My short answer is that they are Platonic Idealists, who are motivated to believe that people are inherently good and malleable. This is what I write about the concept of Platonic Idealism in my book (references are in my book).
“In philosophy papers, I found an interesting description of two notoriously opposite groups or ‘schools’ that pretty much summarizes the differences between an evidence-based approach and those people who oppose it. One school is the so-called Platonic Idealists (or Utopians) and their opponents are the Artistotelian Realists. Both ‘schools of thought’ go back to two famous Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. In short, some of Plato’s followers believe in an ideal world and an ideal society with ideal (human) beings.In their view, reality is an illusion. Plato (428/427–348/347 BCE) relied more on (abstract) ideas and thoughts (eidos). He believed that the human brain contains unchangeable models[1]representing natural phenomena. Many people consider Plato’s The Republic to be the first Utopian work. One of the basic ideas of this utopian way of thinking is that humans are pure and intrinsically good. Plato believed that every human being has the intrinsic impulse to strive to do good, and to seek out truth and beauty. Nowadays, Platonic Idealism is also called postmodernism (e.g. There are no truths, only interpretations).
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a disciple of Plato. He differed from Plato in that to a large extent he relied on his senses to closely observe plants and animals. He was convinced that material objects exist, whether we can perceive them or not (this is known as Perceptual Realism). That is why he is considered by many to be the first philosopher to study nature in a scientific manner. Indeed, he relied more on empiricism (observations and experiences), although he also liked theorizing, and especially logic. His work deals with mathematics, biology, art, ethics, logic, and politics. Of course, his view was incomplete, and in many respects inaccurate, as he did not have the scientific tools we have today. However, many aspects of his view have been confirmed by many scientific domains. For example, biological and psychological research has demonstrated that our senses, in combination with our brain, offer a quite accurate representation of the natural world. His line of reasoning about the world is labeled ‘realism.’
These two opposing schools of thought have never put an end to their squabble. In the Utopian tradition, there were notorious figures such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778; he idealized indigenous people because he felt they were never ‘corrupted’ by western societies and were in fact innately good), Immanuel Kant (1724–1804; our brain structures reality), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860; our knowledge depends on our representations), Friedrich Nietsche (1844–1900), Margaret Mead (1901–1978; a cultural anthropologist who denied innate human nature, particularly the difference in sexual strategies used by men and women), or Carl Gustav Jung (1875-–1961; he believed that through a paranormal process we can gain access to information about a human archetype that is stored in a parallel universe).
A notorious school of followers of these ideas comprises the New Age Movement, a broad term for people who believe in the mystical transformation of humans and the world into better beings and a better world—the belief that humanity will enter a new age. Two of the most important claims are that nature is fundamentally good[1’]and that a better way of life for humanity is dawning (there will be no competition nor survival of the fittest—only love will flourish, and humans will heal themselves[2]and society). Another claim that New Age believers make is that the universe contains all possible knowledge there is to know—some believe we only need to find a way ‘to plug in’ to this universal knowledge and we will be fully enlightened. Another strong idea of this group is egalitarianism, which has now become very popular through acolytes such as Ken Wilber (‘transpersonal’ psychology and ‘integral theory’) and Frédéric Laloux, who claims that humans can function perfectly without leaders. I will deal with their erroneous ideas in the myth busting section. Adepts of this school also do not accept the scientific method. They firmly believe that some things will never be explained by the scientific method and instead they ‘rely on other ways of knowing,’ whatever that might mean. Many people adhere to this Idealistic in-group, especially those who lack the motivation and/or intellect to consult scientific articles and who are prone to believing in conspiracy theories[3](‘the established scientific community is not to be trusted—after all they oppose true alternative science’).
Especially in Social Psychology, this Platonic or Utopian bias is still alive and kicking: Inbar and Lammers (2012) found that 85% of the respondents from a discussion list of the Society for Personality and Social Psychologydeclared themselves as liberal. Duarte et al. stirred up this discussion in 2015. In the U.S., concerned researchers have founded the Heterodox Academyin an attempt to break down political homogeneity in certain areas of research. In 2017, Frank Schmidt, a psychology professor at the University of Iowa, described how some researchers systematically ignore well-established findings in behavior genetics research. Although “virtually all tendencies, traits, behaviors, and life outcomes have a substantial genetic basis,” (p. 33) he found a failure to acknowledge this genetic contribution (or partial cause) in the following areas of psychological research:
· The day-to-day variability in positive and negative affect (emotions).
