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Having spent more than thirty years in the laboratory studying
human behavior under preformatted, controlled conditions, I found
myself dissatisfied with my work. It is not that my work produced
no new findings on human conduct, or that working almost
exclusively with college students gave me little information on
other groups of people, but that the study of human beings in the
laboratory told me little about the people themselves. Having been
born in Europe, socialized in the Middle East, and educated in the
United States, I had entered the profession of psychology in order
to better understand different people's behavior. What I found
instead was that under uniform conditions, imposed by the
laboratory, people responded more or less in uniform manners. The
resulting behavior told me little about the people and more about
my laboratory. After considerable search for a better understanding
of my own formal training in psychology on the one hand and my
diversified cultural background on the other, I began to see that
these two early influences clashed in some basic manner. Upon
further reflection it occurred to me that my own radical
transformation in a period of six years, from a poorly educated
(elementary school only) adult to a doctor of philosophy, made me
see a different world. My earlier world of reality revolved around
forms of evidence that were not only never questioned by me, but v
vi PREFACE were themselves highly unreliable.
Having spent more than thirty years in the laboratory studying
human behavior under preformatted, controlled conditions, I found
myself dissatisfied with my work. It is not that my work produced
no new findings on human conduct, or that working almost
exclusively with college students gave me little information on
other groups of people, but that the study of human beings in the
laboratory told me little about the people themselves. Having been
born in Europe, socialized in the Middle East, and educated in the
United States, I had entered the profession of psychology in order
to better understand different people's behavior. What I found
instead was that under uniform conditions, imposed by the
laboratory, people responded more or less in uniform manners. The
resulting behavior told me little about the people and more about
my laboratory. After considerable search for a better understanding
of my own formal training in psychology on the one hand and my
diversified cultural background on the other, I began to see that
these two early influences clashed in some basic manner. Upon
further reflection it occurred to me that my own radical
transformation in a period of six years, from a poorly educated
(elementary school only) adult to a doctor of philosophy, made me
see a different world. My earlier world of reality revolved around
forms of evidence that were not only never questioned by me, but v
vi PREFACE were themselves highly unreliable.
Today it is accepted that philosophical hermeneutics has become an
important research paradigm within the social sciences, including
social psychology. This interpretive turn seems preferable for the
studies of moral belief systems, worldviews, and legal systems as
compared to the positive behavioural approach. It soon became clear
that one of the consequences of the H-D paradigm is the discursive
approach, especially as it relates to the attainment of a rational
consensus among a group of peers. The desire for a rational
consensus is based on the understanding that only discursively
achieved agreements can prevent the use of force. This book
examines hermeneutics and the use of discourse in general in social
interactions.
Today it is accepted that philosophical hermeneutics has become an
important research paradigm within the social sciences, including
social psychology. This interpretive turn seems preferable for the
studies of moral belief systems, world-views, and legal systems as
compared to the positive behavioural approach. It soon became clear
that one of the consequences of the H-D paradigm is the discursive
approach, especially as it relates to the attainment of a rational
consensus among a group of peers. The desire for a rational
consensus is based on the understanding that only discursively
achieved agreements can prevent the use of force. This book
examines hermeneutics and the use of discourse in general in social
interactions.
What a Life is a unique book that is part memoir, part historical
chronicle, part a social psychological dissertation of the impact
of a set of diverse social systems upon a single soul. It is the
result of a lifetime of evidence-gathering, thought, and
introspection. Salomon Rettig, professor emeritus at the Department
of Psychology, Hunter College CUNY, was born into and subsequently
experienced three radically different social, political, and
economic systems of the twentieth century: Nazism, Neo-Marxism (the
Israeli kibbutz), and the academic system of the United States of
America. Now in his nineties, he attempts to compare this diverse
set of experiences, their historical and political context, and
their effect on him, especially as he has related to other people.
The results are not very pretty. He watched Hitler come to power in
his native Berlin and experienced the depersonalization of the
Jewish population on the part of the Nazis, prior to escaping at
the age of thirteen to an orphanage for Jewish Holocaust refugees
in British Mandate Palestine. He subsequently worked on a kibbutz
for ten years, subjugating his personal will to the will and
interest of the collective. Finally, he arrived in the United
States, completed his education, and embarked on a career as a
professor of social psychology just as the United States entered a
historic, post-war period of rapid, unprecedented economic growth.
Was it the estrangement from his nuclear family at a very young
age, assimilation into the commune of the kibbutz, or something
else that led to his inability to relate to the other people in his
life, even those as close to him as his first wife?
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