Political correctness and the destruction of social order

Political Correctness and the Destruction of Social Order Chronicling the Rise of the Pristine Self Howard S Schwartz Political Correctness and the Destruction of Social Order Howard S. Schwartz Political Correctness and the Destruction of Social Order Chronicling the Rise of the Pristine Self Howard S. Schwartz Oakland University Jackson Heights, New York, USA ISBN 978-3-319-39804-4 ISBN 978-3-319-39805-1 DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39805-1 (eBook) Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947970 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made Cover illustration: © Marvin Dembinsky Photo Associates / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland For Larry Hirschhorn: teacher, student, friend TRIGGER WARNING Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate! —Dante Alighieri vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A number of people have read parts of this manuscript and have given me the benefit of their wise counsel Among them are Larry Hirschhorn, James Knoll, Jim Krantz, Thomas Hoffman, Brigid Nossal, Halina Brunning, Simon Western, David Armstrong, Philip Boxer, Stanley Gold, and, as always, Ann Winston I’d like to thank them all and also the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations, of which most are members, for providing me intellectual companionship and a venue for presenting my work I would also like to thank my colleagues at the School of Business Administration (SBA) at Oakland University (OU), from which I recently retired The work that I can easily lead a scholar to find himself in extreme tension with his academic milieu That never happened to me at Oakland I believe that my colleagues were, for the most part, about as liberal as in almost any American university, but they never thought to interfere with the work I was doing I think there were a number of reasons for that, but one of them was, ironically, our diversity That diversity was really quite a wonder My colleagues came from almost everywhere Offhand, I can think of India, China, Nigeria, Iran, Korea, Australia, Israel, Eastern Europe, and Jamaica; and there were several African-Americans, not to mention some of us native white Americans, like me But that just happened We were never fashionable in our hiring practices We just, as my colleague John Henke once put it, hired the best people we could and diversity took care of itself But with that many cultures, and readers should keep this in mind when they read Chap 3, ix CONCLUSION: CHRISTAKIS AT THERMOPYLAE 185 be? If you suppose that racism is an ideology that might have been transmitted to them from an older generation, you will not be able to find a ground for it These students did not grow up in an atmosphere of racism, but of political correctness Few, if any, of them has ever encountered an expression of racism from anyone who meant it Their experience with the kinds of symbols thought to convey racism has strictly been as items to be wary of that they found out about in learning to the PC dance These are upper-class students who are at this Ivy League university because of its function as a way station on the mobility track What benefit could they possibly gain from adopting a racist perspective? Is their status so precarious that they need someone to look down upon? These are serious matters We have to be serious about them If they felt the need to look down upon someone, they could pick the students at Cornell, or one of the other lower ranked schools of the Ivy League The racism that students A, B, and C feel themselves subjected to at Yale is entirely in their minds, and by this point we know it well We see what it comes down to most clearly in the case of Student A, Michaela, who, charges