La Capra focused his talk on Jonathan Littell’s novel The Kindly Ones, and Saul Friedlander’s combined works Nazi Germany and the Jews. Because I had not read either book, and because La Capra is a dense speaker even without his footnotes, I am certain that I did not understand the lecture in its entirety. However, having read up on both works and gone through my notes a couple of times, I do see themes and lines of argument that I find compelling in relation to the subject of trauma and the Holocaust.
Beginning with a critique of The Kindly Ones, La Capra notes the “radical ambiguity” presented in the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. As a fictional “autobiography” of “passive homosexual” SS officer Maxamillian Aeu, La Capra asserted that The Kindly Ones could have taken a better look into perpetrator motivation. Part of Littell’s aim, La Capra said, was to cause the reader to identify with Aeu as a perpetrator.
Likening Littell’s literary ambiguity to Primo Levi’s “grey zone,” La Capra pointed out that in many cases, historical documentation is not the way to illuminate questions about the Holocaust. Poorly paraphrased, La Capra stated that historical documentation taken to excess darkens the darkness surrounding questions about the genocide, and that in many cases the more one knows, the more that darkness becomes impenetrable. La Capra suggested that Littell have taken more of an inquiry into Himmler’s closing speech to the SS generals, which he pointed to as the most intimate look into the perpetrator motivation in the Holocaust.
La Capra used the second part of his talk to discuss Saul Friedlander’s work around victims, trauma, and posttrauma. Discussing Friedlander’s concept of “redemptive anti-Semitism,” La Capra situated the Nazis’ hatred in a narrative that posits all history as related to the Jews as a negative force, with the idea that their extermination will eradicate that force.
Interestingly, La Capra pointed to Friedlander’s use of accessible language as a useful tool in evoking sentiments of disbelief in the reader, thus facilitating her identification with the victim. In the face of such horror, La Capra said, there is no point in using exaggerated language – the role of the inexplicable and the excessive are already clear in the story of the Holocaust.
La Capra critiques Friedlander, however, for failing to make use of oral testimony and video archives despite his stated concern for and focus on the voice. La Capra points out that there are many aspects of testimony that are not verbal – the pause, the sign, the emotional breakdown – that are invaluable literary and historical resources in the study of trauma. Further, Friedlander’s failure to address Palestine in a discussion of memory and its aftermath is a real shortcoming La Capra points to in his work on the Holocaust.
Closing his speech with these critiques of Friedlander’s work, La Capra calls for Friedlander’s concept of “redemptive anti-Semitism” to be situated in terms of a mood of excess surrounding the Nazi party. Emphasizing a “carnivalesque glee,” the quasi-divine leader, and the idea of purification and regimentation of a community through the extermination of outsiders, La Capra effectively commented on the environment of transgressive excess characterizing the period. However, as the talk came to a close I felt he could have said more about what that excess meant, especially in the context of current affairs. His nod to Palestine was compelling, but truncated, lacking any real accompanying commentary about what Friedlander’s focus on Palestine might look like, or even his own.
I have been limited in the past by a real inability to understand what La Capra is saying. He made a funny comment in his talk, that this particular lecture did need to be footnoted before it could be published. I think because I had not read the works he referred to, I was limited in my complete comprehension of the talk, but what I was able to understand I found to be very interesting. La Capra’s overall point was that more personalization needs to be done when looking into the Holocaust, to avoid looking at the period as a contained era of illegible horror. By putting the effort in to read the horror, and personalize both the victims and the perpetrator, a useful process of identification can begin to take place. What I would like La Capra to build on are the outlets for that identification – what would that project bring to contemporary historical studies, and specifically to the academy of Holocaust interpretation?
Friday, November 5, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Proposed Cuts: an email
Professor H.,
I'm looking through our updated syllabus in hopes of figuring out where/how to cut Caruth (I think I might decide we shouldn't cut anything -- is this ok??). Reading back through her introduction, it is clear to me that we should have covered our little bits that we're including of Pleasure Principle before we come to Caruth, because she refers to it a lot. So I looked at the syllabus and I don't think we even have a spot in there for the Pleasure Principle terms!
We decided that the Pleasure Principle terms should be the Death Instinct and the Pleasure Principle, however I think adding the compulsion to repeat would be appropriate and helpful also. So with those three terms assigned, we have about 13 pages, copied into Word, from LaPlanche. This is really not very much to read. I was thinking maybe we could just put those couple of terms on the syllabus, or else hand it out as a packet the first day, and tell students that they should read it by week 3 in order to fully grasp Caruth. Alternatively we could just put it on MyCourses, although I think that it's likely that if we hand it out the first day, students will read it right after they shop the class and it will help them decide that our class is really interesting and that they should take it.
So on to Caruth. We have assigned in total 52 pages of Caruth. The pages are small, with not that much text on them. I really feel that we could assign all of it, although when I look at the week to which we have assigned it - 2 chapters of Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, assigned on the same day as one Primo Levi chapter, I feel less sure about that. So maybe we could cut chapter 5, "Traumatic Awakenings," because it works with Lacan and Dreams, two subjects that I think can (should?) be avoided in the context of our course. That cuts that page count down to 40.
And finally for this email, Levi. In my blog I suggested that we make everything after chapter 5 optional. That leaves us assigning around 109 pages (including the preface) of this book, if we consider that the students will have already read the chapter on Shame. So I think we should assign either chapters 1-5 excluding chapter 3 (Shame), or that, plus chapter 7 (Stereotypes) which deals with the questions of why concentration camp prisoners did not rebel or try to escape. I don't think this chapter is necessary, however, if you feel I have cut too much we can definitely add it. That would bump the page count up to 126.
I'm going to crosspost this email in my blog because it includes a lot of speculative thinking. I'm going to tackle cutting Savage tomorrow and this afternoon. La Capra still needs work (OBVIOUSLY!!) so I will bring my ideas and beg your input on Wednesday.
Excuse the long email. I bolded the subjects of the paragraphs for ease in browsing.
Hope you had a great weekend!!
-s
I'm looking through our updated syllabus in hopes of figuring out where/how to cut Caruth (I think I might decide we shouldn't cut anything -- is this ok??). Reading back through her introduction, it is clear to me that we should have covered our little bits that we're including of Pleasure Principle before we come to Caruth, because she refers to it a lot. So I looked at the syllabus and I don't think we even have a spot in there for the Pleasure Principle terms!
We decided that the Pleasure Principle terms should be the Death Instinct and the Pleasure Principle, however I think adding the compulsion to repeat would be appropriate and helpful also. So with those three terms assigned, we have about 13 pages, copied into Word, from LaPlanche. This is really not very much to read. I was thinking maybe we could just put those couple of terms on the syllabus, or else hand it out as a packet the first day, and tell students that they should read it by week 3 in order to fully grasp Caruth. Alternatively we could just put it on MyCourses, although I think that it's likely that if we hand it out the first day, students will read it right after they shop the class and it will help them decide that our class is really interesting and that they should take it.
So on to Caruth. We have assigned in total 52 pages of Caruth. The pages are small, with not that much text on them. I really feel that we could assign all of it, although when I look at the week to which we have assigned it - 2 chapters of Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, assigned on the same day as one Primo Levi chapter, I feel less sure about that. So maybe we could cut chapter 5, "Traumatic Awakenings," because it works with Lacan and Dreams, two subjects that I think can (should?) be avoided in the context of our course. That cuts that page count down to 40.
And finally for this email, Levi. In my blog I suggested that we make everything after chapter 5 optional. That leaves us assigning around 109 pages (including the preface) of this book, if we consider that the students will have already read the chapter on Shame. So I think we should assign either chapters 1-5 excluding chapter 3 (Shame), or that, plus chapter 7 (Stereotypes) which deals with the questions of why concentration camp prisoners did not rebel or try to escape. I don't think this chapter is necessary, however, if you feel I have cut too much we can definitely add it. That would bump the page count up to 126.
I'm going to crosspost this email in my blog because it includes a lot of speculative thinking. I'm going to tackle cutting Savage tomorrow and this afternoon. La Capra still needs work (OBVIOUSLY!!) so I will bring my ideas and beg your input on Wednesday.
