HYPOTHESIS
Another difference I have with Reeducation, as well as with popular psychology generally and also much standard advice on how to “strategize” and hedge your bets so as to “succeed,” is that all of these modes of thought involve so much convolution. Simplicity and directness are not allowed, because it is assumed people are not self-aware, or not competent to handle themselves in life. I think this is misguided.
Here is a story about some extreme convolution of my own, my complicity in the creation of its twisting labyrinth, and its roots in standard advice on, at one level, achieving success generally, and at another, writing as a (naturally, constitutionally impaired) woman.
EXAMPLE
Consider that infamous and long defunct book contract of mine, in the field Reeducation so disapproved of my having. Many factors contributed to my dropping that project, and Reeducation greatly confused me about my interest in its field. However I only became vulnerable to the faux reason and faux feeling of Reeducation because I listened to what my various advisors and well wishers had to say about my original doubts.
These were not about the project itself, but about the terms of the contract. My questions were reasonable but my interlocutors and supervisors did not believe that possible. They offered convoluted theories instead. Foolishly, I listened.
Before signing the contract, I wanted to start a conversation like this with my editor:
I am flattered that you like my manuscript, but I am not sure I agree with the revisions to it you feel would make it marketable to a broader audience. Most specifically, it is my considered opinion that these revisions, given the rest of what I have scheduled for the next six months, cannot be completed in that time. I would like to discuss the possibility of a longer time to work on this project.
I would also like to know how closely you really need me to follow these instructions for revision. If the material requires me to modify the new arguments or the approach, will I then have failed to fulfill expectations? How truly necessary is it to write to the new title, which has been suggested for purposes of marketing but with which, as you know, I am uncomfortable given the actual content of the manuscript?
Indeed, it may be a good idea to go back to my original proposal, for a different book, which you also liked. I am years away from tenure so there is time to finish that manuscript and then come back to the other one. This book is also more marketable than the other, and easier to write. Unorthodox though it may sound, I would be far more comfortable taking this project first. Is this still a possibility with you? If not, could we have a real, nitty-gritty conversation about the other project?
I still think this would have been realistic, simple, practical, and businesslike. These kinds of conversations tend to be enlightening and useful. I am sure both my editor and the press would have appreciated the discussion. But my various “strategizing” advisors, supervisors, and well-wishers said:
You are conspiring to procrastinate. We want you to stop right now and sign that contract. Not to agree with the suggestions for revision is arrogant. People more experienced than you made these suggestions. The idea of needing more than six months to do these particular revisions is either laziness or fear of success. See a time management specialist. And no, you certainly do not have time to complete any other project. This is your chance, and you may never have a chance like this again. Accept this gift from the universe.
I signed the contract but in fact I never had any intention of touching the manuscript as long as I was to make the revisions as requested and write to the suggested title. I knew this perfectly well. I knew it would cause a great deal of trouble and stress. I signed the contract anyway so as not to hear anyone tell me I had lost my mind. Anything was preferable to that.
DISCUSSION
This shows, of course, that I was not at that time an independent enough person. Of course, it also shows that my advisors and supervisors were even less so. After all, it was not as though I did not see what should be done. I was overpowered by advice from authorities less well informed than I.
One can say I was merely listening to the wrong people. That is of course true, but my point for purposes of this piece is how common their attitude was. That is why I think it bears discussion. Were they interpreting practicality as hysteria? Did they not believe [I, or people like me] had the skills or judgment to be doing what [we] were obviously doing with some success? Did they believe that [I, or people like me] even had a good manuscript or the ability to produce one? All [we] had, they intimated, was a lucky break, and [we] had better not wreck it.
But what most intimidated me was the convolution of their reasoning: a scheduling problem could not just be a scheduling problem, it had to be something like “fear of success.” The adult way of handling things, it seemed, was prohibited – called unrealistic and neurotic – and was to be replaced with an imperative to mental contortion. This made me more open to the poor logic of Reeducation’s opposition to my entire research field than I might have been. There was a problem with the manuscript, and Reeducation would at least let me say that, even though it would not let me identify the right one.
ENDPOINT
And the fear of my own work I contracted during Reeducation was neither fear of work itself, nor of the progressive individuation which comes through production, nor of success. It was the fear of listening to destructive voices. Reeducation converted work, formerly a space of creativity, into a space of howling pain. And I subjected myself to this pain because I had not allowed and could not give myself the authority to say simply – except, of course, to myself when I was sure I was alone and could not be heard and berated for it – I disagree with Plan A, and I have a Plan B I am sure will work.
There was a price to pay for this, of course, beyond the obvious, multiple costs of committing to a project one has no intention of completing. The additional price was an increase in the power of Reeducation. It activated voices destructive of self and work inside my own head, and installed yet more. It said I must not “control” or “resist” these “true feelings” but give them free rein.
This, of course, was further convolution, which I drank in, ironically enough, because convolution of my supervisors, advisors, and peers had already interdicted simplicity. I learned from this experiment not to allow overinterpretation. For example, if you are only stuck on a sentence, do not let people apply to you a grand label like “fear of success.” Those roads lead to darkness.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
But actually isn’t it an attempt to correct what they consider to be a temptation towards convolution — or spefically in the Myers-Briggs sense, intuition?