Christakis with racism on the basis of the fact that he did not remember her name She is one, but for Christakis, she is 1 in 500 The intolerability of his dealing with her in accordance with that is what she calls racism But what does this have to with Halloween? Nothing, except that once the IAC recognized that seeing Halloween as a menace would provide a good venue to assert dominance, it was the responsibility of the whole Yale community to provide their assent When Erika Christakis did not, as we know, hell broke loose; not because of what she said, but because she of what she did not say, which was, simply “Okay.” The issue here is who is going to be boss At the most general level, it is which way of organizing society will prevail On one side, we have the paternal function and objective self-consciousness Its champion here was Nicholas Christakis, who spoke of the acceptance of universally binding rules of behavior Others have rights, he said, not just you A person has a wide range of obligations, which he must uphold, but of which we all should be cognizant In order to maintain and develop social order we need to communicate with each other, which means we must have civility and grant others the right to disagree with us His job is to work within and through these rules and create an intellectual space On the other side, we have student C, who says that his job is to ensure that she can be her pristine self He must understand how she sees herself 186 H.S SCHWARTZ and on what terms she appreciates herself, as an absolute, and validate that She claims this right to his services on the basis of her membership in an oppressed and marginalized race His job is to ensure that any threats to her preferred way of seeing herself are condemned and eliminated That is what she calls making a home for her If he does not that, that means he is a racist But in addition to the general issue there is the specific issue of the governance of Yale University On one hand, we have the academic side, manifesting the central university function, as it has been defined since Plato’s Academy On the other, we have the IAC, a group that would traditionally have been thought of as being within the distinctly secondary function of student services, but which has, it appears, adopted the ambition of redefining the university though control of the ways in which students interact with and talk to one another Their Mission Statement defines their role in the terms of identity politics: The Intercultural Affairs Council of Yale College strives to support an inclusive and diverse campus environment that: engages in community dialogue; promotes cultural awareness, respect and appreciation; and challenges bias on the basis of race and ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, social class, or other distinction (Intercultural Affairs Committee 2016) When Student C says that Christakis function is to provide her with a home, it is their orientation to the university that she demands he accept But this home that she has in mind is a fantasy It exists only in the mind and cannot be any place else To turn the university into a home for her would make it unrecognizable in the terms with which we have thought of universities, redefining them in the way Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 redefined fire departments They would eschew objectivity and become zones of imaginary combat between fantasies of goodness and fantasies of evil At the most general level, the truth is that her way, given its profoundly narcissistic assumptions, makes social order impossible We need not go farther than Hobbes to recognize this Even if we forget about the dimension of fantasy, treating everyone’s subjectivity as an absolute, even if we only limit ourselves to the oppressed and marginalized, and