FreeAPAlogo.gif (40207 bytes)

 

Contents

PSYCHOLOGISTS FOR A FREE APA

 

 

Home

Beliefs

Membership

Perspectives

from the
Free APA Report

 

 

 

WHY APA SOCIAL INITIATIVES MUST FAIL

    APA approved social programs will fail for one fundamental reason and the consequences which flow from it. It is APA's abandonment of science primarily and also the abandonment of the study of the variability of individuals. Instead it has chosen to define some groups as victims and to focus on certain group characteristics and to appeal to law to try to change individuals.

    When I was in graduate school we learned that on virtually all measured characteristics the variability within groups was greater than the variability

between groups.  So far as I know this is still true. APA has chosen to abandon science and use means as the standard for defining group characteristics. That probably wouldn't matter except APA has joined with other groups to influence laws, public policy and to shape public opinion based on those means.  

    Unfortunately for APA the things which interest APA are individual matters. APA hoped to rid the U.S. of racism by defining racism as a group phenomenon rather than being beliefs held by individuals. Later they had to bolster their definitions by saying that blacks couldn't be racists because they didnt have power. This could never have been done if APA had chose to study variability instead of emphasizing means. Nor could it have occurred if APA had chose science and common sense and if racism was held to be an individual matter. Because of its victim group definition of race and racism, APA has chosen to support every politically inspired racist proposal initiated by a racist minority.

    APA was going to raise the status of women by declaring them to be victims. More particularly, victims of men. APA then endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment and punished states which did not pass the amendment by not scheduling the annual convention in those states. The fact that the law had already taken care of anti-woman matters was irrelevant to APA. Once caught up in feminist politics APA chose to endorse most radical feminist causes.  The notion was promoted that the only difference between men and women was social influence. Genetic differences were denied despite data to the contrary. Promoting this notion was a success as recent events at Harvard demonstrate.

    The birth control pill, which separated sex from its natural biological consequence, freed women to explore their sexuality without the fear of pregnancy. Recreation replaced procreation. At the same time, women were tired of being sex objects and at the same time insisted on sexual freedom and revolution. As is well known young women now prowl for sex at younger and younger ages. They want to be sex objects. APA seems to approve of this turn of events. One now hears that these people are exploring their sexuality. APA seems to oppose any interference with this exploration.

    The most divisive issue endorsed by APA is abortion. On this issue APA has taken the most radical position. It has endorsed abortion for females of all ages at any stage of pregnancy.  Abortion for children without parental notification or involvement is APAs position. The position is taken on the assumption that because some parents might punish their pregnant daughter and/or prevent the abortion  all will do so. Once again an individual problem has been changed to a group issue. One girls pregnancy has become the pregnancy of all women. One girls parents are now all parents of girls.

     APA has decided that homosexuals lesbians bisexuals and the transgendered are all victims who deserve special consideration from Americans. For this victim group APA finally abandoned any claim it had to being a scientific organization. For the other groups APA only had to ignore research and logic. For this group APA actually distorted research and pretended that they presented to lawmakers and the courts the best research available. They endorsed the the research which supported gays in spite of the fact that there is no truly scientific definition of homosexual.

     APA abandoned logic when it chose to support the transgendered.  The transgendered are people of one sex who believe that they should have been born the other sex. Some of them choose to have their genitals mutilated to conform to their desired sex. These are transsexuals APA has taken up the practice of referring to postoperative transsexuals by their preferred sex and their chosen changed sex name. Surgery does not create a male or a female unless one believes that genital configuration defines ones sex. So APA has endorsed what at one tome would have been a delusion and has also chosen to ignore some basic biological facts. At the present time surgeons, endocrinologists, and make-up artists cannot change a chromosomal male into a chromosomal female, nor can they do it the other way.

    APA not only endorsed gays and tried to control access to therapy, it decided to punish the military by prohibiting military advertising in APA journals because of the military stance on homosexuality. This despite the fact of hundreds of interns supported by the VA every year. 

     APA jumped on the multicultural  bandwagon and, naturally, made victim groups the only approved cultural group.  There is no Caucasian American culture if APA actions are a gauge. APA victim approval requires minority status (even when minority is only self defined as was the case of women) and also a group of such minority persons with the time, income and anger to promote a victim group status. Countries around the world are abandoning the notion that immigrant groups can isolate themselves with no intention of integrating with the larger group. The result of such isolation is a chaos of language, politics, and values which will destroy a country. A country becomes simply a collection of alienated subgroups. It does encourage an unending supply of victims for the organizations and individuals who feed on them. Even states in the United States are voting down racial and sex preferences and trying to stop illegal immigrants. Naturally race hustlers, organizations and individuals who depend on the unending supply of victims deplore the notion that approved groups will now be treated as equals in the real world. One may expect that the last organizations to give up their push for diversity will be universities that  have adopted sex and race affirmative action quotas; and which have faculty who have received tenure and promotions based on sex and race oriented publications, grants and fame.

    APA will be among the holdouts because it has applied its diversity policies to itself. The result is that all boards and committees are formed with an eye to APA style diversity.

    The ludicrous nature of the thought processes which underlies such devotion to diversity may be seen in the slogan adopted by many of the organizations. We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action organization It is impossible for an organization with quotas to be both. Sex, race and other quotas are antithetical to equal opportunity.

    So people in this country are beginning to recognize that they have been sold a bill of goods by organizations of  experts and advocacy groups including scientific organizations like APA. They are also beginning to be extremely skeptical of such groups.

    So, APA efforts will fail because APA adopted policies which led them to violate basic rule of science and to ignore the only thing we know for certain about human beings----everyone is different.