The dumb old ox that plows on and on would surely only wear itself out if it were to plow an uneven row. Therefore the advice is “sign the contract” and no more zigzagging through procrastination.
But that is to assume that you have the plodding mentality which I referred to earlier as the mentality of the clerical type — detail oriented, afraid to fly, “sensory” rather than “intuitive”. And — if internet statistics are to be believed — 80 percent of people are more or less ill-equipped to engage in intuitive type thinking. So, the advice, “plow on straight ahead” would be appropriate for the majority.
I remember when I was trying to do clerical work (and this was before I’d heard of Myers-Briggs), that suddenly I had a flash of insight one day (due to the onslought of heavy criticism concerning my abnormalities in thinking “logically”). It struck me that however hard I tried, I could not think in a straight and mechanical line, since too much intervened between point A and point B. It wasn’t just distraction. It was more than that. My mind was making lateral and associative connections all the time, like a generator machine that I couldn’t ever switch off. The harder I tried to discipline myself to move from A to B in a straight line (I mean, FIRST record the details and THEN follow them up on a number of different levels, without losing the sense of the continuity of the process), the less I seemed able to succeed. So I left that workplace with broken health and the sense there was something rather indefinable wrong with my mind. I also wondered why work made me so tired.
WordPress seems to have eaten my comment – it was longer than this one will be!
Anyway, yes. I hadn’t thought of that … they were *expecting* convolution. My *whole* problem with Reeducation, I suppose, was that it had what you call the ‘clerical’ mindset and it could not imagine anything else.
Very interesting – 80% of people are S, vs. N, in Meyers-Briggs? That explains a lot right there (and yes, I know there are scientific problems with M-B, but still).
P.S. also, part of the reason it was hard to see that they were expecting convolution and trying to cut through it was that they also thought I made decisions on which I had no doubts, too quickly.
“Yes I like this pair of shoes but I cannot afford it so I will not buy it. Let’s go have coffee.” = too unemotional, cold, a sign of ‘denial’
“I already know what kind of car I want and what I can afford, so no, I am not interested in also considering X car, just because it is popular. I am considering A and B cars, period.” = ‘impulsive’ (actually, not at all, well considered and well thought out … just too quick for some people)
Also – on Reeducation (which told me to drop ‘control’ and never do anyone else’s job, even in a self protective move), and clerical workers –
I allowed the secretary to do certain things which were her job and did not complain when she did not keep copies of certain paperwork in our office … this would have meant either asking her to do more work or doing it myself, and it should not be priority for me, and it was not ‘trusting’ enough in ‘the universe’.
So, of course, another office lost the original paperwork and we did not have a copy, it was a big mess. It would be nice if one didn’t have to watch one’s back for these things, but it always seems to me that it’s unrealistic to think that just because one doesn’t watch one’s back they won’t happen.
I think *that* idea involves unrealistic ideas about what one has control of or not. In what universe does my lack of foresight cause others to gain it? Reeducation believed this was how the world worked … but I think it was thinking in a childish way and trying to get others to do so, too … nobody take responsibility, everybody pass the buck.
Not doing anyone else’s job also sounds like my dysfunctional workplace. I remember phoning somone to ask about a problem and immediatly getting the the vulgar and hostile reply: “That area isn’t our responsibility.”
Ultimately, though, the problem in the workplace was poor communication. And ultimately, I — was trying very hard to communicate — was blamed for this (poor communication), because the person who is defined as lowliness is responsible for everything that everyone else refuses to do, on a moral level.
And the childishness of refusing to see the whole of the way this bureaucratic machine operated (or rather refused to operate!!) It was like if they saw the big picture they would see the Medusa and turn into stone.
Perhaps Reeducation was trying to save you from an “s’ type desire to see the big picture which you (if you were an “s”) would have had difficulty processing. ‘Don’t try to be one of those admirable, “Ns” dear. Just because you see others doing it, it doesn’t mean that you can. (Envy was always a problem in this workplace too. One of my colleagues pointed out something I wouldn’t have noticed — that when I took up skydiving, the supervisor kept talking about how her daughter was going bungy jumping. Then when I rebelled against the social norms and began to read Nietzsche books during my spare minutes, a big tome of William James appeared on the supervisor’s desk. It was really astonishing how much I was being observed, and mimicked.)
“It was like if they saw the big picture they would see the Medusa and turn into stone.”
Brilliant. Surely true. And that is so funny about the bungee jumping and the appearance of the William James tome!
I think I freaked Reeducation out by seeing the big picture and that it was as though I had shown them the Medusa. So R. had to turn things around and project all of its problems into me – it is what is known as a negative countertransference.
Remember, Reeducation was abusive – partly it was a values clash, but partly, Reeducation was abusive and one thing I have learned about abusive people since is, they project what they dislike about themselves, and/or what they hated in their first abuser (about whom, of course, they are in denial, otherwise they would not be recreating that world) – anyway, they project all of this into their current victim.