Excuse the long email. I bolded the subjects of the paragraphs for ease in browsing.
Hope you had a great weekend!!
-s
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Historical Text as a Literary Artifact
Hayden White
This is a really interesting article about the connections between history and literature. It is also very dense, and does not deal directly with shame, trauma, or the events covered in the course. I will go through a couple of the article's main points, then speak to its place within Trauma and the Shame of the Unspeakable.
Beginning by exploring various philosophers' analyses of the historical narrative, including Northrop Frye, R.G. Collingwood, and Claude Levi-Strauss. Through a rather repetitive style, White stresses that while history is traditionally thought of as a representation of true facts, as opposed to fictional literature, it is in fact also a constructed narrative.
Historians, White writes, work to fit history into a number of pre-existing plot paradigms, highlighting some facts while suppressing others to create a narrative that is, for example, romantic, or tragic. There is, White writes, no event that is intrinsically tragic, in keeping with the similar claim about trauma that is a theme in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity.
This process is called "emplotment," according to White. This name is easy to understand - it is a process of assigning a plot to a chronicle, or series of events on a time line.
At one point, White makes the very interesting comparison from this process of historical emplotment to the work of psychotherapy. In psychotherapy, the afflicted patient has "overemplotted" their life events, causing them to obsess over or repress them. It is the job of the therapist to guide the patient towards reemplotting these events, changing their meaning and significance to better support the patient's wellbeing.
Going into a more dense discussion of mimesis on historical narrative, White points out that the historical narrative is not just a reproduction of events, but it is also a set of symbols that allows us to consume the history and find the icon of those symbols in our literary tradition.
I would recommend "The Historical Text as a Literary Artifact" be assigned as reccommended reading, but also that we are sure to discuss the main points in class or in section (I could do that, I took EXTENSIVE notes) because White's points are not referred to or explained in any other reading for the course.
I think that especially as an American Civilization class, a discussion of the connections, indeed the bridge between history and literature is really important. Especially because of our focus on trauma, a place where history and literature converge and facts become confused and difficult to navigate, White's claim that "there is an element of the historical in all poetry, [and] there is an element of poetry in every historical account of the world" is especially important to keep in mind.
That said, the reading is repetitive and difficult to get through. I think that if it was assigned as a required reading, it would take a lot of a 50-minute class period to really work through all the questions that would arise from it.
This is a really interesting article about the connections between history and literature. It is also very dense, and does not deal directly with shame, trauma, or the events covered in the course. I will go through a couple of the article's main points, then speak to its place within Trauma and the Shame of the Unspeakable.
Beginning by exploring various philosophers' analyses of the historical narrative, including Northrop Frye, R.G. Collingwood, and Claude Levi-Strauss. Through a rather repetitive style, White stresses that while history is traditionally thought of as a representation of true facts, as opposed to fictional literature, it is in fact also a constructed narrative.
Historians, White writes, work to fit history into a number of pre-existing plot paradigms, highlighting some facts while suppressing others to create a narrative that is, for example, romantic, or tragic. There is, White writes, no event that is intrinsically tragic, in keeping with the similar claim about trauma that is a theme in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity.
This process is called "emplotment," according to White. This name is easy to understand - it is a process of assigning a plot to a chronicle, or series of events on a time line.
At one point, White makes the very interesting comparison from this process of historical emplotment to the work of psychotherapy. In psychotherapy, the afflicted patient has "overemplotted" their life events, causing them to obsess over or repress them. It is the job of the therapist to guide the patient towards reemplotting these events, changing their meaning and significance to better support the patient's wellbeing.
Going into a more dense discussion of mimesis on historical narrative, White points out that the historical narrative is not just a reproduction of events, but it is also a set of symbols that allows us to consume the history and find the icon of those symbols in our literary tradition.
I would recommend "The Historical Text as a Literary Artifact" be assigned as reccommended reading, but also that we are sure to discuss the main points in class or in section (I could do that, I took EXTENSIVE notes) because White's points are not referred to or explained in any other reading for the course.
I think that especially as an American Civilization class, a discussion of the connections, indeed the bridge between history and literature is really important. Especially because of our focus on trauma, a place where history and literature converge and facts become confused and difficult to navigate, White's claim that "there is an element of the historical in all poetry, [and] there is an element of poetry in every historical account of the world" is especially important to keep in mind.
That said, the reading is repetitive and difficult to get through. I think that if it was assigned as a required reading, it would take a lot of a 50-minute class period to really work through all the questions that would arise from it.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Justice from the Victim's Perspective
Judith Herman
This piece is based on a set of interviews with 22 people, mostly victims but some witnesses, of sexual assault. In it, Herman explores the role of our legal system in sexual assault proceedings, pointing to the dissatisfaction that most victims interviewed expressed about their experience with the justice system.
Beyond her discussion of the legal system, Herman explores alternatives to the system, taking into account existing paradigms such as restorative justice, as well as the complicated priorities of victims themselves.
Herman focuses on the ways in which victims are shamed in any case of sexual assault. Pointing out the strength of power dynamics, she reminds readers that even in a court of law the tendency is for the victim to have to explain herself and prove the guilt of her assaulter, while in many cases that person is protected by her family and/or community. In other words, the victim is from the outset ostracized, despite her experience of trauma that necessitates support from her community.
Throughout her exploration of two justice paradigms, redemptive and restorative justice, Herman makes the interesting point that both systems are directed at the offenders - the first focuses on punishing them, while the second on reintegrating them. Because neither focuses on the wants of the victim, neither system truly functions to redeem the victim. Indeed, many victims in the study, instead of expressing a desire to see their offender locked up, simply want him to acknowledge his crime, and thus to experience the pervasive shame felt by victims of sexual assault. Further, they hope for the perpetrator's privileged place in the community to be taken from him, both as a symbolic punishment and as a preventative measure against further abuse.
This article was really interesting, especially when read in conversation with the documents I found at FHL, which are heavily influenced by a religious understanding of the goodness of forgiving. Herman argues that expecting a victim to forgive is not necessarily a useful or fair idea. Rather, she posits it as something to make society comfortable - once the victim has forgiven the perpetrator, society feels that it has closure, but who benefits from this closure, and the ultimate forgetting that it can lead to?
I unequivocally feel that this article should be added to the syllabus. It has really made me question the idea of restorative justice with which, if you look at my previous post, I was feeling rather enamored yesterday. I think it fits into the alternatives section, which, the more I think about, I think should be given some time for discussion and thought in this course. I think that after all of the really challenging sections of this course, both academically and emotionally, a time to really engage with debate over how to improve and change the system would be empowering and uplifting. I also feel that a series of shorter articles outlining firm positions (the Quaker piece on restorative justice, versus this article, for example) will allow for engagement that really includes students' own thinking and opinions.
This piece is based on a set of interviews with 22 people, mostly victims but some witnesses, of sexual assault. In it, Herman explores the role of our legal system in sexual assault proceedings, pointing to the dissatisfaction that most victims interviewed expressed about their experience with the justice system.
Beyond her discussion of the legal system, Herman explores alternatives to the system, taking into account existing paradigms such as restorative justice, as well as the complicated priorities of victims themselves.
Herman focuses on the ways in which victims are shamed in any case of sexual assault. Pointing out the strength of power dynamics, she reminds readers that even in a court of law the tendency is for the victim to have to explain herself and prove the guilt of her assaulter, while in many cases that person is protected by her family and/or community. In other words, the victim is from the outset ostracized, despite her experience of trauma that necessitates support from her community.
Throughout her exploration of two justice paradigms, redemptive and restorative justice, Herman makes the interesting point that both systems are directed at the offenders - the first focuses on punishing them, while the second on reintegrating them. Because neither focuses on the wants of the victim, neither system truly functions to redeem the victim. Indeed, many victims in the study, instead of expressing a desire to see their offender locked up, simply want him to acknowledge his crime, and thus to experience the pervasive shame felt by victims of sexual assault. Further, they hope for the perpetrator's privileged place in the community to be taken from him, both as a symbolic punishment and as a preventative measure against further abuse.
