Another angle on the Man

[Mark Kohut]

Bailey's and Elliot's supplemental reading fits right in, right David?

On Thu, Nov 25, 2021 at 8:22 AM David Elliott via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

>  “I’m the Man.” I also used to hear that boast. Someone pulls out a bag of
> coke... “I’m the Man.” “You the Man.” “The Man” was often the person with
> the dope instead of the person busting you for the dope. One “The Man”
> would bust the other “The Man.”
>     On Thursday, November 25, 2021, 12:13:38 AM EST, Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  The toilet episode & the Schwarzkommando point to consideration of Black
> culture.
>
> I think of “The Man” as a phrase coming from Black slang. And meaning
> “abusive authority” - back in the 60s it was always the Man arresting
> people. It made its way into hipster and Movement slang but wasn’t it first
> Black?
>
> And then sometime in the 80s or even earlier, maybe even synchronously with
> the “abusive authority” usage, people started (over)using the Man as a
> compliment - the verbless “you the Man” meaning meritorious authority.
>
> This complements rather than contradicts the Freudian paradigm - the id is
> capable of meritorious actions as well as abuse.
>
> It did surprise me to some extent that the Man wasn’t assigned to the
> superego, but I’m flexible in my theory.
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