of course anyone can find a way in which they have been oppressed and marginalized, CONCLUSION: CHRISTAKIS AT THERMOPYLAE 187 can only lead to the State of Nature and the war of each against each and all against all And indeed that can hardly be the end of it, either, since in these circumstances some, ultimately one, will rise to dominance Her way leads inevitably and ineluctably to tyranny So where are we then? I say we are at Thermopylae But Christakis, with all his virtues, is a doubtful Leonidas “I have disappointed you and I’m really sorry,” Nicholas Christakis told about 100 students gathered in his living room on Sunday for a meeting also attended by Jonathan Holloway, the dean of Yale College, and other university administrators Christakis said his encounter on Thursday with students in the college’s courtyard, in which numerous black women upbraided him for being inattentive to them, broke his heart, according to a voice recording of the conversation provided to The Washington Post “I mean it just broke my heart,” Christakis said “I thought that I had some credibility with you, you know? I care so much about the same issues you care about I’ve spent my life taking care of these issues of injustice, of poverty, of racism I have the same beliefs that you … I’m genuinely sorry, and to have disappointed you I’ve disappointed myself.” (StanleyBecker 2015b) And his faculty colleagues at Yale are no Spartans An open letter supporting the Christakises was written by Douglas Stone, a professor of physics, calling for signatures among the active and emeritus faculty Ultimately, about 90 signed it, out of over 4000 On November, in a closed-door meeting with minority students, Peter Salovey, President of Yale, apologized for the school’s failure to make them feel safe “We failed you,” he said (Stanley-Becker 2015a) On December, it was reported that Erika Christakis had decided not to teach at Yale University anymore (Jackson 2015) REFERENCES Christakis, Erika 2015 Email from Erika Christakis: “Dressing Yourselves,” Email to Silliman College (Yale) Students on Halloween Costumes https://www thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-email-to-sillimancollege-yale-students-on-halloween-costumes/ Concerned Yale Students, Alumni, Family, Faculty, and Staff 2015 Open Letter to Associate Master Christakis http://downatyale.com/post.php?id=430 188 H.S SCHWARTZ Foundation for Individual Rights in Education 2015 https://www.thefire.org/ cases/protesters-at-yale-threaten-free-speech-demand-apologies-andresignations-from-faculty-members-over-halloween-email/ Friedersdorf, Conor 2015 The New Intolerance of Student Activism The Atlantic, November Intercultural Affairs Committee 2015 Email from the Intercultural Affairs Committee October 27 https://www.thefire.org/email-from-interculturalaffairs/ ——— 2016 Mission Statement http://yalecollege.yale.edu/interculturalaffairs-council-iac#mission Accessed 15 Jan 2016 Jackson, Abby 2015 Yale Lecturer Whose Email Ignited a Debate About Racism Has Decided Not to Teach There in the Future Business Insider, December http://www.businessinsider.com/yale-professor-erika-christakis-willnot-teach-next-year-due-to-racial-controversy-2015-12 Stanley-Becker, Isaac 2015a Yale’s President Tells Minority Students: ‘We failed you’ Washington Post, November ——— 2015b Hundreds March at Yale in Solidarity with Minority Students Washington Post, November http://www.businessinsider.com/yaleprofessor-erika-christakis-will-not-teach-next-year-due-to-racial-controversy-2015-12 INDEX A abandonment, 111, 133 Acourt gang, 120 activists, sex ratio of, 74 Adbusters, 149 Adulthood in anti-Oedipal psychology, 8, 10 diminution of, in Oedipal psychology, outgrowing bullying in, 19 aggression, 48, 81, 82, 105, 112, 114, 116, 119, 141, 142 See also