Art And Survival: In Dialogue

ON THE INTERFACE BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND CULTURE: A Dialogue with Michael L. Penn, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at Franklin and Marshall College

KRM: I want to end this dialogue with asking you about the notion that racial identity is being transformed very dramatically with globalization. I know that you have written about globalization and the role of the black psychologist in an essay entitled "Toward A Global World Community" in the Journal of Black Psychologists. It seems from reading your piece that you are interested in preserving a value system that ensures that diversity of cultural expressions are maintained and preserved even as we move towards a global world. Is that a correct assessment of one of your primary concerns in that piece?

MLP: Sure. Absolutely. Biological things exist because of the principal of unity and diversity. An example is the human body. The human body is made up of many, many different parts. Those parts are quite distinct and different from one another, when those parts are working together in harmony, but carrying out their functions as they are. In other words, the liver cannot be the heart, the heart cannot be the kidney, the kidney cannot be the brain. These things are distinct, but they are working together in some harmonious way. It is really their harmonious functioning in diversity, their unity in diversity which makes life possible. Homogeneity does not make life possible. Life is not possible within the context of homogeneity. The greater the diversity, the greater the possibility of life. The diversity must be harmonized. Diversity must be brought under the influence of agencies that bring into unity and harmonization diverse component systems. So, the races and peoples of the world, the cultures of the world, the ethnic groups of the world must be preserved, but they must be preserved with a higher degree of loyalty to humanity. In other words, I should not pride myself only on being a black man. I should not pride myself only on being an Irish or being an Italian, although being a black man enables me to bring to a situation what I could not bring if I were an Italian or if I were a German, or if I were a French, so on and so forth. So I bring something unique because I am a black man, but we have arrived at a time in history, I believe, in which the peoples of the world must recognize their oneness, their interdependence, and this recognition of interdependence requires that every consideration, every question be evaluated in the light of justice. How will this influence my brother or sister who is Asian, my brother or sister who is African, my brother or sister who is Mexican? When the businessman who has vast resources begins to ask himself, "What is the impact of this decision on my brother and sister in Mexico or my brother and sister in Brooklyn, or my brother and sister in France?" and he sees the "other" person as his bother or sister in Mexico, in Brooklyn and in France, the very nature of the corporation is transformed by this higher order of thinking. I think in my mind this is the next phase in the growth of human civilization.

KRM: Professor Penn, I would like to thank you for the time that you have given graciously to speak with me and I want to ask you to come back again at another time.