Nationalism and/or Developing Understanding of Society?

Abstract

The research on the development of national/political orientations follows, since its very beginning, two mutually exclusive directions: One is operating with dichotomies-between normal 'national consciousness' and deviant 'nationalism'. The second is interested in how children develop their understanding of society. We will follow Piaget on the laborious process on developing 'a faculty' for cognitive and affective 'awareness of their own homeland and that of others', with 'reciprocity' as its crowning finale. This level of understanding will be complemented with differentiations by Meacham and Riegel (Dialektische Perspektiven in Piagets Theorie. In: Die Psychologie des 20. Jhd., Bd. VIII ("Piaget und die Folgen"). Kindler, Zurich, pp 172-183, 1978), proposing to enhance decentration with complementary processes of recentration.German Critical Psychology proposes not to limit our understanding of human action in its functioning within interactive-cooperative relationships and conjunctures. The individual faculty to intertwine perspectives ('reciprocity') is only a necessary condition in ontogenesis, though not a sufficient 'level' of (psychical) development in order to access one's own complexly mediated relation to the world. If we don't want to ignore the intermediation with societal interest constellations and contradictions, we have to go beyond 'reciprocity' and-using abstract tools like concepts-to take in account the 'societal mediatedness of individual existence' (Holzkamp K, Grundlegung der Psychologie. Campus, Frankfurt/M., 1983) in its psychic aspects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)