Culture-Centric vs. Person-Centered Cultural Psychology and Political Philosophy

My work in cultural psychology – i.e., sociocultural theory – has two branches. One is the study of psychological phenomena as cultural phenomena. The other is the study of the discipline of cultural psychology as a cultural phenomenon. By this I mean the concepts and methods and interventions that the discipline employs, and the cultural factors that shape them. The discipline of cultural psychology is as culturally shaped as the psychology of the people it studies. It can be as culturally mystified as the psychology of the people it studies. It is important to reflect on the cultural elements of the discipline in order to understand its approaches and conclusions. Since the cultural elements of the discipline determine its concepts, methods, and interventions, it follows that cultural elements determine its objectivity, validity, its insights and its mystifications, and the kinds of psychological and social changes it promulgates. I have found that one of the most powerful cultural determinants of the discipline is the political philosophy that cultural psychologists adopt. Political philosophy is usually implicit in their thinking – as a social unconscious – however, it can be detected from a sophisticated political understanding of culture and behavior. Applying this perspective to SCT, I have found the field divided into two conflicting approaches, a culture-centered, ‘classic’ approach, and an individual-centered, ‘revisionist’ approach. These, in turn, are rooted in competing political philosophies, Marxism and liberal-humanism, respectively. Of course, neither of these is perfectly homogeneous. However, their internal