This article was really interesting, especially when read in conversation with the documents I found at FHL, which are heavily influenced by a religious understanding of the goodness of forgiving. Herman argues that expecting a victim to forgive is not necessarily a useful or fair idea. Rather, she posits it as something to make society comfortable - once the victim has forgiven the perpetrator, society feels that it has closure, but who benefits from this closure, and the ultimate forgetting that it can lead to?
I unequivocally feel that this article should be added to the syllabus. It has really made me question the idea of restorative justice with which, if you look at my previous post, I was feeling rather enamored yesterday. I think it fits into the alternatives section, which, the more I think about, I think should be given some time for discussion and thought in this course. I think that after all of the really challenging sections of this course, both academically and emotionally, a time to really engage with debate over how to improve and change the system would be empowering and uplifting. I also feel that a series of shorter articles outlining firm positions (the Quaker piece on restorative justice, versus this article, for example) will allow for engagement that really includes students' own thinking and opinions.
Monday, August 2, 2010
NYYM: Incest Survivors Resource Network International documents
We have three documents from the Incest Survivor's Resource Network: one introduction to the group that presumably preceded a talk given by one of the network's representatives, one such talk requesting meeting space from a community college, and, most interestingly, a letter from an inmate to the network, asking if it accepts incest perpetrators who were also victims themselves.
Founded in 1983, the focus of the network is to break the generational cycle of incest. Through a victim sponsorship program, the network, which is entirely staffed by incest survivors, hopes to spread awareness of incest as a pervasive phenomenon in communities.
Obviously these documents fit into the already existing section on childhood sexual assault.
Founded in 1983, the focus of the network is to break the generational cycle of incest. Through a victim sponsorship program, the network, which is entirely staffed by incest survivors, hopes to spread awareness of incest as a pervasive phenomenon in communities.
Obviously these documents fit into the already existing section on childhood sexual assault.
Other New York Yearly Meeting prison transition projects
We have a couple of documents from the New York Yearly Meeting detailing various inmate transition projects. The two I will discuss in this post are the Home Free Project, founded in 1979, and two assistance funds meant to loan or grant money to aid prisoners both incarcerated and recently released. These documents are from 1984. Obviously these two sets of sources fit into the previously discussed section on prison transitions that includes RECONSTRUCTION.
We have one mailing from the New York Yearly Meeting Prisons Committee detailing the Home Free Project, as well as an illustration detailing the goals of the project. It stemmed from a project of putting meetings for worship in prisons, and aims to then assist those prisoners active in the Quaker community during their incarceration.
Home Free is based in employment and education, as well as counseling inmates and their families. I think this program is particularly interesting because of its focus on Quakers or meeting participants. Other programs I have looked out do not have this specific focus, indeed, seem to be more open and willing to give support regardless of religion. However, I think with its Quaker focus Home Free was probably able to more sharply direct its aid, and perhaps to attract its previous charges to work within the organization.
The two assistance funds have a similarly Quaker slant, specifying that recipients of aid must at least have been in contact with a reputable Friend who will vouch for them. While this is certainly pragmatic, it does not seem in keeping with some of the blanket idealism expressed in other sources, such as the paper on Restorative Justice. I find this interesting.
What I think is most useful to take away from the two documents on assistance funds is the idea of solidarity over charity. In other words, the drafters of both documents are careful to point out that this aid is given in the hopes of a better community and a better world, and that that is the duty of those with privilege. They do not pass judgement in the documents for the crimes committed, and in doing work to reduce a hierarchy that obviously exists between a religious donor and an ex-inmate recipient.
We have one mailing from the New York Yearly Meeting Prisons Committee detailing the Home Free Project, as well as an illustration detailing the goals of the project. It stemmed from a project of putting meetings for worship in prisons, and aims to then assist those prisoners active in the Quaker community during their incarceration.
Home Free is based in employment and education, as well as counseling inmates and their families. I think this program is particularly interesting because of its focus on Quakers or meeting participants. Other programs I have looked out do not have this specific focus, indeed, seem to be more open and willing to give support regardless of religion. However, I think with its Quaker focus Home Free was probably able to more sharply direct its aid, and perhaps to attract its previous charges to work within the organization.
The two assistance funds have a similarly Quaker slant, specifying that recipients of aid must at least have been in contact with a reputable Friend who will vouch for them. While this is certainly pragmatic, it does not seem in keeping with some of the blanket idealism expressed in other sources, such as the paper on Restorative Justice. I find this interesting.
What I think is most useful to take away from the two documents on assistance funds is the idea of solidarity over charity. In other words, the drafters of both documents are careful to point out that this aid is given in the hopes of a better community and a better world, and that that is the duty of those with privilege. They do not pass judgement in the documents for the crimes committed, and in doing work to reduce a hierarchy that obviously exists between a religious donor and an ex-inmate recipient.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
PYM: Child Abuse at Taxpayers' Expense: V. Are There Other Ways?
This is a segment from a collaborative work by the Friends Suburban Project, the Pennsylvania Program for Woman and Girl Offenders, and Youth Advocates, Inc., supported by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, published in 1974.
The entire piece, entitled "Child Abuse at Taxpayers' Expense: A Citizen's Report on Training Schools in Southeastern Pennsylvania," attacks the juvenile delinquency program in southeastern PA, focusing especially on the fact that the rate of incarceration of juveniles was at the time increasing in PA. It bases its information on what seems to be a hearing, or a series of hearings, including lengthy segments of transcribed testimony from people who had been in "training schools" or "institutions," in addition to various other critics.
The chapter self-consciously points out that while throughout the rest of the piece it is obvious that the institution system is flawed and needs to be changed, actual imagined alternatives are still limited in their scope and variety.
For example, many people take foe granted that juvenile rehabilitation needs to occur in a residential setting, a fact which the anonymous narrator states with subtle criticism. Group homes, or homes for delinquents in their own community, where they would live together under the eye of a guiding adult (in the example given, this person is a priest), are praised. However, they already exist and do not serve as the innovative the authors seek.
One significant roadblock to group homes is rejection from the community. In many cases a community objects to the placement of a house full of juvenile delinquents on their doorstep. The narrators, and people quoted in the chapter, advocate for a kind of political force in this regard, pointing out that while no community is going to be excited at this prospect, sending delinquents away and ignoring their existence is beneficial neither to the delinquents nor the community itself, which is framed in this argument as "taking the easy way out," to a degree.
I think this is a particularly interesting conundrum, especially given that at no point do the writers explicitly state where these homes would exist. How beneficial is reintroducing delinquent minors into a community that rejects them? How could this hurt an already suffering community?
Other suggestions in this chapter are reimbursement programs, directed either at counties who keep minors out of institutions, or at families who take delinquent minors back into their homes. I feel that this could easily lead to a fraudulent use of funds intended to help the minors, both at an individual and bureaucratic level.
While I think this paper carries a patronizing tone, I also think it serves as a thoughtful look into alternatives, to fit in the section discussed in the previous post.
The entire piece, entitled "Child Abuse at Taxpayers' Expense: A Citizen's Report on Training Schools in Southeastern Pennsylvania," attacks the juvenile delinquency program in southeastern PA, focusing especially on the fact that the rate of incarceration of juveniles was at the time increasing in PA. It bases its information on what seems to be a hearing, or a series of hearings, including lengthy segments of transcribed testimony from people who had been in "training schools" or "institutions," in addition to various other critics.
The chapter self-consciously points out that while throughout the rest of the piece it is obvious that the institution system is flawed and needs to be changed, actual imagined alternatives are still limited in their scope and variety.
For example, many people take foe granted that juvenile rehabilitation needs to occur in a residential setting, a fact which the anonymous narrator states with subtle criticism. Group homes, or homes for delinquents in their own community, where they would live together under the eye of a guiding adult (in the example given, this person is a priest), are praised. However, they already exist and do not serve as the innovative the authors seek.
