on affect and honorable bigots, with the petulant demand for good measure

Music: The Young Gods: Only Heaven (1995)  

This morning I read an interesting article in the paper about the so-called Bradley/Wilder effect, which refers to harbored racism. Based on two elections in the 1980s, the effect refers to the six or seven point discrepancy between what voters say they're going to do in the polls and the actual election results when a black and white candidate are running. The logic is that folks become racist when they're in the polls, but do not want to admit of their prejudice when approached by pollsters.

Pollster John Zogby says we should dismiss the Bradley/Wilder effect for a number of reasons. First, we have better polling models designed to track prejudice. Second, we're no longer in the 1980s. Third, and most interestingly, we are living in the era of "honorable bigots," folks who are brutally honest with pollsters.

I found myself amused by the idea of an honorable bigot, which seems to abide a growing in-your-face attitude on the so-called right. Although there is no evidence she is a racist bigot (strategic racism notwithstanding), Palin's smug tone and fuck-you delivery style seem to be in-step with this new, honorable bigotry. I then I got to thinking about a homologous trend among some students here at the University of Texas: public petulance. Perhaps because I am at a university that cultivates a certain, offensive brand of pride, my senses are elevated. In general I am a sensitive person anyway. But I have an exhibit, which I think will interest a number of you.

As many long time RoseChron readers know, over the years I have been referring to a shift in a certain student sentiment: the arrival of the petulant demand. The petulant demand is a certain rhetorical critter made by students, which contends the professor or teacher has harmed them in some way, or that the professor or teacher is responsible for some unfair practice, on moral grounds. The petulant demand entails a tone of entitlement. Variations of this entitlement include, "I pay your salary, therefore"; "I have never received a B in my life"; "I am in the top 10% of my graduating class, therefore"; "I am just as smart as you, thus"; and very often "I'm a star athlete, hence . . . ." The petulant demand is homologous to honorable bigotry because of what we might call the "it's my opinion!" theory: All opinions are equally valid, especially if they come from me, and should be respected; therefore, I get to confront you with my opinion and if you don't like it, I get to say, "well, that's my opinion and I have a right to express it!"

Witness, dear reader, this semester's petulant display . . . but first some context. In my large lecture classes I give pop quizzes, always in the first five minutes of class. I explain many times the first couple of weeks of class that I am not responsible for their being late and missing the quiz, and this includes not taking responsibility for another professor who does not let students out on time. I allow for two quizzes to be made up for extra credit.

Many weeks ago our "smart room technology" failed. In fact, it always fails, but that's another rant for another blog entry. Anyhoo, because of this failure I resorted to reading the pop quiz aloud and having students answer on their bubble sheet. A student noisily came into class and approached me after I had read the second quiz question. In desperate tone, she said: "I ran so fast to get here. Can I have a bubble sheet."

"No M'am. You know the rules."

I proceeded to read the third quiz question. The student huffed and puffed as she sat in the seat in front of me. By the time I was reading the fourth question, she stood up---and this in front of 130 students---threw her book bag over her shoulder in a spectacular display of defiance, stormed out of the auditorium, and slammed the door behind her.

Now, my teaching assistants were visible startled, as was the class. I laughed. This did not surprise me, as it's happened before. What did surprise me was the email I received later that afternoon (which I've sat on for a month so this might blow over, and it has). Here it is, altered to protect the guilty:

Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:00:06 -0500 From: petulant student number five To: slewfoot@mail.utexas.edu Subject: Today's Quiz

Professor Gunn,

I would like to apologize for walking out of your class today, but I feel that you showed me, one of your students, a tremendous amount of disrespect. I was very excited to be in your class this semester having read some of your work and hearing great things about you. The first day of class I felt a connection to you because you reminded me of many of my friends at home. The metal heads and outcasts with a passion for music, especially rock and roll, were my great friends all through high school. However the majority of my friends were either too lazy or too concerned with drugs and the lifestyle to actually go to school and educate themselves. I felt proud of you without even knowing you for taking your passion for music and turning it into a career. I felt honored to work under you and found myself wishing that some of my friends could be in my place and see what they could have become.

