...It may be appropriate for the landscape of psychological postmodernism to be confused, noisy, and full of unpredictable movements and repositionings (at least, one might say, it demonstrates our mature distance from the bored stability of modernism, with its order and its calmly rational facade); but this is not of much help to the student or to the psychologist keen to learn about the relevance of these issues. Confusion and fragmentation might even at times seem to constitute a deliberate smoke screen, protecting those whose thinking is characterized more by vigor than by rigor. So what sense can and should one make of the contemporary scene and the place of postmodernism in it? Does postmodernism make a difference? These are some of the questions that, in different but often complementary ways, the authors attempt to answer in the chapters that follow...
The issue that drew the contributors to this volume and so many others to the 1997 conference "Unscientific Psychology: Conversations with Other Voices" continues to be in the forefront:
"If social policy is to undergo a humanistic and democratic transformation, it is more important than ever that we examine the subjective constraints limiting our collective ability not only to make these changes, but to move forward as a world...We want to address whether and how the new psychologies--which some call postmodern or post scientific--can impact on the pressing social problems of the day. (Holzman, Invitation to "Unscientific Psychology" conference/retreat)."