One significant roadblock to group homes is rejection from the community. In many cases a community objects to the placement of a house full of juvenile delinquents on their doorstep. The narrators, and people quoted in the chapter, advocate for a kind of political force in this regard, pointing out that while no community is going to be excited at this prospect, sending delinquents away and ignoring their existence is beneficial neither to the delinquents nor the community itself, which is framed in this argument as "taking the easy way out," to a degree.
I think this is a particularly interesting conundrum, especially given that at no point do the writers explicitly state where these homes would exist. How beneficial is reintroducing delinquent minors into a community that rejects them? How could this hurt an already suffering community?
Other suggestions in this chapter are reimbursement programs, directed either at counties who keep minors out of institutions, or at families who take delinquent minors back into their homes. I feel that this could easily lead to a fraudulent use of funds intended to help the minors, both at an individual and bureaucratic level.
While I think this paper carries a patronizing tone, I also think it serves as a thoughtful look into alternatives, to fit in the section discussed in the previous post.
New York Yearly Meeting Committee for Criminal Justice: Testimony on Restorative Justice
This position paper is frames as a testimony - as such it states that the writers feel compelled by the Holy Spirit to testify to the strength of restorative justice, as opposed to the current system of retributive justice.
The writers accept that retributive justice, with its focus on punishment, is attractive. When a person has been wronged it is natural for them to feel rage and anger, and desire to punish the offender. Further, they accept that many times, punishment is seen as a last resort, a method to turn to when other negotiation has failed. However, they urge their audience to learn "to live without violence."
Restorative justice frames offenses as conflict that occurs between two individuals, however, the agents involved are the victim, the offender, and also society. The responsibility of the system, then, is to heal the wounds inflicted on each of these agents by the offense. The Committee for Criminal Justice thus goes through their paper exploring, one by one, the role each of these agents play in a the "lengthy process of healing" that is restorative justice.
The offender is responsible for acknowledging their own responsibility, making some form of restitution, expressing regret, removing the causes in her life for crime, and finally, giving evidence of improvement.
The victim must examine her feelings regarding the event, express these feelings through her support network, especially remembering that feelings are not actions, and thus cannot be evil or harmful, reject retributive action, cooperate in the restorative justice process, and finally, to "decide not to act on anger."
The writers acknowledge that some victims, as well as some offenders, may choose not to participate in the process. The system must make room for these people, offering them continued support for their healing.
As such, society too has a role to play in the process. Primarily, it must protect the victim and offender from further harm or acts of vengeance. Also, it must support the restorative justice process, which means footing the bill and otherwise creating an environment in which it can occur.
The paper closes with a strong claim: that "THERE IS NO BENEFIT OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM OF JUSTICE WHICH IS NOT ALSO A BENIFIT OF A NON-PUNITIVE, RESTORATIVE SYSTEM" (caps from original). Emphasizing that our present system is expensive and does little to actually reduce crime, the writers accept that a change in system will be difficult, even costly, however, its ultimate benefits will serve as a vast improvement to society.
As we discussed, this would fit really nicely into a section on alternative justice methods, specifically the couple of Quaker ones I found at FHL. The more I read these documents, the more I think maybe they would fit in at the beginning of the course - an interesting framework from which to look at the case studies, which would come later.
We had also talked about putting one of the case studies at the beginning of the course. I don't know how those two would work together. I am going to be looking at the syllabus after I finish going through the FHL documents and the last dredges of the syllabus that I have been putting off. I'm not sure if that will happen before our Wednesday meeting (at noon! just a reminder for myself) but we'll see.
The writers accept that retributive justice, with its focus on punishment, is attractive. When a person has been wronged it is natural for them to feel rage and anger, and desire to punish the offender. Further, they accept that many times, punishment is seen as a last resort, a method to turn to when other negotiation has failed. However, they urge their audience to learn "to live without violence."
Restorative justice frames offenses as conflict that occurs between two individuals, however, the agents involved are the victim, the offender, and also society. The responsibility of the system, then, is to heal the wounds inflicted on each of these agents by the offense. The Committee for Criminal Justice thus goes through their paper exploring, one by one, the role each of these agents play in a the "lengthy process of healing" that is restorative justice.
The offender is responsible for acknowledging their own responsibility, making some form of restitution, expressing regret, removing the causes in her life for crime, and finally, giving evidence of improvement.
The victim must examine her feelings regarding the event, express these feelings through her support network, especially remembering that feelings are not actions, and thus cannot be evil or harmful, reject retributive action, cooperate in the restorative justice process, and finally, to "decide not to act on anger."
The writers acknowledge that some victims, as well as some offenders, may choose not to participate in the process. The system must make room for these people, offering them continued support for their healing.
As such, society too has a role to play in the process. Primarily, it must protect the victim and offender from further harm or acts of vengeance. Also, it must support the restorative justice process, which means footing the bill and otherwise creating an environment in which it can occur.
The paper closes with a strong claim: that "THERE IS NO BENEFIT OF OUR PRESENT SYSTEM OF JUSTICE WHICH IS NOT ALSO A BENIFIT OF A NON-PUNITIVE, RESTORATIVE SYSTEM" (caps from original). Emphasizing that our present system is expensive and does little to actually reduce crime, the writers accept that a change in system will be difficult, even costly, however, its ultimate benefits will serve as a vast improvement to society.
As we discussed, this would fit really nicely into a section on alternative justice methods, specifically the couple of Quaker ones I found at FHL. The more I read these documents, the more I think maybe they would fit in at the beginning of the course - an interesting framework from which to look at the case studies, which would come later.
We had also talked about putting one of the case studies at the beginning of the course. I don't know how those two would work together. I am going to be looking at the syllabus after I finish going through the FHL documents and the last dredges of the syllabus that I have been putting off. I'm not sure if that will happen before our Wednesday meeting (at noon! just a reminder for myself) but we'll see.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Committee on Criminal Justice: RECONSTRUCTION
This paper outlines the PYM Committee on Criminal Justice plan for a prisoner transition program called RECONSTRUCTION. Directed at black men in their twenties paroled after simple assault, aggravated assault, and homicide sentences, the program focuses on communication through listening, health, education, and employment.
Outlining method, goals, necessary staff, and a budget, the plan for RECONSTRUCTION most prominently emphasizes its Afrocentric focus, arguing that a heritage-based focus will provide participants with a sense of community and an educational goal. Again and again, the paper highlights that listening as a form of communication will be an overwhelming focus of the program. Through this paradigm, the Committee on Criminal Justice envisions channeling these communication skills into methods of rage control, etc.
RECONSTRUCTION, as envisioned in this paper, aims to reintegrate its participants into the program itself, pointing out that the most effective staff for the program would consist of ex-offenders, mentoring recently paroled individuals in ways to conquer a legacy of crime and punishment.
I found the focus on health to be particularly interesting. Incorporating healthy diet and exercise into a daily ritual that also includes reflection, education, and job training seems to me to be a really effective method of lasting improvement.
I think that, with its emphasis on communication and listening, RECONSTRUCTION has an unstated focus on the power of bearing witness. This is how I think we should frame it. As such, maybe it would fit in with the section on childhood sexual abuse, especially given that it, as well as most of the material I found at FHL, is relatively recent. However, it is not dated!!
Outlining method, goals, necessary staff, and a budget, the plan for RECONSTRUCTION most prominently emphasizes its Afrocentric focus, arguing that a heritage-based focus will provide participants with a sense of community and an educational goal. Again and again, the paper highlights that listening as a form of communication will be an overwhelming focus of the program. Through this paradigm, the Committee on Criminal Justice envisions channeling these communication skills into methods of rage control, etc.
RECONSTRUCTION, as envisioned in this paper, aims to reintegrate its participants into the program itself, pointing out that the most effective staff for the program would consist of ex-offenders, mentoring recently paroled individuals in ways to conquer a legacy of crime and punishment.
I found the focus on health to be particularly interesting. Incorporating healthy diet and exercise into a daily ritual that also includes reflection, education, and job training seems to me to be a really effective method of lasting improvement.
