My Conversation With MV Returns
Future Time
Somewhere In Limbo
“But you got married,” said MV.
“No, that was later,” I replied. “True, three years after my bicycle
trip I did get married, but it took another five years after that
before I finally stopped pushing my God idea. Once I rejoined the
student ranks, I was back at it.”
“Oh, my mistake,” MV responded. “It’s hard to keep a time line
straight when you keep jumping around the way you do. How did you
combine sociology with your metaphysic anyway?”
“It wasn’t easy,” I said. “Actually, back in the classroom, I kept my
mouth shut most of the time. I needed to become employable, not
understood.”
“But what about your thesis,” replied MV, “you said the data supported
your ideas.”
“I didn’t write about my metaphysic,” I said. “I wrote about the
implications contained in it. Remember, my first two thesis topics
were rejected, so when it was suggested that I do survey research on
prejudice my topic became prejudice. Actually, I was okay with that.
Prejudice always made my blood boil, so I thought getting to know more
about it was a good idea. In my literature search on the subject I
found a connection between prejudice and ambivalence. Ambivalence
played a major role in Adorno’s study of the Authoritarian
Personality. In order to escape ambivalence, the child, in Adorno’s
investigations, redirected hostilities toward out-groups and away from
his or her own authoritarian parents. In fact, the need to get rid of
ambivalence ended up in prejudiced attitudes in other studies too. I
found that curious.”
“So what does all that have to do with your metaphysic?” responded MV.
“What could possibly be more ambivalence generating than the condition
of being-what-is-not-while-not–being-what-is?” I said. “Of course I
know most people don’t experience the self in that way, but some do,
and among those that do, you do not find much prejudice, if any.”
I find the concept of uncertainty more useful than ambivalence. Ambivalence is usually a binary; uncertainty can be that, but also boundary-less and more not knowing than ambivalence. Jerome Kagan is my guru on uncertainty and sees it resolved as you discuss rhe resoluion of ambivalence, but also in other ways. Fear is unresovled uncertainty; guilt resolution by self blame. Again, I love reading you because you make me think long and hard, as you have obviously done.
Thank you for the kind words. I’m sure the head of my thesis committee would have said the word uncertainty tends to the philosophical as opposed to the sociological. I was told to avoid philosophy and Stay Sociological. Actually, that made sense because I was trying, in my thesis, to connect the lack of prejudiced attitudes towards African Americans (and other minorities) to my own interpretation (bwinwnbwi/ambivalence) of George Herbert Mead’s self-concept. The results were mixed. Thanks again. Take care.