microaggression alienation, 162, 163, 167 Al-Shahi, Ahmed, 126 ambient rage, level of, anger, 3, 66 anti-bullying movement and anti-Oedipal psychology, 8–11, 19–20 as avatar of political correctness, and emergence of civilization from primal horde, 13–14 emotional center of, and Oedipal psychology, 8–11 in organizations, 25–6 pattern of social interaction demanded by, 11–13 and perpetuation of childhood, and Phoebe Prince suicide, 20, 24 and political correctness, and primal father, 13–17 and pristine self, 7–11 and social order, 17–19 social power of, surveys of, anti-Oedipal psychology See also specific topics and British riots, 115–19 consequences of, 105 and destruction of paternal function, 19–20, 37–8 and microaggression, 81 and Occupy Wall Street, 159–60 premise of, 70 route to ego ideal in, 72 self in (see also pristine self) and social justice, 67–70 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 H.S Schwartz, Political Correctness and the Destruction of Social Order, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39805-1 189 190 INDEX anti-Oedipal psychology (cont.) and sub-prime loan crisis, 89–107 theory of, 34 Anti-Racist Alliance, 111, 135 Applebaum, Anne, 173n The Atlantic, 2, 178 Augustine, St., 173 authentic life, 155 authentic self, 160, 172 authority and renunciation of instincts, 112 as right to define reality, 75 and Yale email controversy avatar of political correctness, antibullying movement as, B Bautista, Megan, 65 Bazelon, Emily, 21–3, 25, 26 Becker, Ernest, 171 becoming, 8, 18, 19, 39, 158–60, 163, 172 Berkrot, Rachel, 75, 76 Berlin, Isaiah, Bolt, Robert, 49 Boston Federal Reserve Bank study, 89–107 Boston Globe, 20, 90 boundaries father’s creation of, 114 and pristine self, 7–11 (see also pristine self) Bowdoin College, 79 Brimelow, Peter, 91, 92 British riots (2011) and absence of forces of social order, 98–99 and anti-Oedipal psychology, 113–19 and case of Stephen Lawrence, 120–5 and Oedipal psychology, 113–15 and psychodynamics of riots, 112–13 role of political correctness in, 110–13, 119–20 Brooks, Duwayne, 120, 126, 127 BuzzFeed, 47 C Cahillane, Michael, 23 Capitalism See also Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest as the anti-Oedipal father, 163 defined by class analysis, 147 as a first approximation, 150–1 as metaphor of oppression, 155 as structure of exchange relationships, 166 Carmichael, Stokely, 122 Carter, Helen, 117 Cathcart, Brian, 131, 132 cave, Plato’s allegory of, 156–7 censorship, political correctness as, Chasseguet-Smirgel, J., 17 chemical energy, childhood mother’s love in, 10, 35, 159 paternal function in, 35, 36, 39 perpetuation of, children, treating people as, Christakis, Erika, 176, 178, 180, 184, 185, 187 Christakis, Nicholas, 177–87 civilization common frame of reference for, 52 emergence of, 13–14 Civilization and its Discontents (Freud), 112, 165 class analysis, 146–8 Clementi, Tyler, “Closing the GAP” (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston), 97–8 INDEX Communique # (Occupy Wall Street), 151–3, 163 communist system, 173n.1 Concerned Yale Students, Alumni, Family, Faculty, and Staff, 177 conflict theory, 29, 30 contact theory, 29 courage, 79 creative destruction, 91 creativity, 91, 120 credit worthiness See also sub-prime loan crisis (2008) discrimination in assessing, 97 exceptions to rules of, 102 function of rules of, 104 in Oedipal and anti-Oedipal worldviews, 97 crime racial differences in, 40–41, 50 and “stop and search” tactic, 98 criticism, 66, 73, 101, 110, 149, 177 Cullen, Kevin, 20, 21 cultural appropriation, 2, 175 cultural elite, views of, 109 cultural racism, 82 D The Daily Caller, 62 Davidson, DS, 130, 131 Day, Theodore E., 90 Debt, 103, 165–8 The Debt Resistors Operations Manual (DROM), 166, 167 debt strike, 167 demands, in Occupy Wall Street, 145, 146 