Answering the Critics:

III. On the Charge of Not Working within the System

No Real Change Except that Initiated within Field

There are critics who inform me that my complaints are not constructive because they are not issued from within the field. 'If you want to change things, you should do it responsibly from inside the field,' writes one such critic. This is perhaps the most vacuous and deceptive of all the criticisms because I may not have a complaint if I were able to gain access to the field through a faculty appointment. There is no critical thinking forum in our field other than the trade publication and APA convention symposium, both of which are highly competitive and strictly regulated career milestones and sources for a CV. As such, these forums reflect the institution's most shared values, which as the source of the discrimination is the object of my criticisms. If you believe my critics, even though I can't get my kind of research published, I should somehow find a way to publish a paper that addresses my inability to publish my kind of research. These are the critics who want me to commit my life to the kind of futility most favorable to them, silent futility. Because my criticism goes to the very heart of our field's policies and procedures, I am compelled to come at the field as an outsider. And though I may fail to realize my vision for a better Psychology, I will count all my efforts in service of this failure worthwhile. I will not give in to the demands of those who denied my career so that I will deny myself my vocation. And, having only themselves to blame for my inability to find a forum suitable to their tastes, these administrative savants and self-styled ambassadors cannot avail themselves of my outsider status and modus operandi to disqualify that vocation. They have no control over me as long as I am operating outside their jurisdiction and system of reinforcement (what I like to call their "token economy"), and it is this lack of punitive recourse to which they are unaccustomed and which frustrates them to no end.

Such a criticism amounts to nothing more than managed and motivated neglect. It is also a rather lazy attempt to cast a pall of illegitimacy on my argument by imposing superfluous and frivolous conditions on its worth. For example, they would claim to take my argument seriously if it were published in a reputable (i.e. mainstream) trade journal. This is tantamount to a Democratic Senator telling a Republican candidate that he would take him seriously if the candidate expressed them officially in a speech to the Democratic National Convention.

Thanks for spurring me to this clarification.

fireflySun.com Report List

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