done with Boundary Issues

[walkitout]

And after reading the notes, I think I have figured out what's going on. Adams has a particular theoretical framework (constructive developmental -- and yes, that is what it is called, even though it makes little sense), based on the work of a guy named Kegan (The Evolving Self is apparently where it was initially put forth). Kegan took Piaget's stuff, and reworked it to show that evolution is what's driving development. Now, developmental approaches in general are highly disrespectful ("You're just going through a phase"), so that's bad. Piaget in particular was a creepy guy, designing tricky little experiment after tricky little experiment to "prove" that children are not nearly as human as they obviously are. So that's worse.

But the evolution part is especially bad, as it reifies (oh, and I do mean that) something that is so obviously cultural it is breathtaking.

So very evil.

This puppy is going to a used book store.

FWIW, Adams quotes a bunch of stuff that has been discredited -- a lot of her sources are from the 70s and 80s. And some of her sources are fictional. I kid you not -- she quotes Rilke's poetry, and Stephen Dedalus (that would be the protagonist in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). Adams has a lot of great anecdotes; her analysis is generally completely orthagonal to the lesson I would have drawn from the anecdote. She is, to put it bluntly, batshit crazy. Pity, really.

Oh, yeah. And she is unbelievably heteronormative, and assumes her reader is female (which is kinda cool, in theory, but in practice is quite awful). Best of all, in an entire volume on boundary issues, she never addresses dealing with romantic overtures, wanted or unwanted, in any context, other than a really bizarre bit about women and friendships with gay men.

Comments

[flinx.livejournal.com]

Not to be a bit of a snark, but if the book's really that bad, why not just save it for kindling for a lovely beach burn, instead of throwing it back for some other poor soul to stumble into? That way you can get something useful out of it...

However, in a related note, I'm reading some interesting blogs right now, from a number of professional biologists, who are discussing how evolution and development really do drive each other. If you're interested, I'll toss you some of the links. Fascinating ideas.

no fireplace here at the apartment :(

[walkitout]

To be clear, I do recognize that evolution and development could drive each other. I'm objecting to theories of psychological development (Piaget, in children; Kegan, in humans throughout life) that are extremely contingent on a particular culture, and objecting to evolution used to explain that a cultural artifact is inevitable, so we shouldn't attempt to try to change it.

Even when evolution really did have a particular effect (dark skinned people living where more UV gets through; light skinned people living where less UV gets through), I don't see that that should stop us working "against" it (so light skinned people can reasonably live in the tropics, although they should wear a hat and possibly sun block, and dark skinned people can live in Canada, although they should make a point of getting as much sun as possible, and possibly supplement vitamin D). So when people turn around and suggest that, say, women are not evolved for fighting so they shouldn't be in the army, I get kinda cranky.

All that said, feel free to pass along interesting links. I'd love to see what the real scientists are thinking about (as opposed to the way out of date crap that psych people persist in latching onto).