First, a definition of
“socialization” from Dictionary.com:
Socialization, then, takes in any
number of societal controls, ranging from punishments for whatever a society
deems a “crime” to rituals designed to initiate its members into the society as
productive citizens. WONDER WOMAN’s
Amazon society is clearly modeled on the relatively static practices used by
tribal-level societies to enact initiation and/or punishment.
However, the society of an
industrial nation, such as that of (obviously) the United States, cannot follow
the practices of tribal societies, whether real or imagined. When a society embodies a level of discursive
thought that makes industrialization possible, that society’s members must
choose a more dynamic model as regards socialization. This means that the society must be
continually debating, also in discursive manner, the nature of the practices
necessary to enculturate the young or to correct those who break the society’s
laws.
In a dynamic society, however,
“correction” isn’t confined purely to literal crimimals. Irrespective of the specific purposes of any
given political activity, that activity generally possesses the potential to
enact practices that have a socializing effect.
To be sure, a media-campaign to discourage some behavior—often one
without overt political content, such as the advisability of smoking—is not
reified by the mythopoeic beliefs that inform, say, a young man undergoing
penile circumcision.
There may be any number of attempts
to confer an unquestionable mythic status upon the society’s artifacts— the
assorted debates on the “essential nature” of the American Constitution, for
example. But, contrary to Roland Barthes
in MYTHOLOGIES, this practice is not the result of some bizarre “myth-language”
devised to facilitate the repressive bourgeoise. It is the outgrowth of the language of
socialization, which has liberal accents as well as conservative. However, no matter what the accent, the
message will always received with acrimony by someone.
I’ve defended the principles
underlying William Moulton Marston’s version of “socialization control” based
on its status as literature, not political discourse. In this my OVERTHINKING essays parallel the
earlier essay TORTURE GUARDIN’, which defends the fictional depiction of
inquisitorial torture based on the fact that it is (usually) no more than a
fictional device, functioning as a element of plot-convenience in a fictional
cosmos. In such a cosmos, Batman will
always threaten criminals with dire fates, or may even dispense literal
physical harm, but it will almost always be too “fictional” in its base nature
to be seen as an endorsement of actual torture.
By the same token, in the world of Wonder Woman the element of “play” should defuse the seeming dictatorial
methods of Aphrodite’s Law, not least because it’s
a world where Aphrodite unquestionably exists.
Now, if Marston had presented his
ideas in the form of political discourse, I would have opposed such a practice
being enacted in reality. I’ m sure that
as a young child I would have found Marston’s instruction-through-bondage no
more palatable than the real socialization practices that I did
experience. Mere dislike in itself
doesn’t invalidate the proposed practice, though, since socialization practices
are designed to be disliked. Almost no
one likes to be told what to do, and even those who relish being ordered about
only relish that experience under specific circumstances.
Nevertheless, even small children
soon absorb the basic “it’s for your own good” rhetoric, whether they mentally
accede to every dictate or not. Were it
possible for any child to be reared so as to exercise unconditional free will,
the wakeup call for that child would surely sound as soon as he tested his
inviolability by sticking his finger in a light-socket. It may be that in a static tribal society,
rebellious members may not attempt to suss out what socialization practices can
be altered. In a dynamic one, rebels may
always find some cause for revision.
It remains a fact that all societies,
in order to survive, must adumbrate the unconditioned free will of their
members as parents modify the behavior of their children. Some might defend Marston’s “socialization
control” on that basis. However, though
it is important to point out that dimension of Marston’s thought, this cannot
be a full justification. Phrased thusly,
it would be tantamount to saying that fiction is only justifiable when it
mimics the conditions of real life. In
addition, such a justification would be the simple obverse of critiquing
fiction for not emulating real life closely enough, a position with which I
quarrel in the OVERTHINKING essays.
Leslie Fiedler founded his theory
of literature on the quasi-Freudian notion of its value as an escape valve from
reality. In 1975 he edited a science-fiction
anthology entitled “In Dreams Awake,” but his critical work bestows that power
upon all literature, not just science fiction: the power to mirror our nature
through our dreams.
But dreams by their nature are as
given to darkness as to light.
Socialization practices of all creeds exist to curse the darkness. In dreams we light candles not to dispel the
dark, but to find out just how deep it is.
More in Part 2.
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