I think that, with its emphasis on communication and listening, RECONSTRUCTION has an unstated focus on the power of bearing witness. This is how I think we should frame it. As such, maybe it would fit in with the section on childhood sexual abuse, especially given that it, as well as most of the material I found at FHL, is relatively recent. However, it is not dated!!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Witness for Peace: HOTLINE
The Witness for Peace Hotline is a newsletter, released weekly, that lists the tragedies occurring in Nicaragua and later around Central America. In simple and clear prose, the one- to two-page newsletters list attacks, injuries, kidnappings, deaths, etc., and comments on who from the organization was there or heard about and reported on the events. Rarely, it includes commentary, asking readers to consider the place of US aid in these events, and occasionally even imploring them to contact their representatives and demand a change in policy.
Witness for Peace, as is evident from the name and the content of the Hotline newsletters, is committed to bearing witness to atrocities that the US government had interest in keeping quiet. This is a very useful resource that I have found, however, I wish I had access to the group members' personal papers, because I want to know how witnessing these events affected the people personally. In other words, were these events traumatic for the witnesses?
I really like testimonial literature. But what was the effect of this particular dry, regimented testimony, directed at a US audience? I want to know more about this. I also want access to a mission statement - their work is obviously involved with bearing witness, but what is the goal? I have access, in addition to the hotline transcripts, to the WFP newsletter, however, the archive does not have the earliest copies of the newsletter where perhaps the goals of the organization could have been stated.
**It turns out that I was confused of the actual format of the WFP hotline. Actually, it is a recorded message that interested people could call and listen to, updated weekly. Either way, it is accessible in written form, however, it should not be called a "newsletter" (as it is at the beginning of this post).
Would a section about the Nicaragua contra affair be applicable to the course? Or a section on testimony? I know we had talked about Anne Frank and her place within Holocaust literature, and that is also spoken to in The Texture of Memory. Maybe I'm just getting excited about all the material I'm finding...
Witness for Peace, as is evident from the name and the content of the Hotline newsletters, is committed to bearing witness to atrocities that the US government had interest in keeping quiet. This is a very useful resource that I have found, however, I wish I had access to the group members' personal papers, because I want to know how witnessing these events affected the people personally. In other words, were these events traumatic for the witnesses?
I really like testimonial literature. But what was the effect of this particular dry, regimented testimony, directed at a US audience? I want to know more about this. I also want access to a mission statement - their work is obviously involved with bearing witness, but what is the goal? I have access, in addition to the hotline transcripts, to the WFP newsletter, however, the archive does not have the earliest copies of the newsletter where perhaps the goals of the organization could have been stated.
**It turns out that I was confused of the actual format of the WFP hotline. Actually, it is a recorded message that interested people could call and listen to, updated weekly. Either way, it is accessible in written form, however, it should not be called a "newsletter" (as it is at the beginning of this post).
Would a section about the Nicaragua contra affair be applicable to the course? Or a section on testimony? I know we had talked about Anne Frank and her place within Holocaust literature, and that is also spoken to in The Texture of Memory. Maybe I'm just getting excited about all the material I'm finding...
Swarthmore College update
*An email to Professor Haviland about my research in the Friends Historical Library and the Swarthmore College Peace Collection
Dear Professor Haviland-
I want to update you about how everything is going here in the archive: everything is going great!!
I was in Friends Historical Library all day yesterday looking at sources related to Restorative Justice - I found a position paper written by members of the New York Yearly Meeting Prison Committee that I think would be a great reading to assign to the class, along with a lot of newsletters from that committee. I also made copies of newsletters from the Quaker Project on Community Conflict, and the New York Yearly Meeting's Incest Committee. I got a lot of raw material that I still need to process once I'm up in Providence, but the library was great about letting me make copies and even take some documents of which they had duplicates, which I was really excited about.
Today I am in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection (same library, one floor down) looking at the periodicals for a program called Witness for Peace, which did work in the 1980s and 1990s around bearing witness to the atrocities in Nicaragua. Their aim, from what I've read, seems to be to bring details of the Contras' actions to a wide American audience, for example, their "hotline" is a weekly update of Contra attacks, delineated simply and accessibly. I am going to get copies of some good examples from the hotline.
A lot of the material that the librarians are suggesting to me when I try to explain our project deals with antiwar work, specifically groups that worked for mediation between governments. To me, this does not seem like something that applies to our work, other than possibly speaking to the memorials section. I don't think that direction is a good use of my limited time here.
I hope this sounds all good to you, and that you're having a nice week up in Providence. Is it still raining? The drive down to Philadelphia was absurd; it was raining so much I felt like I only had safe visibility for driving about 60% of the time! But we made it, no accidents this time, what a relief.
Please let me know when you would like to meet - you had said Wednesday before, which absolutely works. Would you be able to meet around 1 or 2? Wednesday is my 21st birthday so I feel like I might be out late the night before!
Best,
Sopheya
Dear Professor Haviland-
I want to update you about how everything is going here in the archive: everything is going great!!
I was in Friends Historical Library all day yesterday looking at sources related to Restorative Justice - I found a position paper written by members of the New York Yearly Meeting Prison Committee that I think would be a great reading to assign to the class, along with a lot of newsletters from that committee. I also made copies of newsletters from the Quaker Project on Community Conflict, and the New York Yearly Meeting's Incest Committee. I got a lot of raw material that I still need to process once I'm up in Providence, but the library was great about letting me make copies and even take some documents of which they had duplicates, which I was really excited about.
Today I am in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection (same library, one floor down) looking at the periodicals for a program called Witness for Peace, which did work in the 1980s and 1990s around bearing witness to the atrocities in Nicaragua. Their aim, from what I've read, seems to be to bring details of the Contras' actions to a wide American audience, for example, their "hotline" is a weekly update of Contra attacks, delineated simply and accessibly. I am going to get copies of some good examples from the hotline.
A lot of the material that the librarians are suggesting to me when I try to explain our project deals with antiwar work, specifically groups that worked for mediation between governments. To me, this does not seem like something that applies to our work, other than possibly speaking to the memorials section. I don't think that direction is a good use of my limited time here.
I hope this sounds all good to you, and that you're having a nice week up in Providence. Is it still raining? The drive down to Philadelphia was absurd; it was raining so much I felt like I only had safe visibility for driving about 60% of the time! But we made it, no accidents this time, what a relief.
Please let me know when you would like to meet - you had said Wednesday before, which absolutely works. Would you be able to meet around 1 or 2? Wednesday is my 21st birthday so I feel like I might be out late the night before!
Best,
Sopheya
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Drowned and the Saved
Primo Levi
While I have already posted about Chapter 3 of this book, "Shame," I will do a quick overview of the other chapters in one post, as they were all assigned together. Following will be a reaction to the book as a whole.
Chapter 1
"The Memory of the Offense"
Although The Drowned and the Saved does have a preface, this first chapter functions almost as an introduction, with a discussion of memory of the Holocaust from the point of view of the victims, the perpetrators, and everyone else. At the close of the chapter, Levi apologizes for the great influence of memory on his book, calling it "drenched in memory." However, he continues, stating that while the book draws heavily from memory, the memories are true, useful, and should be taken as such.
This chapter is largely a philosophical discussion of memory as a concept, and the ways in which it is mutated based on who is remembering, and what the memory is. For example, he points to the justifications characteristic of Nazi memories - "I was forced to," "I was brainwashed," etc.
Significantly, Levi makes sure to emphasize the traumatic nature of memory - remembering a traumatic memory reinscribes the trauma, and the act of remembering is in itself traumatic.
Chapter 2
"The Gray Zone"
This chapter discusses the moral ambiguities that occurred out of necessity in the camp environment. Specifically, the "gray zone" refers to a state in which moral rectitude becomes impossible due to dire conditions, and as such feelings such as solidarity diminish in favor of pure survival.
The aim of this chapter seems to be to emphasize the ease at which moral ambiguity arises. Levi explores the intersections of destitution and power by using the examples of the camp kapos, prisoners who kept order with violence towards other prisoners, the "Special Squads" of prisoners charged with maintaining the crematoria, but rewarded with better clothing and nourishment, and Chaim Rumkowski, the president of the Lodz ghetto in Poland.
Many times in the chapter, he implores the reader to "forgive" those who acted in the gray zone, highlighting the dehumanizing nature of the Holocaust.