· The correlation between environmental variables such as the number of books and magazines in the house and later life outcomes.
· The correlation between growing up as a child in an abusive family and the fact that many of these children later become abusive adults themselves.
· Children who were spanked at age 3 spanked other children at age 5.
· Parents of autistic children talk less to them.
· The correlation between nurturing family environments and emotion regulation styles as adults.
· The correlation between a coercive parenting style and antisocial behavior in children.
· The correlation between neuroticism and job satisfaction.[4]
The obvious elephant in the room, our genetic constitution, is completely ignored by those Platonic Idealists who fail to acknowledge that psychology rests on biology. They are devastatingly responsible for misinforming the public and causing people to believe in false causal mechanisms.
The school of Realists relies on the scientific method, using close observation and other empirical methods. Realists differ in important respects from idealists in that they accept that humans can commit both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ acts and that there are many differences between people. They accept the reality that people vary along a continuum, ranging from people who are very dishonest and even criminal, very cruel to others, very dominant, or very self-serving, to very honest, very altruistic, very egalitarian, and very caring people. They see the world as it is, not as it should be. That of course doesn’t mean they don’t try to change or influence certain aspects. Prominent figures include Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679; everything in the world is physical and thus the supernatural does not exist—he was also convinced that the scientific methods could always be improved, meaning we will ultimately find answers to all the questions we have about the world), Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677; he strived to discover the true reality), Bertrand Russel (1872–1970; his main contributions concerned logic, but he was also known for his ‘teapot’ argument), Karl Raimund Popper (1902–1994; he proposed falsifiability as a new criterion to practice science), and Daniel Dennett (1942–; he writes a lot about the concept of free will and studies evolutionary biology—he writes that morality has its roots in our evolutionary past).
A lot of the myths I debunk in Part III are in the tradition of Platonian Idealism or postmodernism: commercial alpha training (belief in our capacity to plug into universal creativity), organizational constellations (belief in the paranormal), DiSC (belief in psychonsas an elementary unit of the human brain), the enneagram (the belief that we have three brainsand that our earthly existence only serves to feed the moon), Jungian Typology and the related MBTI and Insights Discovery measurements (the belief in the paranormal and knowledge of archetypes stored in a parallel universe), Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs (although he distanced himself from this idea), the Leadership Circle, Management Drives, Spiral Dynamics, and ‘Reinventing Organizations’ (belief in humanity reaching a next level of consciousness).
To reiterate my point: I am under no illusion that I could convince the Platonic Idealists, Utopians, and those believers who are hostile towards a scientific or evidence-based approach to HR. I consider them lost causes and a total waste of my energy. I can do nothing to ‘deradicalize’ them from their utopian beliefs, whether I use the smartest or gentlest approach, or the most brutal one, and everything that falls in between. For that reason, I have stated that I will focus on people who already have a critical thinking mindset and those with a high degree of integrity.
[1]Eidosmeans ‘visible form’; Plato believed that there was another world with real or even ‘perfect’ ‘Forms’ – the nonphysical essences of all things. In the world we can ‘experience’, all objects are merely imitations.
[1’]This is called the moralistic fallacy,or the belief that what is good or moral is a priori also to be found in nature. Everything is explained from this point of view: e.g. lions only kill weak animals and this is good. The Wikipedia entry is a good source for distinguishing between the moralistic fallacy and the naturalistic fallacy (the inverse: all we find in nature must be good, e.g. our instinct to do warfare must be good).
[2]Healing can occur in several manners, such as using ‘alternative medicine,’ altering the state of consciousness, homeopathy, herbal medicine, crystal healing, rebirthing, reincarnation therapy, etc.
[3]It is clear that people sometimes conspire. What I mean here are the far-fetched conspiracy theories, such as the death of Princess Diana, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, United States, the real birth place of former U.S. president Barack Obama, the cover-up of alien contact, or the theory that there is a worldwide conspiracy among the most powerful people to poison us by spreading ‘chemtrails’ (chemical or biological agents) via the lingering contrails produced by all airplanes (these trails are condensation trails).
[4]Yes, job satisfaction is influenced by neuroticism, which is at least 50% genetic.”