Re: affect (cultural differences in ...)

Rolfe Windward (IBALWIN who-is-at mvs.oac.ucla.edu)
Thu, 09 May 96 10:41 PDT

I've recently begun reading _All God's Children: The Bosket Family and the
American Tradition of Violence_ by Fox Butterfield and even in the first
few chapters it implies a CHAT style metaphor for affect. That is, instead
of the rather hydraulic metaphor inherent in psychoanalytic approaches (at
least as I read them) there is a metaphor of historical trajectory that
interactively individuates (constrains/specifies) emotional response. This
seems reasonable since the basic emotional mechanisms are rather
undifferentiated or "vague" (e.g., anger and fear have nearly identical
physiological characteristics all of which can appear in any situation from
violence to sex to panic stricken flight).

The story itself is about Willie James Bosket, a double murderer by the age
of 15 and 'the most violent criminal in New York State history,' who is
currently serving three 25 years- to-life sentences. The central thesis is
that the Bosket 'tradition' can be traced culturally back to it's origins in
the white, southern folkways of 'bloody Edgefield' -- a region of ante
bellum South Carolina famed for its violent feuds. Their feuds with each
other aside, Southern Whites there and in similar enclaves insisted upon
their right to uphold 'honor' with violence beyond even Jim Crow laws and a
new breed of 'black badmen' arose more than willing to also act outside the
law in the interests of 'reputation' and 'respect.' This thread of social
practice is traced from Willie's great grandfather in Edgefield through his
grandfather and father in New York.

What already seems clear from the narrative is that current society writ
large can not account for Willie Bosket (although it is conceivable that
'society' could be arranged such that his trajectory _might_ have been
deflected or at least that his violence not deflect the trajectories of
other families/individuals as the violence of bloody Edgefield ultimately
reached out and deflected his). I recall, but have been unable to find in my
files, a fairly large scale study that (ahistorically) found a much higher
prevalence of stable and controllable causal attributions in certain
(usually economically disadvantaged) communities. For example, an accidental
bump in a high school hallway would very likely be construed as intentional
-- either as assault or as a 'dis-respect' -- and the cognitive-affective-
action complex requisite to maintaining reputation in that situation would
come into play. This did not always lead to violence although a
confrontation of some kind was extremely likely.

Rolfe

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Rolfe Windward (UCLA GSE&IS, Curriculum & Teaching)
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