Where Are We?
Robin Abrahams
Where are we in terms of understanding ourselves?
My life has been dedicated to the study of psychology and theater, sometimes together, sometimes separately.
As scientific themes and plots become more and more prominent in contemporary theater, the discipline of psychology tends to get left out. Psychoanalytic theorizing, perhaps with some fictionalized Freud shrinking some fictionalized contemporary; revelatory, cathartic therapy sessions; abusive "Snake Pit" asylumsāthese are popular onstage. But the practice of psychology as a science is not.
Why is this? Psychological studies lend themselves to dramatization beautifullyāthe most famous and influential experiments are, in a way, compact but highly elaborate staged productions. Stage designers don't have to scrounge up antique telescopes or electrical equipment. Playwrights don't have to figure out how to make technological exposition seem natural.
I wonder if we simply don't want to see those stories onstage.
If we'd rather not know where we are.
Because plays about science always have a degree of triumphalism to them. We, humans, bare forked things we are, are figuring out the universe. It is inherently a Promethean tale, a tale of increased knowledge, increased power. What we learn may upend certain hitherto-fixed truths: We are not the center of the universe. We were not created separately and specially from all other beasts. But these are only myths, and demolishing them doesn't diminish our statureāit allows us to create a new myth, a better one, in its place. A myth of enlightenment, and improvement, and progress.
And that myth is the one that much of psychology destroys.
Empirical studies in the social sciences show that we are conformists. That we pay almost no attention to our surroundings. Ā That our memories are unreliable and vulnerable to manipulation. That we are more prejudiced than we realize. That the least competent among us believe themselves to be the most gifted. That we lie to ourselves.
These discoveries do not quicken the heart. This is not gazing at a star or uncovering the bone of an ancestor in Africa.
The discoveries of psychology are, frankly, somewhat embarrassing to us as a species.
As a child (I was not always a very clever child) I was fascinated by public maps with a large red dot marked YOU ARE HERE. Ā They made me feel caught out and vaguely guilty. How did they know? Was it not somehow shameful that the makers of this map know where I am, when I myself do not know where I am?
I suspect this unpleasant feeling may be why there are so few plays about the science of psychology.
Robin Abrahams is an American author, journalist, and speaker. She writes the Boston Globe Magazine weekly ethics and etiquette column "Miss Conduct,ā and has appeared in a number of local theatrical productions, including Flat Earth Theatreās Blinders. Robin is a research associate at Harvard Business School, has a PhD in psychology from Boston University, and can usually be found lurking at the Ig Nobel Prizes.
The Where Are We Project, in conjunction with Flat Earth Theatreās production of Silent Sky, invites an assortment of scientists, artists, thinkers, and dreamers to ponder our place in the universe. Silent Sky will be performed March 10th ā 25th, 2017, at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown, Massachusetts.
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