Chapter 4
"Communicating"
In this chapter, which highlights the language barriers in the Lagers as well as the language specific to them, Levi uses the example of communication to comment on human relationships within the camp.
The inability to understand German could be fatal in Auschwitz, the camp Levi was interred, because of the violence the SS guards used against the prisoners who did not immediately follow their commands, even if it was because they did not understand them. Further, the guards and even the prisoners developed a kind of German (called LTI) that was far cruder, full of curse words and referring to the prisoners with words that in traditional German would refer only to animals. Because he entered the camp speaking some German as a chemist, Levi writes that he had the "treasure of words."
Further, knowledge of Yiddish was a currency in the camp environment. As an Italian Jew, Levi did not know Yiddish, and there was a sort of hierarchy based on the knowledge of this traditionally Jewish tongue that from which Levi was initially rejected.
Closing his chapter on communication, Levi discusses how access to the news became a priority and a source of solidarity in the camp. Isolation from communication with and knowledge of the outside world were traumatic experiences for the prisoners.
Chapter 5
"Useless Violence"
In this chapter, Levi differentiates interestingly between "useless" and "useful" forms of violence. With extermination of the Jews as a Nazi aim, Levi says that the gassing and burning of the victims was useful, because it furthered their goal. However, actions like the mandatory military-style making of the prisoners' moldy camp beds, and the defilement of the homes of displaced Jews do not fall into this rational framework, and as such should be considered useless violences.
Again and again his book, Levi points to the totalitarian system as being responsible for the proliferation of this level of atrocity.
In this section Levi also discusses dignity. Despite the knowledge that the work they were doing was for the Nazi cause, the prisoners worked hard in order to preserve the dignity of a job well done.
Chapter 6
"The Intellectual in Auschwitz"
This chapter is based on a discussion of the philosopher Jean Améry, an intellectual who was also imprisoned in a concentration camp and eventually committed suicide. Levi discusses in this chapter the dynamics of being an intellectual, and further, a "believer" in the camps.
As an intellectual, Levi writes, he was unaccustomed to the manual labor and physical fighting so characteristic of the camps. Further, he writes that he was more humiliated by these, and by the camp in general, than the non-educated prisoners were. Finally, Levi says he lacked the sort of simple acceptance of a horrible situation that some of the working-class prisoners displayed.
However, Levi was granted privilege in the camp based on his knowledge of chemistry, indeed, it led to better rations and protection for him. Further, Levi writes that his memory of his life before was a valuable link to preserve his identity in the camps, even as he felt himself become more and more dehumanized.
Levi writes that those who were "believers" had an even stronger link to this identity-confirming memory function. Judaism, Zionism, and even Marxism, he writes, acted as guiding forces to many of the prisoners, allowing them to keep hoping for freedom.
Chapter 7
"Stereotypes"
Levi takes this discussion of identity into his next chapter, beginning this chapter on stereotypes with a discussion of the way imprisonment comes to define one's identity.
Levi writes that he is most frequently asked three questions when he discusses his imprisonment, and in this chapter, he responds to them.
The first question is, "Why did you not escape?" Levi responds that escape was nearly impossible, especially given the weakened state of the prisoners, and also, that once one had escaped the camp, they would be lost and friendless in enemy territory. Further, an escaped prisoner could put the whole camp at risk of the SS guards' rage and efforts to find the escaped.
The second question is, "Why did you not rebel?" Levi's answer mirrors that of before - everyone was too weak to rebel. However, he also writes that it would inevitably fail to lead to mass escape, which would be its goal, and that the camp environment was not a place to cultivate leaders. Extremely oppressed people, Levi writes, are usually led to rebellion by someone with the strength to lead.
The final question is, "Why did you not flee before?" Pragmatically, he writes that it was extremely hard to emigrate in Europe at the time, and that people were attached to their homelands. But more importantly, he writes, in a time of mounting nuclear power (the book was first published in 1988), why aren't people fleeing now?
Chapter 8
"Letters from Germans"
In his introduction to the German translation of Survival in Auschwitz, his famous memoir about his time at the camp, Levi tells his German readers that he still cannot understand them. In this chapter he places some of their responses, as well as his replies. This chapter goes in many directions, and while I thought it was useful, I do not know if it necessarily relates to the material we will be looking at in this course.
Having individually summarized all the chapters of this book, I want to relate it back to the course we are creating. I think that this book is too long and heavy for it to be assigned for one class period, even though it is clearly written. I think it is unlikely that anyone will read the whole book. I think perhaps after chapter 5, the rest of the book could be made optional, or encouraged reading.
While I have already posted about Chapter 3 of this book, "Shame," I will do a quick overview of the other chapters in one post, as they were all assigned together. Following will be a reaction to the book as a whole.
Chapter 1
"The Memory of the Offense"
Although The Drowned and the Saved does have a preface, this first chapter functions almost as an introduction, with a discussion of memory of the Holocaust from the point of view of the victims, the perpetrators, and everyone else. At the close of the chapter, Levi apologizes for the great influence of memory on his book, calling it "drenched in memory." However, he continues, stating that while the book draws heavily from memory, the memories are true, useful, and should be taken as such.
This chapter is largely a philosophical discussion of memory as a concept, and the ways in which it is mutated based on who is remembering, and what the memory is. For example, he points to the justifications characteristic of Nazi memories - "I was forced to," "I was brainwashed," etc.
Significantly, Levi makes sure to emphasize the traumatic nature of memory - remembering a traumatic memory reinscribes the trauma, and the act of remembering is in itself traumatic.
Chapter 2
"The Gray Zone"
This chapter discusses the moral ambiguities that occurred out of necessity in the camp environment. Specifically, the "gray zone" refers to a state in which moral rectitude becomes impossible due to dire conditions, and as such feelings such as solidarity diminish in favor of pure survival.
The aim of this chapter seems to be to emphasize the ease at which moral ambiguity arises. Levi explores the intersections of destitution and power by using the examples of the camp kapos, prisoners who kept order with violence towards other prisoners, the "Special Squads" of prisoners charged with maintaining the crematoria, but rewarded with better clothing and nourishment, and Chaim Rumkowski, the president of the Lodz ghetto in Poland.
Many times in the chapter, he implores the reader to "forgive" those who acted in the gray zone, highlighting the dehumanizing nature of the Holocaust.
Chapter 4
"Communicating"
In this chapter, which highlights the language barriers in the Lagers as well as the language specific to them, Levi uses the example of communication to comment on human relationships within the camp.
The inability to understand German could be fatal in Auschwitz, the camp Levi was interred, because of the violence the SS guards used against the prisoners who did not immediately follow their commands, even if it was because they did not understand them. Further, the guards and even the prisoners developed a kind of German (called LTI) that was far cruder, full of curse words and referring to the prisoners with words that in traditional German would refer only to animals. Because he entered the camp speaking some German as a chemist, Levi writes that he had the "treasure of words."
Further, knowledge of Yiddish was a currency in the camp environment. As an Italian Jew, Levi did not know Yiddish, and there was a sort of hierarchy based on the knowledge of this traditionally Jewish tongue that from which Levi was initially rejected.
Closing his chapter on communication, Levi discusses how access to the news became a priority and a source of solidarity in the camp. Isolation from communication with and knowledge of the outside world were traumatic experiences for the prisoners.
Chapter 5
"Useless Violence"
In this chapter, Levi differentiates interestingly between "useless" and "useful" forms of violence. With extermination of the Jews as a Nazi aim, Levi says that the gassing and burning of the victims was useful, because it furthered their goal. However, actions like the mandatory military-style making of the prisoners' moldy camp beds, and the defilement of the homes of displaced Jews do not fall into this rational framework, and as such should be considered useless violences.
Again and again his book, Levi points to the totalitarian system as being responsible for the proliferation of this level of atrocity.
In this section Levi also discusses dignity. Despite the knowledge that the work they were doing was for the Nazi cause, the prisoners worked hard in order to preserve the dignity of a job well done.
