Teri Carson “…explores why perfectly intelligent people, who seem to have some sort of grasp on life, go around acting in a self-defeating way...” She finds the inspiration for filmmaking in this common psychopathological aspect of humanity. But I personally am sick unto death with my self-destructive participation in this pathetic passion play (see my July "post" regarding an attempt to develop a new approach).
While I engage in a variety of self-defeating behaviors, the worst one that I am willing to acknowledge here is my seemingly instinctual efforts to destroy any developing social relationships if I feel that they present some sort of existential threat. My ego is easily put on the defensive because it is vaguely yet expansively defined as any of my opinions/beliefs/feelings about the macro-, micro-, or middle- (that is earthly) levels of the material/spiritual universe. When my ego perceives any type of threat, I typically respond by burning any bridge to the people involved. While this allows me to feel safe, it is a self-righteous, stunted, and lonely safety that I choose… Simon & Garfunkel's "I am a Rock" has a similar take on safety in loneliness.
The bulk of today's post, only Part 1 of a series on the social bridges that I’ve burned, consists of embarrassing examples from my “professional” life as a researcher, writer, and scholar. As you will see below, I had good reason to think that I had completely ruined my professional persona by now, via incessant and blatant bridge burning to maintain a safe social space between me and everyone else, including my "superiors," colleagues, and students. But TODAY, I received surprising evidence that I have failed to completely seal myself off from others in my professional sphere.
I have been very self-consciously trying to create a small selfLESS aspect to my ego-dominated existence in recent weeks. The current effort includes volunteering at a wonderful local non-profit (now posted as "Food for People" on my “Famine and Feast in Eureka” blog). While I was out doing research for that post, proof that new bridges will continue to appear even in my professional life arrived in my Inbox. This unanticipated event has taken the edge off of the long planned self-abasement of writing candidly about my calamitous bridge burning.
A cut-&-paste portion (in an attempt to maintain anonymity) of that email indicates that a new professional bridge is on my horizon:
01 August 2011
Dear [PhD Author],
I am writing to invite you to take part in the strategic workshop `… researching … migration processes’, which will take place at Oxford University on ... September, 2011.
…
We aim to produce one or more publications out of the meeting, if possible as special issues of a journal, based on full versions of a selection of the discussion notes.
Costs for travel … and [three] nights of college accommodation (Corpus Christi College) will be covered. More details on this will be provided to confirmed participants.
Best wishes,
[Director], … [Centre]
Wow! I’ve never been to England (or anywhere outside of the Americas). And, to be invited to Oxford… Just look at this magical photo of the university, which I took right off the web!!!
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| I've seen these buildings on Masterpiece Theater, but now I'm going to see them in person! |
This invite suggests that there are still several continents of scholars that don’t yet know what a rude bridge-burner I am. This is a(nother) chance to meet, greet, and try to “play nice” with folks with common interests AND diverse (i.e, not necessarily MY) perspectives. Wishing myself luck with that, let’s get down to the topic at hand.
Let’s skip all of the jobs I got fired from BEFORE I returned to college and wound up in grad school… I vociferously disagreed with every professor I ever had a seminar with. Then, while finishing my dissertation I bad-mouthed all 3 professors on my thesis committee to anyone who would listen. I had lots of excuses for being critical of my thesis advisers, but NO logical reason to let my negative opinions go out so far, wide, and extreme. That’s just not a good idea in a world where social network ties are so crucial; indeed, this is never a good strategy to use on people who have more power, prestige, and wealth! Needless to say, I couldn’t rely on any of my profs for good letters of recommendation, as crucial as such letters are in the job application process.
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| If you can't stand the heat... |
Against all odds I was “short-listed” (a finalist) for several tenure-track teaching positions. What follows are a few bizarre examples of my self-defeating behaviors in the interview process, even though I expended a great deal of time and effort trying to land such a position.
At one state college I tried to humiliate my department mentor while I was being considered for a position that she had previously told me “…had been written with me in mind.” Her offense? I thought that she was “wrong” on a public policy issue.
This was the scene: while standing in the doorway of her office, and with her prof husband and two grad students present, I repeatedly and passionately insisted, “NO! YOU ARE WRONG!” Everybody but me looked embarrassed, and sought ways to defuse the situation, but I couldn’t be shaken from my insistence that she agree that I was right. She did not admit that she was wrong, and I didn’t get the job “written with me in mind”…
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| Come on baby, light my fire! |
A year later, at another state college, and in the middle of the departmental group interview, I cast a slur on the newly installed Bush Junior. The risk in doing this was minimal (how many anthropologists are Republicans?). But, then I added, "Of course, I didn't vote for THE OTHER guy [Al Gore] either!” This was my way of saying, “I am more radical than Thou…” I had spurned the lesser of two evils and voted for third party candidate Ralph Nader. The professorial faces turned from smiles to stone. Later, one of them told me that it was “my fault that the nation is saddled with 'W'.” I didn’t get that job, but we all got 8 years of 'W'.