Dennis, Norman, 126, 133 depressive position, 69, 134 destruction, creative, 110 discrimination See also racism in mortgage lending, 90, 99 types of, 99 191 diversity correlates of, 31 defined, 32 political correlate of, 34 and social capital, 29, 32, 35, 36, 52, 54, 55 and social isolation, 32 drama of political correctness, 74, 176 Dunham, Lena, 62 E Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People, 81 ego, 14, 35, 39–41, 72, 94, 100, 115, 125, 158, 159, 164, 168, 171 ego ideal in anti-Oedipal worldview, 115 defined, 94 hope in, 158 route to, 39, 72, 100, 159 symbols of, 115 trying to become the, 157 world without rules and controls as, 164 emotional power, of political correctness, emotional reality, 154 energy, 3, 20, 32, 75, 116, 153–5 England double jeopardy in, 121 riots in (See British riots (2011)) Stephen Lawrence case in, 120–5 entitlement, 39, 115, 118, 126 equality, in primitive organizations, 27n.5 Erdos, George, 126 Estes, Eric, 62 ethnic groups See diversity “A Eulogy for #Occupy” (Norton), 169 exchange relationships, 93, 164–7 192 INDEX F faith, 32, 33, 74, 78, 83, 107, 173 father See also paternal function and alienation, 162 in anti-Oedipal psychology, 10 (see also anti-Oedipal psychology) as bad object, 72 good and bad, 69 hatred of, 71, 72, 78, 184 nature of works of, 114 in Oedipal psychology, 10, 11, 19 as personification of reality, 114 primal, 13, 14, 18, 55, 56 and pristine self, 7, 10, 12 female power, 74 females and women See also mother as activists, 74 identification of the mother and, 63 and maternal imago, 9, 17 passive and dependent, 17 as whole objects, 69 financial risk, 89 Financial Times, 33 Finkelhor, David, Folks from Strike Debt, 167 Foundation for Individual rights in Education (FIRE), 178 Freud, Sigmund, 8, 13–17, 27, 40, 41, 68, 94, 112, 114, 165 Friedersdorf, Conor, 178 G General Assembly (GA; Occupy Wall Street), 150 Gibbon, Edward, 56 God, 57, 173 Goffman, Erving, 71 Goldsmith, William, 33 the good breast, 69 Gouldner, Alvin W, 93, 164, 165 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (Freud), 14 H Halloween, 2, 3, 175–8, 184, 185 Hamilton, Charles V., 122 Hardt, Michael, 151 Harvard Crimson, 33 hatred, 9, 10, 63, 71–3, 78, 110, 132, 184 Hegel, G.W.F., 13, 147 heroism, 73 heterosexual development, 41 Hobbes, Thomas, 12–14, 17, 107, 186 Hoequist, Ida, 78, 81 Hogan, AD, 64, 65 Holden, Linda, 128, 129 homosexual libido, 41 hope, 106, 151, 158, 171, 180 hopelessness, 168 I the I, 96 idealization of the father, 114 of the oppressed, 101–4 identity objective self-consciousness, 16 political, 73 reclaiming, 155 identity politics, 45, 186 illusions, 85, 151, 153–9, 163 imaginary, 37, 186 impersonality, 18, 51, 53 indebtedness, 165, 166 indifference, 10, 18, 41, 71, 106, 115, 125–7, 134 Indignados, 169 inference, 123, 179 in-groups, trust and solidarity of, 30 injustice social, 68 wealth as symbol of, 116 INDEX instincts renunciation of, 15, 112, 114 suppression of, 116 institutional racism, 76, 82, 122, 124, 126, 141 Intercultural Affairs Committee; Yale (IAC), 175–7, 185, 186 irrationality in political correctness, rational understanding of, issues, as pretext, 74, 176 J Jackson, Abby, 60, 187 Jacobson, William A., 61, 62, 64, 84 Jenner, Bruce/Catelyn, 37, 38 justice opposition between mercy and, 75 social (see social justice) justification, 18, 96, 101, 117 K Keniston, Kenneth, 162, 163 Khan, Imran, 128 Klein, Melanie, 69, 134 knowledge, objective, 36 Krislov, Marvin, 62–4, 66, 75–8, 85 Ku Klux Klan, 61, 62, 78 L Lacan Jacques, 9, 16, 35, 36–8, 150, 158, 160 language, 16, 32, 35–8, 68, 77, 80, 82, 132, 170 Lawrence case, 134 Lawrence, Doreen, 142n.1 Lawrence, Stephen, 120–5, 130–2, 136, 141 learning, self, 16 Legal Insurrection, 62 193 Leibowitz, Stan J., 90, 98, 104 lending, 90, 97–9, 101–6, 110, 168 See also