ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the potential for psychology to facilitate the values revolution necessary to bring about a utopian transformation. Psychology has always attempted to adapt traditional wisdoms – Carl Jung’s work on ancient myths is an early example – as well as offering new sources of inner contemplation. Psychology’s role in promoting democracy and egalitarianism dates back to the aftermath of the Second World War, when psychologists and others began trying to identify the personality style underlying authoritarianism. Exercises in participatory democracy – perhaps in the formative stages of life at school – can help to build the vital social technology that strengthens citizenship. Ecological psychologists have also begun to work on the task of deepening the human sense of connectedness to nature. Pioneer eco-psychologist Robert Greenaway claims that wilderness journeys for groups reveal the illusory nature of the dualisms which split our experiences and can restore ‘our lost capacity to feel for the natural world’.
