Epilogue: on generals and mail coach drivers

Abstract

The only people who believe in straight roads are generals & mail coach drivers. (Flanagan 2001, 164) Those who are interested in cultural psychology cannot follow the worldview of generals and mail coach drivers. The complexity of the cultural arena is such that “straight roads” are impossible. The context of culture, as the Latin origin of the word teaches us, is the context of interwoven threads in which evolutionary, ontogenetic, and social-symbolic layers obscure any straight road to understanding. Acknowledging the complexity of the cultural realm does not imply a depressive stance, at least not in the negative sense of the word. The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein has suggested that a depressive stance may be a sign and a phase of mental maturity. As suggested in the introduction, the world doesn’t necessarily adhere to our fantasies. Our wishful thinking is such that we may expect the complexity of the world to be shrunken into very simple models, into straight roads. The situation of a person seeking understanding reminds me of an insightful lesson taught by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (described in Avital 2012). Whitehead describes the case of a person who has lost his way in the wilderness. The question the person asks himself is, “Where am I?” However, this is the wrong question, says Whitehead. The real question is, “Where are they?” That is, the person should try to find those who look for him instead of trying to understand his absolute location on the manifold. This story should be qualified, of course. Knowing his location, the person may seek the shortest way to the closest village. However, this is not the point Whitehead is trying to make. The point is about the appropriate frame of reference.