sub-prime loan crisis (2008) Leviathan (Hobbes), 12 Lewis, Paul, 115 libido, 41 lies, vital, 171 Lindsey, Lawrence B., 98 Little, Officer, 127 Lloyd, John, 33 loan crisis See sub-prime loan crisis (2008) love See also anti-Oedipal psychology deprivation of, 67 earning, 158 entitlement to, 126 lack of, as racism, 125 and maternal imago, and need for boundaries, in Oedipal psychology, 8–11 as organizing principle of the world, 114 and political correctness, 7, 38 and pristine self, 3, social standing as, 115 theft of, 113 M Macpherson Commission, 124–6, 133–5, 141, 179 Macpherson, Sir William, 121–8, 130, 132–5, 140, 141, 179 madness, 2, 3, 38 males and men See also father love equals death for, 17 and maternal imago, 17 submissiveness of, 74 as whole objects, 69 work of, 62 A Man for All Seasons (Bolt), 49 “ManhattanWilliam,” 194 INDEX marginalization, 67 Mariner, Maya, 79, 84 Marxism, 149 Marx, Karl, 148, 149 maternal imago, 9, 17, 18 matriarchy, 25n.5 The Matrix (film), 153–4 McEaeaney James, 116 Mead, George Herbert, 96 meaning in Oedipal framework, 93 from pursuing ego ideal, 94 and rejection of the father, 95 and views of society, 171 men See males and men mercy, opposition between justice and, 75 microaggression in common usage, 47–55 considerations concerning, 42–7 and pristine self, 39–41 and racism, 42 universal, 82 Microaggression in Everyday Life (Sue), 42 Microaggressions (web site), 42 moral factors in reality, 67 in sub-prime loan crisis, 76, 82 moralism, 106 morality, in authentic life, 155 More, Sir Thomas, 56 mortgage lending See sub-pime loan crisis (2008) Moses and Monotheism (Freud), 15 mother and alienation, 162 in anti-Oedipal psychology, 8–11 generation of maternal power, 134 as the good breast, 69 as good object, 72 imaginary presided over by, 37 invoking love and power of, 74, 178 love of, 51 in Oedipal psychology, 8–11 primordial, 10, 19, 39, 51, 184 Munnell, Alicia H., 90–2 muse, 57n.2 N narcissism as driver of anti-Oedipal worldview, 106 and homosexual libido, 41 impingements on, 52 and microaggression, 54 as negation of commonality, 161 as nihilistic, 106 primary, 8, 11, 12, 17, 19, 35, 36, 39, 94, 106, 161 of pristine self, 25 natural sciences, 83 Negri, Antonio, 151 The New York Times, Nietzsche, Friedrich, 165 nihilism, 164 norm(s) defending, 55 of reciprocity, 29, 164–6 for sexual activity, 24 of social order, 23 Norton, Quinn, 169 the not-I, 96 nuclear energy, O Oberlin College (Ohio), 59–86 Oberlin Microaggressions (blog), 81, 86 objective knowledge, 36 objective self-consciousness as accomplishment of Western civilization, 85 INDEX as core of meaning, 93 and ego ideal, 39, 94 of the father, 67 and impersonality, 18 loss of, 40 and microaggression, 54 as premise of language, 68 and primary narcissism, 39 repudiation/rejection of, 39, 51, 169 and social rules, 95 objectivity in Oedipal psychology in rules of exchange, 105 in sub-prime loan crisis, 93–5 “Occupy First, Demands Come Later” (Zizek), 119, 147 Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest and alienation, 162–4 and anti-Oedipal psychology, 159–61 Communique # of, 151–3 general implications of, 164–6 lack of demands in, 145 and The Matrix, 153–4 and meaning of “capitalism,” 120–121 and Oedipal psychology, 157, 159 and opposition to capitalism, 151 and Plato’s allegory of the cave, 156–7 social control in, 169–70 and Strike Debt, 166–9 and “the Thing” underlying opposition, 151–3 and views of society, 158 Oedipal psychology and British riots of 2011, 113–15 meaning in, 93 and Occupy Wall Street, 157, 159 and paternal function, 35–7 premise of, 70 195 route to ego ideal in, 39 self in, 114 and sub-prime loan crisis, 93, 114 Oedipus, 8, 17, 157, 160 the oppressed black people designated as, 119 idealization of, 101–4 sense of entitlement in, 115 organic act (social