Michael Dean Clark
A week ago, I wore a suit to work. And a tie. And a vest.
This is not cause for alarm, except for some of my new students who felt compelled ask why I’d done it. Backing up a bit, there are three cultural assumptions at work here.
First: Writers don’t look like “writers” unless their outfit was picked up off the bedroom floor, shaken out, and put on quickly enough that one of the buttons in the shirt is in the wrong hole (if the shirt has all of its buttons to begin with).
Second: People who just completed a Ph.D. don’t have enough money to own a suit that makes them look like they could be a teller at the local Bank of America branch.
Third: Being that my new university sits right on the Pacific Ocean, I should apparently deliver my lectures in shorts, sandals, and with a liberal use of the term “dude.”
The intersection of all these ideas is exactly why I wear the suit. Call it a fashionable object lesson.
The more I write and the more I work with other writers, the more convinced I am that the greatest obstacle standing in the way of originality is not our practice of making cultural assumptions and then extending those assumptions into stereotypes. Rather, the problem lies in our inability to identify those assumptive forces within ourselves. In writing, this is deadly.
I know, this isn’t rocket science. Then again, the rocket scientists I’ve known more often than not suffer from the same blindness.
We can’t see within ourselves the systems that guide our opinions and actions when we decide what is and is not acceptable, desirable, and worth pursuing. And when we can’t see them, we can’t challenge them.
In critical theory, folks like Foucault would point to our blind spot for the control of systems outside of us as the culprits for this blindness. We are enmeshed in overlapping, intertwined mechanisms that create the internal latticework of opinions and attitudes that “guide” us.
I tend to see humans as more autonomous than that, but I’m not as smart as Michel was. And yet, I’m pretty sure his ability to theorize about those systems (and my subsequent assumption that they are there) means I can’t lay back and blame everything outside of me for my internal blind spots.
If I’m going to be a writer, I must identify and own the places where I lack sight. Not only that, I need to wallow in them and then make them public. This is the mirror artists hold up to culture. And a mirror is only effective if it reflects clearly (unless you want to avoid your blemishes, in which case I’d suggest taking stock in why you are so afraid of yourself).
So sometimes I wear a suit. That way, when people’s stereotypes are challenged, I can talk about it with them. Hopefully those conversations will lead me and others to a more refined understanding of the forces at work within us and a broader vocabulary with which to talk about them.
Michael Dean Clark is a writer, teacher, and former Southern California ex-patriot in the Midwest. Currently, he is at work on…nothing. His new job as a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University has left no time for stories of his own. He hopes that is not the case for much longer, otherwise people may begin to question his qualifications for said new job.
Michael, thanks for this, and all the best at that university by the ocean. I just want to observe that I found Foucault worthwhile, though I still am not sure how much his theories helped me as a fiction writer. I’m still assessing this…
On the other hand, if you spend too much time as a novelist trying to identify your blind spots and somehow compensate for them, it may paralyze you as a writer. Did Faulkner worry about his blind spots? I doubt it. He wrote his books. I would say just write and don’t worry too much about blind spots. There will be plenty of critics to point them out. Just as there are plenty of students to gripe about your suit.
Dr. Clark: As punishment for the missing word in your second “paragraph,” and for a little more nonverbal “refined understanding” for your students, ya gotta get this vest! –
http://www.jpeterman.com/Leather-Pocket-Vest
Okay, I hope you got a chuckle or at least a grin out of that previous comment; and if, like my accountant spouse, you smirked and cringed at my vest suggestion, know that I have done my research regarding an alternative vest:
The J. Peterman Co. Chat Window:
You are now chatting with ‘Joy’
Joy: Allow me to introduce myself as your chat representative…
Joy: How may I help you today?
Geoff M. Pope: I see that you all have a WOMEN’s vest. Wasn’t there in the past a refined MEN’s Writer’s Vest?
Joy: I will need an item #.
Geoff M. Pope: 2798 http://www.jpeterman.com/Leather-Pocket-Vest
Joy: One moment please…
Joy: We have had men’s suede vests in several versions before, but this one is definitely a women’s vest.
Geoff M. Pope: Item #(s) please for those previously released men’s suede vests?
Joy: The only men’s vest will take a lot of research. Please provide your name and number and we will have to get back to you with this info.
Geoff M. Pope: 206.354-3233 / Thx! Keep re-Joy-sing! ; )
Joy: We will offer a pigskin knit trim vest in a few weeks. It is item #3026 in our new catalog to be released.
Geoff M. Pope: P.S. I wrote this to my wife recently: “I’m going to put on my Christmas list this vest! — http://www.jpeterman.com/Leather-Pocket-Vest
Geoff M. Pope: And my wife’s response: “Seriously? A woman’s vest?”
Geoff M. Pope: And my reply to her: “I can just clip the ties. Okay, maybe not.”
Joy: I have been told that we do not have access to every catalog to provide you with an item # of every suede vest, but I will gladly try. I vote with your wife … NOT!
Geoff M. Pope: HA! & Thx for the heads-up re that pigskin knit trim vest to be released this fall.
Joy: All I have found in the past three years is item #1219, the pigskin vest in dark chocolate. It is completely gone. Sorry. I will keep looking and call you if and when I find anything else.
Joy: I also found a men’s velvet vest in fall of 07′. Item #1948 and we do not carry them anymore.
Joy: We also had The Buffalo Leather Vest (#1921) in 07″. No longer have it either. Sorry.
Geoff M. Pope: Thx again! Talk to ya later…Godspeed, which, as you may know, is often s-l-o-w.
Joy: We had a Lambskin Vest, item #1117 in 06′. Of course, no longer available either. We tried, but I have run our of catalogs.
Geoff M. Pope: Wow, you are on it! No worries. You’re a stellar sales rep. Keep up the outstanding service.
I was going to comment, but Geoff was way too perfect…