Customer Reviews

Ecological Psychology: Healing the Split Between Planet and Self

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's been about three years since I read this book for a class in Environmental psychology, so I can only offer an impression right now: it is a sensitively written introduction to psychology from an ecological point of view, stretching from the usual beginnings to modern transpersonal psychology and deep ecology, cumulating in an original hypothesis. The writing is extremely lucid and beautiful, almost poetic at times. It stands as my favorite textbook of all, required reading for the lucky and a lucky find for the leisurely.

Winter does a great disservice to students by foisting this book upon them. This was required reading for an independent study course in ecological psychology.

Unfortunately Winter does not exercie a critical, well reasoned perspective toward the material. She attempts to reconcile a progressive, ecological perspective with the major schools and movements of psychological theory. At times this seems like a harmonious, innovative approach but most of the time it seems forced, disjointed and illogical. For instance, Winter plainly admits that there is little intellectual common ground one can find to connect Freud's ideas to ecological concepts, yet she tries to do so any way, stretching her ideas until they seem absurd to all but the most pie-eyed first year college student.

Additionlly the author does not display any familiarity with the wider context or implications of her conclusions. She romanticizes the life of hunter gatherers (who she refers to as "traditional cultures") lavishing praise on their traditions of honoring the earth but she misses the obvious opportunity to provide context for these traditions by explainaing their overrall relevence to a life not simply walking around in a hippie trance "honoring" everything, but a life of scarce food, uncertainty and hardships as well as joy. Winter seems blissfully unaware that environmental ethics don't just arise from the ether but come into being as a result of cultural necessity.

Instead of at least introducing students to this sort of complexity, Winter resorts to lazy contradictions. A few paragraphs after heaping praise on "traditional cultures" she suddenly back pedals and offers a bizarre disclaimer stating that she's not trying to disparage modern civillization and that people of "traditional cultures" are poor, lead short, unsanitary lives and don't get to go to college basically a minor variation on the racist (although I am NOT accusing Winter of racism) anthropological cliche that "man" lead a life that was "nasty, brutish and short" in his uncivillized days. However it is articulated, it is a preposterous notion that barely conceals the ethnocentrism behind it. It patently assumes that modern civillization is superior. Hunter gatherers would had different concepts of poverty, sanitation and education (if at all).

Furthermore, Winter makes a fundamental mistake made by many psychologists by the use of vastly oversimplying the diversity of human cultures. Instead of using accepted anthropological nomenclature to describe people based on nation, tribe, band, political organization or even (as I did, in my use of the term hunter gatherer) subsistance she simply lumps all non-white people together as "traditional cultures." While the term itself is not offensive, it is too impotent for the task of intelligently describing differences between cultures or making comparisons. Hind sight is twenty twenty but Winter could have clearly benefitted from at least superficially consulting with her colleagues from other professions in the writing of this book, especially since the subject "ecological psychology" is itself an interdisciplinary perspective. The fact that the author does not display even the most rudimentary understanding of basic anthropological concepts is a serious blow to her credibility and makes her contradictory pontifications about "traditional cultures" ring hollow.

Along the sames lines above, even if Winter was dissatisfied with an anthropological approach she still should have sought the perspectives of real Indian people from any of their cultures. This author certainly ignores Indian perspectives to the same extent as her colleagues. If close similarities between environmental philosophy of some native Americans and ecological psychology is barely noted, then overtly crediting Indian cultures for their original ideas and intellectual property becomes impossible.

Overall, I believe the scholarship displayed in this book is far beneath the level of average highschool students, let alone students of upper division college coursework. Instead of presenting issues, concepts, ideas or theories to students and then encouraging critical thinking by prompting students with intelligent, open ended questions about complex issues, the author simply presents her own pronouncements on these matters. Instead of attempting a thoughtfully critical analysis, Winter follows a pattern of discussing each psychological theory by offering restrained criticism, and then backtracking with positive comments. The author's approach makes it clear that her purpose rests with trying not to offend adherents of any of the theories she discusses as opposed to presenting robust analysis that questions the core claims of each theory. Instead, Winter takes the assumptions of each theory or psychological movement for granted out of what I am forced to infer is some misguided notion of "respect." This book clearly assumes that intellectual endeavors that do not terminate in mindless, unexamined consensus are too negative or unfair.

A more collegiate attitude toward "open mindedness" entails listening to other perspectives but it also means questioning them intelligently, respectfully and rigorously--other perspects that is, as well as our own. In this task, the most basic task charged to any liberal arts college level curricula no matter what department or discipline, this book fails utterly and completely. As such, it is an inferior teaching suppliment and a waste of students' time and capabilities when other, better materials must surely exist to offer college students the challenges and opportunities for learning and thinking they deserve.