When most people my age (over 75) went to school, college, or more, we didn’t take psychology. We basically were taught the three Rs: Redin, Rightin, and Rithmatic. Mrs. McCord tried to get us more “cultured” by teaching poetry and English literature. She also gave us the three basics of giving a good speech: stand up straight, speak up so people can hear you, and “shut up” after the facts and don’t bore people. There were only three sciences 70 years ago in high school: biology, chemistry, and physics. To me, back 65 years ago, biology was good for a farm kid from a dairy farm. Chemistry, I thought I’d never use, until 20 years later when I had to balance cattle rations using atomic weights of different ingredients in the various rations. Back then, I thought that physics was mostly common sense, so I took high school agriculture instead of most sciences.
It was not until I began farming in the late ‘60s that I realised that psychology was very important to everyone. While I was the president of Quebec Farmers Association, I was asked to speak to a class of agriculture students at MacDonald College about anything that pertained to farming. The class was quite surprised when I told them the subject would be psychology. Especially when I told them that I had never taken psychology anywhere.
I started by saying that anyone who had ever moved hogs would quickly learn that you had to think deeper and a lot farther ahead than a hog if you planned to move them somewhere they didn’t want to go. Then, on a farm you must deal with your parents, your wife, your employees, everyone you deal with, your banker, the agronomist, all the inspectors that visit the farm, all your neighbors, all the people that keep your farm going, Hydro-Québec, electricians, carpenters, mechanics, soil labs, animal feed labs, the police, the council, MPs, MNAs, financial advisers, etc., etc. It all starts by meeting them with a smile on your face! It’s easier to communicate with a person who has a smile on their face.
The students were quite surprised that they didn’t get any classes about psychology. Recently, (Sept. 2025) we have noticed more psychology being used politically to sway people’s opinion on some very serious subjects. Unfortunately, the negative side of psychology has been used to turn people (even young people) against one party or another by highlighting decisions that the other party made that didn’t turn out for the immediate good of the people. My dad often said, “people that do nothing do nothing wrong!” If I never made a mistake, I would be a rich man. We have a tendency to forget what we do the right way because that’s the way it should be done in everyone’s mind. But we remember the mistakes that we made, especially the very expensive ones.
Most people, and political parties and their leaders make some bad decisions and it’s usually at the advice of their staff. Many years ago, an ancestral cousin of mine changed his political affiliation to help his friend Abe Lincoln get elected and lead the republican party to victory because they didn’t believe anyone should own another person. Later, another member of that same party assassinated Abe Lincoln because many of his friends had become very rich dealing and using slaves. There have been many assassinations and attempted assassinations on politicians because someone was radicalized by the use of negative psychology taken to the extreme. What may be natural to one, may be very extreme to another.
We have recently heard some politicians and doctors advise people to turn off their social media and give their mind a rest to recover from the bombardment of negative psychology being used. The first decision that everyone makes when they awake in the morning is to be positive and meet the world with a smile, or to be negative and grouchy all day. I find that my day goes a lot better if I decide to be positive and meet the world with a smile. A friend of mine once said, “You get to be like the people you hang around with!” Choose happy, positive friends.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