So – the assumption of this middle class perspective, yes, and possibly what you call this “S” perspective, but also, straight-out destructiveness.
yes, the straight out destructiveness is harder to fathom. I had assumed that this was so, regarding reeducation, without having to mention it, but it should be mentioned. Both the workplace I referred to earlier and my father’s personality have been innately destructive. Yet the workplace and the father shared similar characteristics — and they sound remarkably like those that you attribute to reeducation! But the innate destructiveness is still a mystery to me. It confounds me, and makes me feel as if my guards are down when I am using all my energy just to put them up, or like I’m on my back foot, or on my heels instead of my toes — (or other boxing metaphors).
Anyway, this friend I met online, who has Germanic connections, recently sent me this book: *Male Fantasies* by Klaus Theweleit.
It has a foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich, in which she says that “the fascist” (the book is mostly a literary analysis of the writings and behaviour of Freikorps members) does what he wants to do (inflicts violence, especially on women) and not “something else” (perhaps, having sex and living a harmonious life). The writer’s particular cleverness is to blur the boundaries between the bourgeoisie and other proponents of the social order (including the moralised pseudo-revolutionary classes that are really just another form of reactionary consciousness) and the fascist’s mentality. One could conclude that fascism is just a more extreme version of social conservatism, but especially sexual conservativism and repression.
Anyway, I revisted this piece that I wrote long ago. I added a different italicised blurb. This piece has to do with my trying to understand my origins, my own mindset and how that might have implicated me in becoming a victim of the (ostensibly, but not deeply) left wing organisation I worked for, which was so abusive. So, I disguised everything — the location, the gender of the protagonist (whom, you know, I made particularly sexually decadent, on one hand, for my own amusement, and repressed on the other hand.) The reason for this is that I wanted to represent someone who was oil and water in terms of the cultural aspects that had conditioned him.
Anyway, it is all highly allegorical. But I sensed, back then, that what my father craved and what his deepest emotions demanded was a victim, in relation to whom he could feel dominant; as well as feeling that he could release the psychological and sexual tension that was building inside him, in relation to that victim. At the time, I sensed that he would have been quite happy to make ME his victim — as indeed, any victim would do in order to release his terrible tension. In fact, I had already become a victim of the workplace organisation, and I was determined not to be one again — so the naivety of “Tom” in my story did not accord with my own naivety. The parallel with “Tom” is that my father had, indeed, set me up for a fall in this workplace by victimising me in such a way that I had learned to doubt myself and look outside of myself for verification of my abilities.
Before I forget: Unbound Press might be a good paper home for the “Tom” story: http://www.unboundpress.com/ … The editor is “Charlie” who sometimes comments here. I had seen the story on your site but need to read it with more care, especially now that I have this context.
Theleweit, OH YES, I read that book long ago when I was a less experienced person than I am now and it is *exactly* right to revisit for insight into these topics.
Wanting, primarily, a victim: yes – those types want that, nothing else does for them what the opportunity to exercise sadism does, although they often like other things as well. And yes – abusive family situations set one up for abusive workplace situations. And reeducation, of course, is supposed to recreate the family situation, but in such a way as to bleed it out and make room for something new. In my case, of course, it just drove it in, in a worse and more Gothic, convoluted way.
On the destructiveness – yes, one more way in which I am, I suppose, strange. One of my colleagues, retired now, was very confrontational, even agressive, and he was ex military, he knew how to fight physically as well. Most people could not stand dealing with him; I disagreed with him on most policy issues and was not afraid to argue, and this did not turn us into enemies. Nobody could understand this but I think it is simple – he wasn’t destructive, he was just passionate in his views, and I find passive agression and actual destructiveness *far* more unnerving. I find myself dissociating and unable to get my bearings or respond well – and I only understand what has happened much later.
Thanks for the publishing house address. I doubt they will publish anything so personally esoteric as this, though…………
Yes, as to the people who can manage to actually speak directly and mean what they say and say what they mean — they’re more than tolerable, but a delight. I think my worst enemy would be someone who says what they think I want to hear, and it turns out that what they say doesn’t accord with anything beyond their desire to please me. Those people tend to blind one’s vision as to what is really going on in the world, yet they do it out of “friendship”, they think.
“Those people tend to blind one’s vision as to what is really going on in the world, yet they do it out of ‘friendship’, they think.”
It’s not a whole house, it’s just a little magazine. I think of it precisely because they do go for the esoteric … no guarantees but for that piece it would be one place I’d try. You never know until you ask…
Sure.
And I wasn’t talking about your desire to please me!!! –had someone else in mind.
But thanks.
Aha – middle of that comment is missing – I didn’t mean the 2 parts were supposed to be connected.
The middle part was [supposed to be] just an affirmative on what you’d said – and the comment on the journal was supposed to be an unrelated aside!
Blips in typing…
haha. Good. because I thought you thought I was implying something that I wasn’t.
I am sorry but that is the best quote lately, “You are conspiring to procrastinate,” no matter what else you do have to love that you can use that phrase in real cases of procrastination.