Author vs. University: Validation Syndrome
This essay was originally written November 22, 2022 while my sister and I were attending Boise State University for context.
I was a freshman, and she was a sophomore. This was our experience as authors (“students”) in the classroom.
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I find this to be an odd condition. It’s something my sister and I are experiencing in the classroom. At the time of this post, we’ve currently co-authored 18 books which has begun to cause some strange events in the classroom.
It has become clear that books are the absolute pinnacle of academia. So much in fact that professors often defer to my sister and I while they are teaching in the classroom. What I mean by this is that we end up teaching the class through the professor. Almost as through they become a vessel for our own knowledge.
Since they have never written a book themselves, we in some weird way override their authority through some abstract social code of enforcement by the students within the class.
The way it typically goes (in Creative Writing and English classes) is that they stand up there and talk, but constantly ask us for our interpretation of various readings and texts.
The worst part about this though, is that no one ever wants to challenge our opinions. This is bad because what it does to us physiologically is create what I’ve begun to call, “validation syndrome.”
What this is, is basically a situation wherein an individual begins to blur the line of where they are right and wrong about a topic.
Since we’re the highest authority in the classroom by basis of merit, it creates a sort of mirror effect. This can often be seen in the history of chess players where in the past, when computers were far weaker than them. They lived under the assumption that the validity of their moves and understanding of various positions, was absolute. This was true of Go (baduk) players as well, until computers finally caught up and surpassed them to.
In the area of literature (an enormous field) this is the exact problem that we have begun to run into. As there is no one who can challenge our merit in the classroom. The power of expertise shifts to us because the professors haven’t written a book, and yet are teaching a class on writing, literature, creative writing, etc…
I have no idea what to do about this, because until an entity who has done more than us merit wise enters the room, we’re the de facto authority on the subject. Regardless of however many degrees, honors, and accolades a professor might possess.
The power of books isn’t financial. They build by themselves, a currency of sorts into an individual that is social and cultural in nature.
This is my experience anyway.
“War is the ultimate discipline of a nation, and likewise. Writing a book is the ultimate discipline of an academic.”
Hello! We’re D.J. Hoskins
We are Davena and Jason Hoskins, co-authors of 30+ books and siblings who write under the pseudonym D.J. Hoskins. Three years apart and in our twenties, we have been fascinated by stories from a young age. Davena is a student attending Princeton University, and Jason attends Georgetown University.
