Bibliography 1.0: Can I escape the judgment of psychology?

I decided to make a list of the books I’ve recently read, browsed, or added to my reading list. This turned out to be a thought-provoking process. Although this may sound naïve, when I first imagined this blog, I didn’t anticipate that psychology would be such a major category in my bibliography. My main interest, after all, was the social and cultural history of the self. But of course the self is a subject of considerable interest to academic psychologists these days. The ‘psy’ disciplines – psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis — have been incredibly influential in how we think of ourselves. That’s something I’m now beginning to appreciate more fully.

Recurring questions from my Chinese horoscope

The actual process of making the list was probably more valuable for me than the list itself. And the list may not be particularly valuable for anyone else, since I can’t recommend these books the way I recommended books on the history of self-help. That’s because I’m not sufficiently familiar with most of them. Plus, the categories turned out to be imprecise and unsatisfying: Should Jerrold Seigel’s The Idea of the Self: Thought and experience in Western Europe since the 17th century go under Self, Philosophy, or History?

One obvious question that comes up: What should I read next? What should I read sooner rather than later? That decision seems to assume I have some goal in mind. And I don’t have a goal. I’m not trying to accomplish something.

This immediately takes me back to the issues raised by my Chinese horoscope. Is it really OK simply to pursue my interests rather than accomplish something? Why does this always make me uneasy, somewhere in the back of my mind? What keeps me from seeing my life – as my Chinese horoscope recommends as my best option – as being on vacation, where these decisions wouldn’t matter?

Thinking about my Chinese horoscope also raises a question that keeps coming up for me: Can I escape those dictates of my culture that I believe are not in my interest? Is that too difficult a task? Perhaps what I’m dealing with here is a basic philosophical question: What is the good life? Is it possible to answer that question independent of cultural expectations?

Can I escape the judgment of psychology?

I’m just beginning the exploration of my subject matter. I’m asking questions like What really is my subject matter? What guides me in one direction rather than another? I sense two things going on. One is simply that I’m pursuing my curiosity. And I trust my instincts as sufficient to take me in an interesting and satisfying direction.

The other is that, on a deeper level, I’m looking for an answer to a question about my own life, my own self. It has something to do with being alive in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I’m not sure I can formulate the question yet, which is OK. It has to do with feeling different – not wanting to follow the culturally sanctioned life course (marriage, family, career) that most people seem to want and enjoy.

I don’t feel that I’ve missed something, and I don’t wish I’d been more ‘normal.’ Maybe my question is: Is it possible to feel my life has been a good life when it’s not what most other people in my culture would want? How does cultural influence operate? Is it difficult to be aware of it? Would awareness be enough? Is it really a decision I get to make or am I just fooling myself? These are the same questions I’ve been asking myself for decades, hoping that the sociology of knowledge and its insight into the taken-for-granted would help me find answers.

To my mind, these are philosophical questions. However, our ability to understand our lives has been so infused with psychological explanations that it feels difficult to escape the judgment of psychology. Maybe that’s why I now want to read about the history of psychology. I want to know how I ended up living in a time when psychologists get to call the shots on the best way to live one’s life. Isn’t wondering what constitutes a good life a timeless question I’m entitled to ask? Has the influence of psychology been so powerful that the only question I’m allowed to ask is whether I’m living a “healthy” life, defined and implemented by an inescapably therapeutic culture?

Bibliography 1.0

Anyway, below is the list of books. I can’t possibly read them all in any reasonable amount of time. Each book worth reading will lead me to many more that I’ll want to add to my list.

Ah, well. It’s easy to take the first step on what will be a long journey. I plan to blog about what I’m reading, so I’ll have a record of what is, perhaps, an overly ambitious excursion.

I’m not really worried about the path I’ll take because my instincts have always been more reliable than my rationality. This is something I became more willing to accept after my Chinese horoscope explained why this would be true for me. Without a goal or a need to accomplish something, it doesn’t really matter which books I read first, as long as I’m enjoying the process. I guess that’s about as close as I’m going to get to living my life as if I’m on vacation. Perhaps that’s close enough.

Anthropology

Carrithers, Michael, Steven Collings, and Steven Lukes (eds) (1985) The Category of the Person: Anthropology, philosophy, history

LeVine, Robert A. (ed) (2010) Psychological Anthropology: A reader on self in culture

Lindholm, Charles (2007) Culture and Identity: The history, theory, and practice of psychological anthropology

Mathews, Gordon and Carolina Izquierdo (eds) (2009) Pursuits of Happiness: Well-being in anthropological perspective

Morris, Brian (1994) Anthropology of the Self: The individual in cultural perspective

Authenticity

Berman, Marshall (1970) The Politics of Authenticity: Radical individualism and the emergence of modern society

Guignon, Charles (2004) On Being Authentic

Lindholm, Charles (2008) Culture and Authenticity

Magill, R. Jay Jr (2012) Sincerity: How a moral ideal born five hundred years ago inspired religious wars, modern art, hipster chic, and the curious notion that we all have something to say (no matter how dull)

Peyre, Henri (1963) Literature and Sincerity