The Importance of Being Quite Certain

Provisional Diagnostic Categories Observed in Whiteness

(For Educational and Interpretive Use Only)

Disclaimer:
The following classifications are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are intended to support analytic clarity rather than therapeutic intervention. Inclusion does not imply pathology in the clinical sense, though patterns may appear persistent.

Diagnostic Code W-01

Normative Subject Positionality Disorder (NSPD)

Description
A condition characterized by the subject’s inability to recognize itself as historically situated, resulting in the experience of its own perspective as universal, neutral, or default.

Common Presentations

• Confusion when asked to describe one’s own standpoint

• Statements beginning with “I’m just being objective”

• Discomfort with contextual qualifiers
  
  

Associated Defenses

• Ego inflation

• Denial of contingency
  
  

Course Correlation
Weeks 1–2 (Whiteness as norm; Europe before confidence)

Diagnostic Code W-02

Universalization Compulsion Syndrome (UCS)

Description
A recurrent drive to transform locally derived principles into globally binding norms, often accompanied by moral urgency.

Observed Behaviors

• Rapid escalation from “this works here” to “this works everywhere”

• Difficulty tolerating plural ethical systems

• Persistent invocation of Reason, Progress, or Human Nature
  
  

Freudian Reading

• Superego externalization
  
  

Jungian Reading

• Premature individuation claim
  
  

Course Correlation
Weeks 3–4 (Universalism; knowledge and classification)

Diagnostic Code W-03

Administrative Sublimation Disorder (ASD)

Description
The redirection of coercive impulses into procedural, bureaucratic, or managerial forms perceived as neutral or benevolent.

Indicators

• Preference for metrics over judgment

• Reliance on process language (“stakeholders,” “capacity,” “best practices”)

• Aversion to endings
  
  

Secondary Gains

• Moral insulation

• Diffused responsibility
  
  

Course Correlation
Weeks 5, 8, 9 (Colonialism; post-colonial governance; development)

Diagnostic Code W-04

Projection-Stabilized Hierarchy Response (PSHR)

Description
Maintenance of psychic equilibrium through the attribution of irrationality, immaturity, or disorder to external groups.

Typical Statements

• “They’re not ready yet”

• “It’s complicated”

• “Cultural factors need to be considered” (unspecified)
  
  

Freudian Reading

• Projection
  
  

Jungian Reading

• Shadow displacement
  
  

Course Correlation
Weeks 5–7 (Colonial psychology; decolonization)

Diagnostic Code W-05

Reassurance Repetition Complex (RRC)

Description
A pattern in which institutions repeatedly reenact founding narratives, reforms, or self-critiques without permitting structural resolution.

Symptoms

• Endless task forces

• Cyclical apologies

• Institutional memory without institutional change
  
  

Prognosis

• Chronic

• Non-terminal
  
  

Course Correlation
Week 10 (Institutions that cannot end)

Diagnostic Code W-06

Narcissistic Injury Sensitivity Response (NISR)

Description
An acute reaction to critique experienced not as disagreement but as existential threat.

Clinical Features

• Procedural escalation

• Appeals to civility

• Confusion between criticism and erasure
  
  

Differential Diagnosis

• Accountability avoidance

• Ego boundary diffusion
  
  

Course Correlation
Week 11 (Contemporary whiteness and fragility)

Diagnostic Code W-07

Theoretical Overextension Tendency (TOT)

(This is the meta-diagnosis.)

Description
A compulsion to apply explanatory frameworks beyond their interpretive capacity, often justified as rigor.

Academic Indicators

• Excessive citation density

• Framework stacking

• Resistance to closure
  
  

Self-Referential Note

• This manual may exhibit features of TOT.
  
  

Course Correlation
Entire syllabus, including this appendix.

Clinical Note

The subject displays remarkable resilience and adaptability.
Symptoms persist not due to lack of insight, but due to an ongoing need for reassurance.

Treatment Plan

None indicated.