Chapter 6
"The Intellectual in Auschwitz"
This chapter is based on a discussion of the philosopher Jean Améry, an intellectual who was also imprisoned in a concentration camp and eventually committed suicide. Levi discusses in this chapter the dynamics of being an intellectual, and further, a "believer" in the camps.
As an intellectual, Levi writes, he was unaccustomed to the manual labor and physical fighting so characteristic of the camps. Further, he writes that he was more humiliated by these, and by the camp in general, than the non-educated prisoners were. Finally, Levi says he lacked the sort of simple acceptance of a horrible situation that some of the working-class prisoners displayed.
However, Levi was granted privilege in the camp based on his knowledge of chemistry, indeed, it led to better rations and protection for him. Further, Levi writes that his memory of his life before was a valuable link to preserve his identity in the camps, even as he felt himself become more and more dehumanized.
Levi writes that those who were "believers" had an even stronger link to this identity-confirming memory function. Judaism, Zionism, and even Marxism, he writes, acted as guiding forces to many of the prisoners, allowing them to keep hoping for freedom.
Chapter 7
"Stereotypes"
Levi takes this discussion of identity into his next chapter, beginning this chapter on stereotypes with a discussion of the way imprisonment comes to define one's identity.
Levi writes that he is most frequently asked three questions when he discusses his imprisonment, and in this chapter, he responds to them.
The first question is, "Why did you not escape?" Levi responds that escape was nearly impossible, especially given the weakened state of the prisoners, and also, that once one had escaped the camp, they would be lost and friendless in enemy territory. Further, an escaped prisoner could put the whole camp at risk of the SS guards' rage and efforts to find the escaped.
The second question is, "Why did you not rebel?" Levi's answer mirrors that of before - everyone was too weak to rebel. However, he also writes that it would inevitably fail to lead to mass escape, which would be its goal, and that the camp environment was not a place to cultivate leaders. Extremely oppressed people, Levi writes, are usually led to rebellion by someone with the strength to lead.
The final question is, "Why did you not flee before?" Pragmatically, he writes that it was extremely hard to emigrate in Europe at the time, and that people were attached to their homelands. But more importantly, he writes, in a time of mounting nuclear power (the book was first published in 1988), why aren't people fleeing now?
Chapter 8
"Letters from Germans"
In his introduction to the German translation of Survival in Auschwitz, his famous memoir about his time at the camp, Levi tells his German readers that he still cannot understand them. In this chapter he places some of their responses, as well as his replies. This chapter goes in many directions, and while I thought it was useful, I do not know if it necessarily relates to the material we will be looking at in this course.
Having individually summarized all the chapters of this book, I want to relate it back to the course we are creating. I think that this book is too long and heavy for it to be assigned for one class period, even though it is clearly written. I think it is unlikely that anyone will read the whole book. I think perhaps after chapter 5, the rest of the book could be made optional, or encouraged reading.
Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity Chapter 6
"On the Social Construction of Moral Universals"
Jeffrey C. Alexander
This is a long chapter. It is also my favorite chapter that I have read in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity thus far.
"On the Social Construction of Moral Universals" grapples with the constructions of the Holocaust among those directly, indirectly, and not involved in the event. This includes the perpetrators, the victims, contemporary Europeans and Americans, as well as the "heirs" to the event - later generations who, despite not living through World War II and the Holocaust, nevertheless have to encounter and construct meaning from the traumatic and confusing events.
The chapter deals primarily with the consumption of the myriad Holocaust narratives in the United States, although its scope is intended to be, and to a degree is, further reaching than simply the US.
Alexander's thesis in this chapter posits the Holocaust narrative as changing over time, from a "progressive narrative" to a tragedy. In other words, immediately following the Allied victory in WWII, the Nazis were accused of war crimes, and the collective focus was on the liberation of the concentration camps and on the heroic action of the Allied forces.
With this construction of the narrative, there was no specific focus on the murdered Jews. Rather, Nazi violence was coded, weighted, and narrated as a simply evil force, with less of a focus on the specifics. For example, when the news of Kristallnacht reached the US, public outrage was directed at the Hitler's obvious irrationality and violence, especially in the wake of the Munich Agreements, rather than at the treatment of the German Jews. The Jews, interestingly, are referred to as "defenseless people," rather than as a specifically targeted group.
At this point in the construction of the post-WWII narrative, Alexander writes, the Holocaust is not seen as a collective trauma, that is, as traumatic worldwide, even for those not directly affected. This can be attributed to a lack of psychological identification with the victims on the part of the American people, who, despite work to diminish antisemitism in US culture (what Alexander calls anti-antisemitism), continued to focus on broad Nazi atrocities, or Nazi "evil," as opposed to the real experiences of the victims.
With a break in the chapter, Alexander moves to how the "Holocaust" as a term to describe the killing of European Jews emerged, transforming what was a progressive narrative of moving beyond to the acceptance of real collective trauma, and the mass murder of the Jews as a symbol of incomprehensible tragedy, or a "sacred-evil," the term Alexander uses to describe the newly-constructed perception of the events.
Significantally, it was with this recasting of memory that the Holocaust became such a defining event of the twentieth century. In constructing the event as a tragedy, its inexplicable nature became an "archetype" for evil, cementing the process of identification that transformed the mass murders as a collective trauma.
Alexander attributes the myriad media representations of the events as facilitating identification with the victims, especially as the focus of films and television series shifted from military victory to the horrors of everyday life for the individuals involved. In recasting WWII as the mundane and horrifying survival of camp victims, rather than the heroics of the military, those not directly involve with the European war gained the ability to identify with its victims. Additionally, the release of testimonial works, such as Anne Frank's Diary, further personalized the events, especially for young people who had little memory of the war years themselves.
Significantly, Alexander also points out an increasing tendency to identify with the perpetrators of the events, calling it a "massive universalization of Nazi evil" (235). Together with the growing awareness of Allied appeasement of Hitler, failure to act despite knowledge of the camps, the fire bombings of Europe, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and later with American racism and the war in Vietnam, the evil of the Holocaust once so neatly assigned to the National Socialists seeped into the public imaginary as a collective trauma.
The combination of psychological identification with the both victims and the perpetrators led to guilt, hyper-awareness of the "evil" connotations of the political tensions of the Cold War, and a collective understanding of the Holocaust as a floating signifier of the greatest evil, used as a barometer for contemporary evils. Here Alexander identifies the "dilemma of uniqueness," or the tricky nature of comparing the Holocaust to modern events. Does comparing a modern event to the Holocaust always already diminish the experience of the victims of the Holocaust?
Jeffrey C. Alexander
This is a long chapter. It is also my favorite chapter that I have read in Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity thus far.
"On the Social Construction of Moral Universals" grapples with the constructions of the Holocaust among those directly, indirectly, and not involved in the event. This includes the perpetrators, the victims, contemporary Europeans and Americans, as well as the "heirs" to the event - later generations who, despite not living through World War II and the Holocaust, nevertheless have to encounter and construct meaning from the traumatic and confusing events.
The chapter deals primarily with the consumption of the myriad Holocaust narratives in the United States, although its scope is intended to be, and to a degree is, further reaching than simply the US.
Alexander's thesis in this chapter posits the Holocaust narrative as changing over time, from a "progressive narrative" to a tragedy. In other words, immediately following the Allied victory in WWII, the Nazis were accused of war crimes, and the collective focus was on the liberation of the concentration camps and on the heroic action of the Allied forces.
With this construction of the narrative, there was no specific focus on the murdered Jews. Rather, Nazi violence was coded, weighted, and narrated as a simply evil force, with less of a focus on the specifics. For example, when the news of Kristallnacht reached the US, public outrage was directed at the Hitler's obvious irrationality and violence, especially in the wake of the Munich Agreements, rather than at the treatment of the German Jews. The Jews, interestingly, are referred to as "defenseless people," rather than as a specifically targeted group.
At this point in the construction of the post-WWII narrative, Alexander writes, the Holocaust is not seen as a collective trauma, that is, as traumatic worldwide, even for those not directly affected. This can be attributed to a lack of psychological identification with the victims on the part of the American people, who, despite work to diminish antisemitism in US culture (what Alexander calls anti-antisemitism), continued to focus on broad Nazi atrocities, or Nazi "evil," as opposed to the real experiences of the victims.
