. Leon Rappoport, who authored the Foreword for my book (which is accessible via the home page), briefly alludes to this."