Who says SWE is better?

I've been thinking lately about power and language, or more generally power and anything. A lot of this thought comes from recently reading and teaching Foucault, who I am not an expert in, and don't want to get too deep into right now. I've also recently read an essay by the late David Foster Wallace--I love his writing so much. He is a master of language--that got me thinking about this issue and the notion of discourse, discourse communities, and the dominant discourse.

The dominant discourse in this country is Standard Written English and the rules that I teach in my writing classes, all of the corrections that I make on student papers, all of the things I tell them to do comes from the rules regarding SWE. So a student can't write "everybody know" rather than "everyone knows" or "come out the house" or "he be". I "have" to go in and correct it. But really, in truth (if I can even say that, even proclaim any knowledge or use of truth) SWE is no better than what we call SBE, standard Black English, which is a lot of the language correcting that I do in my classes. Wallace wrote in the essay "Authority and American Usage" that he told his literature students the following:

"I don't know whether anybody's told you this or not, but when you're in a college English class you're basically studying a foreign dialect. This dialect is Standard Written English...In my class, you have to learn and write in SWE....you will have to master and write in Standard Written English, which we might just as well call 'Standard White English' because it was developed by white people and is used by white people, especially educated powerful white people."

But do you? Is it possible to operate outside of the discourse/the system? To just say no, in a sense. Because could language just be like any other point of power, any other accepted way of doing things? Here's what we'll teach you at community college: pull your pants up and use proper grammar. Don't tattoo your face. Here's how to write a resume. Hopefully, by the time we are through, you learn how to act (Standard White Behavior) and you can too reach the middle class (which isn't necessarily the case).

Lately I've been wanting to live outside of the system/laws/discourse but I feel thoroughly indebted to it, in a literal sense. And is there an alternative anyway? I used to think so, and maybe still do. I used to think that living out in a rural area in some kind of community would equate living outside of the system, and maybe it still does.

Last night, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (yes, I know), and it was actually an enjoyable movie. I like how the pirates, comical and as unreal as they may be, live outside of the law and operate solely in self interest, and in Depp's Jack Sparrow character's case, live completely in the now with no regard to belongings or the future. I think the movies are set in the late 1700s, when there was still a bit of lawlessness in the new world, some unexplored territories, and a different disciplinary system (Foucault. They still hung folks). It was the beginning of liberal democracy and the dominant European powers were still out grabbing what they could. Not all was conquered, though it would soon become so. And there came the pirates, taking from the dominant powers like the dominant powers took from those they conquered. So, I want to be a pirate and live under lawlessness. I know I am being incredibly naive, that I am some middle America white woman that is thoroughly entrenched with internalized rules and regulations, who knows how to act right, and who has thoroughly bought into the idea of work/pay/buy. But not thoroughly. I kind of feel like throwing off the mantle, the saddle, whatever you want to call it. I kind of want to tell my students that sure, learn the dominant discourse, learn how to dress right, act right, talk right, write right, learn how to establish your credit and buy a house on credit, a car on credit, tonight's dinner on credit, but it isn't going to get you anywhere. Slave all day for money that you then turn around and spend every last penny of just to live, just to keep up appearances, just to make sure you have some semblance of a lifestyle so you are not a complete outcast in this late capitalist society. That's all fine and good, and someday you will wake up with debt up to your eye balls and you can't sell the house because the market's tanked and you are stuck working a job that you got just to make the money and you can't get out without ruining your credibility with the powers that be (but so what, you may just ruin your credibility anyway, and good for you).