All of that aside, I see that you are unlike my friends, because it felt like you do not have compassion for those beneath you, your students. I missed the first quiz because I walked in when it was already in progress, about five minutes late. I took my seat knowing the rules and telling myself I would make to all the rest and do the extra credit and everything would be fine. Since then I have rushed to class every single day, sometimes on time, sometimes one or two minutes late. The reason being because I have an Italian class at the business school that lets out at 10:50. It is a small class of about 13 and my professor almost always keeps us 3 or 4 minutes late. Now I am sorry but I feel that in a class that size it would be immensely disrespectful to pack up my things and walk out before my professor was done with his lesson. Not only that, I would not be able to receive my assignment because he saves it for the end of class to give out. So today, I watched the clock waiting for him to dismiss us and at 10:54 rushed out and across campus to the CMA.

You can imagine how I felt when I walked into class seeing that everyone already had scantrons, but relieved to not see the quiz even on the projector yet. However, to my amazement you still denied me a scantron! What is the reason for this "rule" sir? I understand if I come in and the quiz is over, I have missed my chance. But for the quiz to not even have begun and to be denied a scantron is outrageous. I felt that you showed no courtesy or common decency towards me and did not even take the time to recognize that I tried my hardest to arrive on time to your class. The "rule" that you mentioned to me today is not even in the syllabus. It is wrong, and I ask that you please take this into consideration in the future.

Thank you,

Petulant Student Number Five.

Yes, I'm the metal-head-gone-good who is disrespectful to my student because another professor held her late, and she didn't want to be disrespectful to him, because, you know, he works for the business school. All the elements of the petulant demand are here, including the entitlement clause ("I'm like you, because in high school I hung out with people like you, except they had more compassion than you") and the "it's my opinion" theory. Compare her letter to this one, and you'll note the entitlement clause and opinion theory are there also. There's also a fruitful comparison to be made with this note; instead of being equals in our mutual outcastness, however, we're equals in the ability to read Adorno. Of course, Petulant Student five has nothing on this guy.

I point out the similarities between the petulant demands and requests because of the strange way they seem scripted. First, all but the last stress the opinion theory in terms of the legitimacy or truth of feelings, as if affect some how trumps policy or has truth effects that transcend material constraint and circumstance (hmm . . . this seems related in some way to The Secret, but I'll explore that tangent later). There is also a not-so-subtle righteousness in the tone of these student's email messages, almost a sort of prophetic mode of address.

I'm just thinking aloud here, but there's something about these student's messages that reminds me of Palin's remarks to the Assembly of God congregation in Wassila that made the rounds a while back. It has to do with a certain conviction of feeling---whether it’s a conviction in Deity's voice speaking directly to you, or a conviction in one's dogma, or whatever.

Which brings me back, again, to honorable bigotry. Of course, "honorable bigotry" sounds like an oxymoron at first blush, because a bigot is essentially intolerant of difference, and "honor" is usually reserved for someone of good standing or with ethical discernment (the syllogism here is that ethical discernment excludes intolerance, of course). But in the context of the newspaper article I read for today, honorable bigotry refers to the willingness to speak intolerance publicly, to not lie about one's racist views. I can only think such new boldness is buoyed by the opinion theory and a new, permissible affectivity.

I've been asked to write something on the "affective turn" in the theoretical humanities. The more I reflect on these homologies and willful publicity, the new conviction in public feelings, the more I am wary of the celebratory optimism that seems to underwrite what Jenny Rice calls the "new new," or "critical affect studies." Elsewhere I have argued this political campaign has surfaced a new form of public feelings---a new permissibility, for example, to weep publicly. My in-your-face students and the advent of the honorable bigot are a part of this.

I just have to figure it out.