At 10:52 AM 6/4/98 -0400, Kenneth Mostern wrote:
>Ultimately, these facts [effectiveness of a white male to teach African
American lit] require a psychoanalytic theory to explain them.
That witchcraft? I think the status generalization theory will do nicely, and has the added value of being empirically verifiable. In essence, the theory says that people with dominant social status charecteristics (e.g. white male) are perceived as more knowledgeable and competent, or in the theory's lingo, their status is 'generalized' on the perception of their competencies.
It is easy to see that process at work with your white students -- they simply see you as more competent than a black teacher. For Black students, being white may not be a dominat status characteristics, especially when it comes to the subject of African American Lit -- they may even see your whiteness as disadvantage.
[Kenneth Mostern] What you say here is accurate, but inadequate, because it assumes a basically rationalist model of identification. That white students assume my competence, and black students do not, is correct; what psychoanalysis in particular attempts to do is explain the irrational grounding of that assumption, which, after all, should not be glorified as a "judgment". Without going into details (which I myself have only a preliminary understanding of) the judgment by particular individuals of whether I can speak is always initially made at the level of identification -- this person is "like" me, if I had done/read/thought what he has done/read/thought I'd understand what he understands, therefore I will try to believe him. Such doxic notions of self arise in early childhood socialize and are not the result of rational thinking as an adult (which does not mean that rational processes are not one element in any potential psychic change--seriously, one among several elements).
The existence of a sexual dynamic in my classroom (and my family) is "empirically" verifiable to exactly the same extent that the labor theory of value is empirically verifiable in our economy. As with all theoretical concepts, Freudian concepts (and I am no orthodox Freudian) are useful to the extent that otherwise anomalous facts become explicable through their use, not to the extent that you can "see" them.
Kenneth Mostern Department of English University of Tennessee
"Talent is perhaps nothing other than successfully sublimated rage."
Theodor Adorno
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