I Still Got Them Late Capitalist Nationalism Blues And So Forth

This is post number four. Number three was about the blue, number two was about feorabros, and number one was about Scandinavian heavy metal

I continue to enjoy these books as a dialogue, particularly because each of them individually does not quite hit the mark for me. The big theses of each is strong, and these were excellent choice for the class to read, but I keep raising my eyebrows at some of the underlying perspectives in the books. I think some of my reticence is my background in cultural studies. I am used to framing things in a political-social-justice-type way, and these books are from different places than that. The moralistic slant Hollis takes is convincing, but the observations he makes are often pretty mundane. I am quite familiar with the idea that “evil” is banal and that patriotism has a nasty underside and so on. Got it. I agree. Let’s talk about history now. Similarly, even though the central argument of the Doherty book, that psychotherapy should have a moral perspective, is a lot more challenging, the liberal point of view that Doherty puts forward is not particularly thoughtful.

(Since everyone might not be familiar with “cultural studies,” I want to clarify that that phrase does not mean to study cultures. It means to apply Marxist thinking  and other critical points of view. . . like Foucault, who we read about. . .  to texts.)

The weaknesses that each book has individually are not a big issue for me, however, as the two books complement each other in a lot of interesting ways. My post last week was about the lack of community that many Americans feel and the psychic costs of that isolation. When skimming back through Hollis this week, I ran across a wonderful “on the other hand” moment. One of Hollis’s big themes is the ways that ideology can be insidious and evil, and his seventh chapter, about “the corporate Shadow” is narrowly focused on that issue. After laying out a long list of nasty things Americans have done, Hollis comments:

“Are these examples not a corporate Shadow, the darker hue of a self-congratulatory people who quickly extol their virtues and good intentions? Are we not reminded of Emerson’s observation that what we do speaks much louder than what we say? Is it not true that corporate life, no matter how noble its intention, is forever being brought back to the lowest common denominator?” (pg. 130)

This perspective, that ultimately the United States is a violent “lowest common denominator," brought to mind some of the very public controversies associated with hip hop in the late 80s and early 90s. These controversies happened just as I was just getting old enough to pay attention to pop music in a serious way, and while some of the misogyny, nihilism, homophobia and racism in some of those controversial records has not aged well, the larger point that they made, that the “good America” is a lie, or at least a very selective picture, is one that stuck with me. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PaoLy7PHwk

When we talk to our clients, the kind of blunt confrontation that I like so much in Public Enemy’s music is, of course, inappropriate, of course. (Of course.) But their thesis, that the game is rigged and we should be angry about it, is one that we should take to heart. We often talk about diversity issues as challenges in joining with clients, but we should not lose sight of the ways that the ugly history of (while we are working here) Central Georgia is a part of the challenges our clients face. We cannot downplay the responsibility and agency that we mean to foster, but we also cannot forget that we all, whether we have experienced or perpetrated violence, live with a violent collective history.

In some ways this post is as reprisal of my first post, which was about my comfort with some of the darker kind of artistic expressions that humans have contrived, and my discomfort with patriotism. I will work to avoid rehashing the same ideas over and over (and I hope I have not done that in this post), but that perspective, which is very different from where most people are seeing the world, is a big part of who I am.

My challenge as someone growing into being therapist is to develop that worldview into moral perspective that can serve my clients. I would not recommend blasphemous metal records to my clients, but I will take into the room my respect for questioning everyday assumptions. In some ways, I am simply trying to embrace the kind of stances that postmodern and feminist therapists have advocated, but I am me, and my own experience and coping mechanisms, which include not so conventionally “positive” strategies like dismissive anger and gallows humor, are what I am. How to build a bridge between who I am and what I am learning to be is my challenge.  

P.S. I am very uncomfortable with patriotism, but I love college football. Go figure. Also, go dawgs.