The Robot

Consider this representation of university life.

Now if you’ve ever attended any sort of schooling system, you’re probably laughing too—but you’re not laughing at these students of diversity. No, you’re laughing with them, because the only reason that they themselves could be laughing is the same reason you’re still chuckling over the white guy’s hairdo: this picture is a joke. Contrary to what you might have thought, this group of best friends isn’t laughing in mild protest at having their picture taken just before arriving at their dorms in August to begin a life-changing intellectual and cultural journey. As long as these kids are real products of the American schooling system and not manufactured multicultural clones paid to smile against ambiguous brick structures and whitewashed office environments—a possibility I’m not willing to disregard completely—then the only thing they could actually be laughing at is the absurdity of laughing unironically. The black dude chuckles at his matching, rolled-up plaid shirt and headphone necklace (which, by the way, is on backwards), while the girl on the right chortles at her empty, leather bag, symbol of the vacuity of the entire enterprise.

Let me be clear about what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that multiculturalism is a joke; in fact I’m really not talking about race at all. I’m saying that these people, as we are meant to see them, don’t exist. Not only do they not exist, every single student of America knows this fact intuitively—which is why we can’t help but guffaw every time we load the “student activities” page on our university websites.

But how exactly do we all know this? I argue that it’s much more than that their clothes are outdated or that their ethnicities celebrate a sterile affectation of diversity. Before I say what I think is really going on here, though, I want to warn you that I’m about to say a word that may disturb or confuse you. Just promise me that you’ll continue reading. I’m not trying to be controversial in saying it; in fact I think we can all ultimately agree that:

This picture disturbs and amuses us because it is obviously somebody’s fantasy about an apolitical utopia.

Now, I mean two things by this. The first meaning follows from my talking about student (and perhaps human) interaction. The second follows from my talking about college student (and perhaps American) interaction. But in both cases, the picture amuses and disturbs for exactly the same reason that sketches of a middle-aged man’s sexual fantasies would: clearly, this picture is somebody’s wet dream. It is a political fantasy, an example of Freud’s concept of art-as-wish-fulfillment, a pathetic sublimation of the political yearning to transcend politics. It tries to imagine what student life would be like if neither a tribal politics of power (the first meaning) nor a governmental politics of ideology (the second meaning) permeated the entire game we call social interaction.

I said earlier that I’m not trying to be controversial, and I meant it. I’m claiming no more or less than that we know these people don’t exist precisely because they efface themselves from existence by effacing themselves from politics—or the game of social interaction, whichever you prefer—by virtue of their attempt to be absolutely inoffensive. To see this, try to place any one of these smirksters into one of your pre-built social categories. What do you think that white guy is going to do this evening? Who’s the black dude going to hang out with? I have no idea—not because I don’t know them, but because I have no social schemata or category through which to interpret these (so-called) people. The conclusion to draw from this is not that these kids have triumphed over politics and its superficial categories, but that they simply can’t exist precisely because that triumph is impossible. That is, since our ability to “play the society-game” requires that we categorize all of its players within some network of assumptions about what sort of persons they could be, and since this picture fantasizes about a world without such a network of social assumptions, this picture either achieves that goal by rendering itself socially unintelligible, or fails to achieve that goal by mocking the very idea of such an attempt. The picture disturbs us when we realize that it was intended to succeed; it amuses us when we realize how utterly ridiculous that attempt is.

Earlier I hinted at two sorts of politics going on here, but the explanation of that will have to wait for the next post in the series. In that entry I want to trace the movement from the playground politics of elementary school to the plaza politics of college. A further entry will examine a particular social group that defines itself through its (alleged) undefinability: the “indie” crowd. For now, though, keep on chuckling.