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| Can you even remember this contentious "election" any more? |
While the 1st two examples concerned “principles,” the next was about filthy lucre… When the department chair of a university in Tennessee informed me of the starting annual pay, I burst out laughing! Tacitly acknowledging that the pay was low for new profs, the chair assured me that the regional cost of living was also low. To which I retorted, “Yeah, but so is the quality of life out here!” Indeed, the current job search was to replace someone who had jumped from Tennessee to a job in a more “cultured” part of the nation. I had effectively called the chair “white trash!” Could I get any worse? Have some faith in me: “Yes I can!”
My last example had no motive that I can fathom beyond pure self-sabotage... In this case the small department had only 3 faculty members. I knew 2 of the 3 profs from grad school, and against all odds they seemed to like me! So, at the wine-&-dine fest after my public job talk I told the one faculty member that didn’t know me, “Oh, I’m a loose cannon that always causes everyone trouble!” Now, this was the truth, but did I need to tell her that, and then? She reacted as though I was just joking, but as our eyes met I could see that I had instilled adequate doubt about myself in her mind. I felt a little thrill, having established my creds as a troublemaker, but I was still upset when the 3 profs settled on another candidate…
My last example had no motive that I can fathom beyond pure self-sabotage... In this case the small department had only 3 faculty members. I knew 2 of the 3 profs from grad school, and against all odds they seemed to like me! So, at the wine-&-dine fest after my public job talk I told the one faculty member that didn’t know me, “Oh, I’m a loose cannon that always causes everyone trouble!” Now, this was the truth, but did I need to tell her that, and then? She reacted as though I was just joking, but as our eyes met I could see that I had instilled adequate doubt about myself in her mind. I felt a little thrill, having established my creds as a troublemaker, but I was still upset when the 3 profs settled on another candidate…
Without a tenured position I had to teach as a part-time instructor, making half the money for double the work. Even after ensuring my lowly insecure position in academia I continued to burn bridges that might have been useful to cross. There are too many examples to consider here! When the economy went into a nosedive and more than 2,000 state part-timer instructors got laid off in 2008 alone, my department chair continued to find me classes to teach. I felt diverse pressures building, but failed to change my self-destructive behaviors at all…
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| The vocal minority; will the people ever rise up and say "Enough is enough!"??? |
I filled my courses with challenging materials that students had to struggle to master. I also demanded that the students improve their critical thinking and writing skills. I pushed the notion of academic freedom to the edge, using "truck-driver" language to describe our nation's political, religious, and popular elites. I finally got fired after informing the assistant dean of the college that I didn’t like being “stupid-vised” by administrators (e.g., him) just because I was telling many students that they lacked college-level skills. His email response to my attack implied that my days at HIS university were numbered:
Hi [PhD Author],
Thanks for letting me sit in on your meeting with two students. … I do have to say … that I was surprised at the tone of the meeting, especially … when you shared that you liked to call your supervisors "stupid-visors." We all agree that there should be academic freedom, but that does not excuse uncivil language or behavior.
…
I hope you have a good, and uneventful, rest of the semester,
Dr. …
After the semester ended, the courses previously offered to me for the following year were suddenly withdrawn ("suprise, suprise"), and I joined the swelling ranks of the unemployed. I relocated to northern California, and am reconsidering the utility of my antisocial attitudes and behaviors. As I begin the search for a new job, I hope I am finally mature enough to learn from my repeated mistakes. The big question that remains unanswered is whether I can stave off the longtime and deeply entrenched pattern of acting out first, and thinking only later (if at all).
I believe that my self-destructive behavior is the legacy of growing up in a dysfunctional home, where the "fight or flight" response was hammered into me at a very young age. (I actually left home at age 14, self-medicated with illicit drugs for more than a decade, and lived at times during that period in 2 very different cults, the fodder for future posts). As I continue my musings on bridges burned, I will also begin to explore exactly how and why this “perfectly intelligent [person], who seem[s] to have some sort of grasp on life, go[es] around acting in a self-defeating way”… My hope is that in the process of writing about this, I can initiate meaningful changes that will allow me to put out the fires that have been raging all these years within me, and to cross the (social) bridges that most people use to facilitate meaningful human interactions.
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| Can I cool my jets? |
Let’s see what I do (and DON'T do) while I'm at Oxford University next month... I plan to cross their "Bridge of Sighs" (below, and what a great name!). Care to place a bet on my behavior amongst my 40 Continental colleagues?
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| Oxford's Bridge of Sighs... |
