Be careful what you say, you might be talking to a theorist

Over break I was getting my hair cut, and my hairdresser (Amy) was asking me the usual questions. Are you on spring break?  Where are you going to school?  What are you majoring in?  After I’d given my answers: yes, Scripps College, and English, I received a reply that was very surprising.  Amy told me that she doesn’t “believe in college” and that she thought it was “a waste of time” using her husband’s first two degrees in history, and interdisciplinary studies as examples (his third degree in landscape architecture was acceptable to her).  Then she asked when would analyzing a book ever help someone in the ‘real’ world?  I almost laughed out loud and thanked her because her statements were almost TOO perfect for this blog.

            I wondered what Althusser would say about these statements in reference to the  “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”.  Amy’s belief about the educational system, specifically college demonstrates that she has “the absolute guarantee that everything really is so”; basically she knows she’s right (701).  Of course this seems rather given, it is her opinion after all.  Althussar would use Amy as a further example that “ideology has no history”.  There have always been those that believe higher learning to be extremely important and those who do not, and though these numbers have changed and the educational system has changed, it does not concern the individual, because ideology is immersed in everything, it “has no outside” (700). 

Well, okay but that doesn’t really provide me with any sort of response for Amy.  She has an ideology, she’s immersed in it, and there’s probably no turning back.  No offense to Althussar, he’s interesting, but I feel like this conversation needs more of a diagnosis, which is Freud’s specialty.  Now perhaps ideology is irrelevant to her statement.  Since this response was rather shocking, and somewhat rude considering she basically said that I was wasting four years of my life, there must be a reason behind this anger.  Although I did not have a long enough session with Amy to ask her about her childhood, I did learn about her husband.  He went to college and she also proclaimed that his degrees were “useless”, so it is far more likely that Amy displaced some sort of anxiety she has about her husband onto me, the unsuspecting customer.  It is also likely that education is not what Amy is really upset about.  Freud would most likely appropriate this outset of emotion to one of two things (both sexual of course).  The first is that Amy is suffering from penis envy, and this unconscious jealousy has manifested itself in her anger towards his college degrees, and in turn towards people who go to college.  The second is that Amy wishes to castrate her husband.  Not only does Amy’s profession consist of the act of cutting, but she also does not like her husband’s degrees (something she does not have, and does not want).  Although a Freudian interpretation of this conversation is extremely entertaining, I’m sure that penis envy is not the reason behind her statements.

Neither of these theorists gave me a satisfying interpretation or result, which I think Amy would say proves her point, however, I thoroughly disagree.  Every theory has limits, and some I think shouldn’t be applied ever to certain works or situations, but the process of working through them, although not always successful, is useful.  Perhaps not useful in the way that Amy defines it, but we all analyze, regardless of whether we’re in an English class, and these tools for analyzing and interpreting can be put to use anywhere, even within the context of a brief conversation.