organization), 15, 16, 55 organizations anti-bullying movement in, 25 primitive, equality in, 25n.5 organization, theory of, 146 out-groups, trust and solidarity of, 29 overt discrimination, 99 overt racism, 59, 79, 122 OWS See Occupy Wall Street protest P paranoia, 40, 41, 51, 68 paranoid-schizoid position, 69, 135 paternal function anti-bullying as attack upon, 34 and anti-Oedipal psychology, 19–20, 37 as basis of organizations, 15, 18, 25 breakdown of, 55 defined, 35, 56 and impersonality, 18 in Lawrence case, 134 and microaggression, 54, 55 and Oedipal psychology, 35–7 and socialization, 160 and social rules, 160 Peale, Sir Robert (Bobby), 129 Pearce, Chester M., 42 Plato, 156–8, 186 political aspect of, 133 196 INDEX political correctness anti-bullying movement as avatar of, anti-Oedipal psychology underlying, 34 (see also anti-Oedipal psychology) basic dynamic of, 39, 113 as bid for destruction of symbolic, 37 and British riots, 110, 119–20 as a dance, 181 drama of, 74, 176 emotional power of, irrationality in, and pristine self, 7, 39–41 psychoanalytic theory in study of, psychological aspect of, 133 purpose of, 177 in relaxing lending criteria, 101 and riots, 110 rules of, 1–5 political identity, 73 power inversion of, 110 maternal, 134 opposition to, 176 of political correctness, 4, 53 primal father, 13, 14, 18, 55, 56 primal horde emergence of civilization from, 13–14 organizing principle in, 15 primal father of, 14–17 primary narcissism, 8, 11, 12, 17, 19, 35, 36, 39, 94, 106, 161 primordial mother, 10, 19, 39, 51, 184 Prince, Phoebe, 20–6 pristine self anti-Oedipal psychology as root of, 11 assaults/attacks on, 26 and concept of omnipresent bullying, 25 danger in, dangers to society of, defined, and entitlement to love, 39 and existence of others as an attack, 10 as idea of a person, 27n.2 and idea of indifference, 115 and microaggression, 51 normalization of, 11 and norms of social order, 19 and political correctness, 39–41 and racism, 79 and social interaction, 11 and social justice, 68 and social order, 118 and Yale email controversy, 175 projection, 60, 68, 82, 124, 126 proof, 43, 90, 124, 125, 130, 131, 133 property, 71, 111, 116 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 116 psychoanalytic phenomenology, psychoanalytic theory, 3, 4, 33, 94, 125, 150 psychodynamics of riots, 112–13 Psychology Today, 42, 44, 45 psychosis, 37, 38 Putnam, Robert, 29–37, 41, 55 R race, crime and, 47 racial groups See diversity racial microaggression, 42, 48, 52, 53 racial politics, 138 racism See also British riots (2011) cultural, 82 definitions of, 72, 73, 122 discrimination in mortgage lending, 90, 99 INDEX institutional, 76, 82, 122, 124, 126, 141 in Lawrence case, 125–33 and marginalizatio, 58 at Oberlin College, 59–86 overt, 59, 79, 122 and pristine self, 125 and rules of political correctness, 125, 126 and social justice, 68 structural, 72 symbols conveying, 185 white privilege, 67 and Yale email controversy, 185 rage from violated sense of entitlement, 96, 115 in Yale email controversy, 183 reaction formation, 60 reality authority as right to define, 75 clash between definitions of, 66 defined by political stance, 73 denied by political correctness, 73 emotional, 154 father as personification of, 114 father’s representation of, 36 moral factors in, 67 Oberlin’s redefinition of, 75 objective, 68–71, 73 visions of, 155 reciprocity, norm of, 93, 164, 166 Rees, Judith, 118 repression, 112 The Republic (Plato), 126, 156 Richwine, Jason, 33 Riots See also British riots (2011) and political correctness, 110 psychodynamics of, 112–13 Riots Communities and Victims Panel (RCVP), 111, 118 Rivera, David P., 42, 44, 45 197 Robinson, Emily, 66 Ross, Chuck, 62 Rules exceptions to, 75, 102 of exchange, 17, 96, 105, 165, 168 of political correctness, 71–5 social, 95, 159, 161 