Social Theory, Psychoanalysis and Racism [Paperback]

The author confesses that the multilayered nature of racism is so complex that theory requires ample examples in order to consolidate any sense of final understanding. Yet he does not live up to this promise. The piece is bereft of instructive examples. The few examples the author offers never quite rise to the level of providing solid explanations of the content of his theories. Many pregnant possibilities seem to have been overlooked and left out even though they begged for exhibition and illustration: The whole of contemporary U.S. society, post-Apartheid South Africa, and Brazil's so-called racial democracy, were just a few examples that would have been wonderful illustrations of the utility of the author's often heavy-handed theoretical machinery.

Clarke drew on three broads areas: sociological/anthropological, Freudian psychology, and Melanie Klein's Object Relations psychology. And although on more than one occasion, he alludes to a fourth area, social psychology -- an area that arguably is at least (if not more) important than all the others combined. By not including the latest findings from social psychology -- the author leaves a gaping hole in his analysis and may have missed a golden opportunity to provide clarity without all of the sexy, but often superfluous, theoretical complexity that both sociological and psychoanalytic explanations provided.

I believe that there is a fundamental flaw in the author's reasoning. It is the idea that racism is a universal phenomenon and that the most we can do is understand it. The idea that it can be fixed goes well beyond the scope of his inquiry. In the first instance, it seems clear that Professor Clarke unwittingly blurs the distinction between xenophobia and racism when it suits his fancy. There is a great deal of difference between the personal "fear of difference" and the collectively organized idea of "committing genocide" to maintain social and economic prerogatives. These of course are horses of two very different colors. To maintain that they are the same is to subsume what is to be demonstrated.

What ever else may be theoretically true of racism, it is a fact that it manifests itself most prominently in permissive (that is easily manipulated and conformist) but fertile social psychological environments. It seems to this reader that even the author's favorite bugaboo, the explosive affective nature of racism can be completely accounted for (if not explained) by proper attention to how the rewards and punishment structure of racism is regulated by the levers of society which are always under clear "social psychological control." At a very minimum, the influence of the social psychological layer, arguably the weightier of the three, cannot be ignored altogether.

It seems to me that this rather obvious oversight renders an otherwise very interesting, complex, and well-crafted piece, intellectually suspect: An inordinate amount of time is spent discussing the minutia of the psychoanalytic basis of the affective content of racism - using the pristine mind of the infant as the psychological laboratory. It is so many angels on the head of a needle. As well, a great deal of unwarranted weight is given to the intellectually impotent, socially irrelevant and ideologically laden, sociological explanations. And oddly this is done without even mentioning the role sociology (or psychology for that matter) plays in maintaining and perpetuating racism, especially in most Western societies.

Why commit theoretical Hari-Kari only to better understand the affective content of racism? Is this not the very place in the analysis at which the social psychological explanations could have come into play and done the heavy-lifting -- no matter what the origin and composition of the affective content may have been? And anyway, since when has a poverty of understanding about racism been the primary problem? We all know what it is when we see it even when we cannot define it. Is understanding racism really our most important problem? How about teaching white people to learn to live without all of its hidden advantages? It seems to me that this is a far greater problem than the mere understanding of racism.

Is it not precisely at the interface of the two layers of "social structure" and "psychological affect" that social psychology comes into play? That is not to say, that psychoanalysis does not also make valuable contributions at this interface, as well as all along the way. But look at the cost-benefits ratio? For each shovel full of Sociological psychoanalytic manure, the reader is required to work his way through the whole history of psychoanalysis and through all of the permutation of empty sociological theories, and what does he get in return? A slightly better understanding of the affective content of racism from the point of view of the human laboratory, the infant mind. How can we be sure that such results are upwardly compatible through the human organizational chain? And if it is upwardly compatible, in the end is this not just more reductive obfuscation? In short, and on balance, is it all worth it -- especially when the promised examples have not been forthcoming?

But even from the psychoanalytic angle, there are additional questions to be raised. A reasonable theoretical alternative for explaining racism, as it is manifest in most Western societies is heavily mythical and symbolic. This suggests that the notion of a social drama is a better theoretical construct than is a vain search for the illusive missing psychological "affect." In particular, I refer to the idea of a social drama, the drama of (white) masculine heroics, and the sociobiological drama designed to protect the mythical "pure white gene" -- and all that this entails:

To wit, most racism in Western societies is a thinly veiled psychological drama played by white people on themselves to protect "their" white women from the sperm of the "masculine Other" (mostly non-white men - but especially black men). And here I am appealing indirectly to, and invoking the theoretical machinery of Ernest Becker, Otto Rank, Joseph Campbell, Kenneth Burke, Hugh Daziel Ducan, among others. Even a cursory review of contemporary Western race-based societies will suggest that this is a more apt, productive and theoretically more sound construct, one that arguably, is more appropriate to fit existing structures of most racist societies.

At some point Occam's razor becomes the center of methodological and theoretical concern and not just a disposable utilitarian throw away. Conceptual clarity, and economy of explanation often go hand in hand with the most efficacious constructs and theoretical organization. That is to say, they become an overriding concern. One cannot speak about racism more economically or with more conceptual clarity than by mentioning the drama of the "white Alpha male fears" and his search for more control over the world through his myths, simulated heroics, and rituals of dominance. There is a great deal of psychological affect packed into this very convenient theoretical construct if the researcher would only look for it.

And while I am a strong proponent of Melanie Kline's work, especially as expressed by Robert Young in his incredible book Mental Spaces, her collection of "constructs" as Clarke pointed out so well, also have their explanatory limits. Why did the author not try to expand and then apply her notion of "projective identification" to the societal or cultural level? Is that not what Freud would have done were he alive? Why leave these very potent ideas hanging in the conceptual air?

I believe these intellectual oversights and conceptual disconnects all beg a deeper hidden question: What has been the role of Western Civilization in the perpetuation, consolidation and maintenance of racism? Is racism truly a universal phenomenon, or a mere product of a much damaged and warped white Western mind?

If the study and analysis of racism itself must be sacrificed to the gods of racism itself, where indeed does that leave Western humanity, which rests firmly on a foundation of centuries of racist exploitation? It makes it easier to understand why Mahatmus Gandhi, when asked what he thought about Western Civilization, answered: "I think it would be a good idea."

What Gandhi undoubtedly was trying to suggest is that Western thought, the Western worldview and even Western consciousness (and now we must add Western scholarship) is so deeply embedded in its own incestuous relationship with its own self-defined notions and myths, the most prominent of which is of course white supremacy, that Westerners have no clue as to how bereft of morality, and corrupted their humanity has actually become.

Research on racism surely cannot be made another casualty of the very thing it is attempting to study.

Is the only option open to the rest of humanity that of listening to the white man's complicated defense (couched in theoretical clothing) as the only and final truth about racism?

Just suppose for a moment that white racism and white morality, and white humanity are not at all what it is cracked up to be, that is it is not universal at all, but just happens to be one more component, among the many other strains of out collective humanity? What then do we make of this sophisticated academic attempt to hide the white deficit in humanity beneath a cloak of universality?

Five stars for a deep, thoughtful and wonderful ride!

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see the review  5.0 out of 5 stars