Radical Psychology : can we afford to live without it?

Psychology and its practice, like all mainstream collective attempts to frame and explore human perceptions, has at it’s fringes ( and sometimes deep within its core)  elements of true genius and insight.  This insight has courage to dare step into the unknown with some rather radical approaches. This can comfort those who find that the mainstream collective rationale is no longer serving them.

My own mind has been home to  radical thoughts since the beginning of my conscious life. For years I thought that it was only ME who saw the world differently. Now how innocent is THAT!

Researching for the bluecray.org  website has led me to  discover some inspiring and reassuring people, websites and journals. These discoveries have encouraged me to stand my ground, state my position from creative insight and seemingly go at odds to  mainstream collective thinking and perception.

I found that  there are people, websites, and journals offering independent activism initiatives that fill a mainstream void.  A void  that so readily occurs when the mainstream momentum engulfs creative radical perimeter thinking,  swallowing, chewing it then regurgitating it as popular thought, minus the deeper meaning and context.

Now I am not saying that this eating up of radical thought by the mainstream is wrong. And I am not saying that this process doesn’t  serving humanity or that it is toxic to humanity’s mass conciousness journey – or is it?

All I am trying to say is that  peripheral radical and unique creative elements  of human society are very essential to the overall wellbeing of the direction of humanity.

• The Change Agency has one such website . While mainstream community environmental workers have undoubtedly helped the environmental “cause”, agencies such as the Change Agency dare to be that little bit different.
• Radical Psychology - A Journal of Psychology, Politics, and Radicalism by the Radical Psychology Network is one such Journal Website. Questioning themselves in the mainstream flow of Psychological knowledge, they appear to be stretching the creative edge of Psychological reasoning and daring to bring their insights to public awareness.
• R J Lifton – is one such individual. He has given value to the Artist and visionary, in the scheme of humanity facing mass destruction.
• Daniel Goleman : Ecological Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligence and Truth and Consequence

At ground level, I have seen this feasting on the radical edge, by popular mainstream movement, time and time again, within the environmental movement.

Examples are:

• Organics mainstream:  served to us by popular word, offered as a buffet by supermarket giants and television presentations. To the side still lies true organics, offering a peaceful coexistence with nature that is in stark contrast to the mainstream rush at devouring the earth’s resources.
• Landcare and other mainstream revegetation programs : that feed on weed infested sites, clearing and spraying their way to a new glorious habitat “presentation”, whilst often destroying delicately balanced micro habitats in the process. A diet of weeds can, in fact, be very healthy for a site that is being regenerated.
• Mainstream Climate Change and Natural Resource Management  initiatives and products:  absentmindedly allowing us to buy and spend our way out of future environmental consequences whilst the real issues of “living like kings and gods”,  inequality for human rights and markets for weapons and lifestyles of mass destruction lay dormant in our irrational minds as we take our daily diet of mainstream news for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Sustainability : a word so overused now, that it is a frequent term used by the very markets and processes that erode the earth’s environmental sustainability to describe their own financial longevity and practices.

So next time you race out to by the newest “green” product to sponsor a cause, “kill” off that grass with roundup to plant a new forest and decide to buy organic herbs packaged ever so nicely in their plastic container rather than pick your own home grown parsley – have a thought for your own radical psychology – then go to the edge, and THINK AGAIN.

• The Rainforest Information Centre – “Earth Spirit Action” - Deep Ecology
• Alison Tuck : Woman and Child First  - Psychology Links and Articles
• Bluecray philosophy links