Rusbridger, Alan, 118 S Salovey, Peter, 187 Scheibel, Elizabeth, 22, 23, 25 school bullying, Schumpeter, Joseph, 110 Schwartz, Howard S., 6, 8, 114 Schweitzer, Peter, 91, 92 secondary gain, 73 self in anti-Oedipal psychology, 113, 114 authentic, 160, 172 and becoming, 172 as locus of reference, 13 in Oedipal psychology, 114 pristine (see pristine self) subjugation of, 96 in terms of political identity, 73 self-control, 163, 169 self-hatred, 71, 110 self-learning, 16 sexual activity, norm for, 24 shame, 71 social capital defined, 29 and diversity, 29 and the symbolic, 36, 37 social control, in Occupy Wall Street, 145, 146 social injustice, 68 social interaction, pristine self and, 11–13 198 INDEX socialization, 35, 158–60, 171 social justice anti-Oedipal psychology and, 67–70 and British riots, 113 college as agency for pursuit of, 76 as moral concept, 97 as Oberlin goal, 77, 79 use of term, 53 social order absence of, in British riots, 119, 123 and alienation, 162 in anti-Oedipal psychology, 34 and father, 17–19 as father’s work, 114, 115 internalization as basis of, 13 and pristine self, 11, 12 social power of anti-bullying movement, inversion of, 110 (see also British riots [2011]) social reality classic psychoanalytic account of, 158 moral factors in, 67 objective view of, 105, 106 social rules, 95, 159, 161 social solidarity, of in-groups and out-groups, 29 social standing, 115, 116, 119 society anti-Oedipal repudiation of, 113, 114 as common framework of rules, 118 fundamental features of, 164 myths and beliefs at root of, 173 Occupy Wall Street and views of, 171–2 responsibility of, 106 theory of, 146, 165 Southern Poverty Law Center, 86 South Hadley High School, 20, 24, 25 Soviet Union, 148 Spencer, Leslie, 91, 92 splitting, 69, 151 Stanley-Becker, Isaac, 187 Stone, Douglas, 187 “stop and search” tactic, 118 Strike Debt, 166, 167 structural racism, 72 Students of the Africana Community, 61, 64 sub-prime loan crisis (2008) and anti-Oedipal psychology Boston Federal Reserve Bank study, 89–107 and idealization of the oppressed, 101–4 and Oedipal psychology, 93, 94 undermining of objectivity in, 98–101 subtle discrimination, 99 Sue, Derald Wing, 42–8, 51, 52, 54, 55 Suicide bullying and, of Phoebe Prince, superego, 112, 114, 119, 163, 165 suppression, 112, 116 symbolism, 16, 73 T Tabler, Sunny, 61 theory of organization, 146 theory of society, 146, 165 “The Untouchable Mean Girls” (Cullen), 20 Tidal, 146, 151, 166 Times, 2, 4, 6, 33, 41, 42 Totem and Taboo (Freud), 14, 15 toxicity, 73, 79, 85, 86 transgendered persons, 37 trust, of in-groups and out-groups, 30 INDEX U unconscious racism, 74 unintentional discrimination, 99, 100 V Vega, Tanzina, 42 victimhood, 45, 72, 74 visions of reality, 155, 161 vital lies, 171 W Wall Street, 90, 145–71 see also Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest Wall Street Journal, 90 wealth, as symbol of ego ideal, 115 Weber, Max, 18 199 Westbrook, Royston, 131, 132 white privilege, 43, 67, 71, 79 white supremacy, 54, 59, 72, 82 whole objects, 69 Winter, Sara, 59, 60, 63, 68 Wired Magazine, 169 women See females and women work(s) of the father, 113, 114 of males, 18 world, structure of, 72 Y Yale University, 175, 178, 186, 187 Z Zižek, Slavoj, 147, 150 .. .Political Correctness and the Destruction of Social Order Howard S. Schwartz Political Correctness and the Destruction of Social Order Chronicling the Rise of the Pristine Self... that the attack upon the father in the name of the omnipotent, primordial mother is the core of political correctness For our present purposes, the crucial matter is the transformation in the. .. understanding as well as the memory of the deed of liberation they had achieved together and the attachment that had grown up among them during the time of their exile led at last to a union among them,