With a break in the chapter, Alexander moves to how the "Holocaust" as a term to describe the killing of European Jews emerged, transforming what was a progressive narrative of moving beyond to the acceptance of real collective trauma, and the mass murder of the Jews as a symbol of incomprehensible tragedy, or a "sacred-evil," the term Alexander uses to describe the newly-constructed perception of the events.
Significantally, it was with this recasting of memory that the Holocaust became such a defining event of the twentieth century. In constructing the event as a tragedy, its inexplicable nature became an "archetype" for evil, cementing the process of identification that transformed the mass murders as a collective trauma.
Alexander attributes the myriad media representations of the events as facilitating identification with the victims, especially as the focus of films and television series shifted from military victory to the horrors of everyday life for the individuals involved. In recasting WWII as the mundane and horrifying survival of camp victims, rather than the heroics of the military, those not directly involve with the European war gained the ability to identify with its victims. Additionally, the release of testimonial works, such as Anne Frank's Diary, further personalized the events, especially for young people who had little memory of the war years themselves.
Significantly, Alexander also points out an increasing tendency to identify with the perpetrators of the events, calling it a "massive universalization of Nazi evil" (235). Together with the growing awareness of Allied appeasement of Hitler, failure to act despite knowledge of the camps, the fire bombings of Europe, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and later with American racism and the war in Vietnam, the evil of the Holocaust once so neatly assigned to the National Socialists seeped into the public imaginary as a collective trauma.
The combination of psychological identification with the both victims and the perpetrators led to guilt, hyper-awareness of the "evil" connotations of the political tensions of the Cold War, and a collective understanding of the Holocaust as a floating signifier of the greatest evil, used as a barometer for contemporary evils. Here Alexander identifies the "dilemma of uniqueness," or the tricky nature of comparing the Holocaust to modern events. Does comparing a modern event to the Holocaust always already diminish the experience of the victims of the Holocaust?
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The Drowned and the Saved Chapter 3
Primo Levi
"Shame"
This chapter, which is the third in the book but is the first of the book I have read, delineates Levi's brief reflections on his time in Auschwitz in the context of shame.
Levi frames the chapter by explanations of his time at the death camp as a time in which his humanity, and indeed humanity in general, was suspended for the animalistic goal of survival. This suspension is a great source of shame for Levi, and further, in its inability to be clearly or rationally explained, constitutes a defining trauma for the writer.
The real lack of humanity is demonstrated in a change in the "moral yardstick" of the prisoners, and with that change an accompanying lack of solidarity so essential for survival in extreme circumstances. Indeed, Levi includes a few personal anecdotes in which the act of sharing, or even lending a listening ear, became completely impossible due to the challenges of survival.
Further defining the trauma for Levi is the coincidental nature of survival. Told by a friend that he must have survived to write, to bear witness, Levi stated that it was not the good or true people who survived. Rather, Levi felt those people were more likely to die, while the worse ones survived. This seems to be an obvious expression of survivor guilt.
Significantly, Levi ends the chapter with a prediction that events like those in the Holocaust could still occur in the postmodern contemporary world, specifically in the non-Western world.
Something to think about: trauma and postmodernity
"Shame"
This chapter, which is the third in the book but is the first of the book I have read, delineates Levi's brief reflections on his time in Auschwitz in the context of shame.
Levi frames the chapter by explanations of his time at the death camp as a time in which his humanity, and indeed humanity in general, was suspended for the animalistic goal of survival. This suspension is a great source of shame for Levi, and further, in its inability to be clearly or rationally explained, constitutes a defining trauma for the writer.
The real lack of humanity is demonstrated in a change in the "moral yardstick" of the prisoners, and with that change an accompanying lack of solidarity so essential for survival in extreme circumstances. Indeed, Levi includes a few personal anecdotes in which the act of sharing, or even lending a listening ear, became completely impossible due to the challenges of survival.
Further defining the trauma for Levi is the coincidental nature of survival. Told by a friend that he must have survived to write, to bear witness, Levi stated that it was not the good or true people who survived. Rather, Levi felt those people were more likely to die, while the worse ones survived. This seems to be an obvious expression of survivor guilt.
Significantly, Levi ends the chapter with a prediction that events like those in the Holocaust could still occur in the postmodern contemporary world, specifically in the non-Western world.
Something to think about: trauma and postmodernity
Writing History, Writing Trauma Chapter 5
Dominick La Capra
“Interview for Yad Vashem (June 9, 1998)”
I will start this with a note, that Yad Veshem, from the title of this chapter, is the official Israeli memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. I read this chapter before looking up the name, so in hindsight it is important to consider the context and form of this chapter. It is an interview with a representative who at least some degree works for the Israeli government, and is presumably Israeli. This is the first chapter I have read of Writing History, Writing Trauma, however, it will be interesting to see if La Capra was particularly careful or intentional with his words given the context in which it occurred.
With that as an introduction, I will discuss the themes of “Interview for Yad Vashem.” Broken into subheaded sections, the chapter explores trauma theory as well as its applications to the Holocaust, and to a lesser degree to American slavery and genocide of native people.
The chapter begins with a discussion of two trauma mechanisms, classified by La Capra as “acting out” and “working through” trauma. Acting out refers loosely to Freud’s “compulsion to repeat,” or “transference.” La Capra defines transference as the tendency to become implicated in the problems one is involved with – either in treatment or simple communication.
This transference, La Capra writes, occurs in many types of human relationships. Its connection to the compulsion to repeat, from what I understand, occurs in the person implicated in a victim’s trauma’s repetition of that trauma upon herself. A preoccupation with another’s trauma, La Capra seems to posit, is a repetition of that trauma. The further tendency to dwell repeatedly upon this empathetic experience is evidence of a transference, even, of the compulsion to repeat. La Capra does not specifically state this point in his work, rather, this is my effort to understand his theory.
La Capra posits “working through,” on the other hand, as a process of coming to terms with trauma and moving beyond it. He emphasizes that this does not mean the simple abandoning of an event, and further, that even if a victim has “worked through” their problem, further work may be required.
It is important to note that there is “working through” and “acting out” should not be considered binarily opposed. Rather, La Capra asserts, they are “distinct.”
In what seems like a nod to Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, La Capra highlights “processes of working through that are not simply therapeutic for the individual but also have political and ethical implications” (152). From this context, he touches upon the idea of trauma in politics, specifically from the point of view of identity politics.
La Capra’s discussion of identity, again, ties into Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity by emphasizing the ways in which trauma are internalized into one’s identity, and further, into a greater cultural identity. Internalization of the Holocaust into the global Jewish identity can be problematic for a number of reasons, he writes.
To close this rather lengthy write-up, I want to touch on La Capra’s discussion of the “redemptive narrative,” or the contemporary narrative structure that follows the Bible: paradise, fall, history, and redemption. These narratives obviously do not have to be biblical in their connection, indeed, the same structure is assigned in elementary school creative writing assignments – you must have a beginning, a problem, a solution, and an ending.
Closing his chapter, La Capra calls for a narrative structure that moves beyond this form, writing that the redemptive narrative has as a shortcoming a tendency to deny trauma. Indeed, in the idea of a complete solution at the conclusion, this structure denies the repetitive and pervasive effects of trauma. A narrative structure that takes into account post-traumatic reactions, including the processes of acting out and working through, represent a further-reaching contemporary model.
“Interview for Yad Vashem (June 9, 1998)”
I will start this with a note, that Yad Veshem, from the title of this chapter, is the official Israeli memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. I read this chapter before looking up the name, so in hindsight it is important to consider the context and form of this chapter. It is an interview with a representative who at least some degree works for the Israeli government, and is presumably Israeli. This is the first chapter I have read of Writing History, Writing Trauma, however, it will be interesting to see if La Capra was particularly careful or intentional with his words given the context in which it occurred.
With that as an introduction, I will discuss the themes of “Interview for Yad Vashem.” Broken into subheaded sections, the chapter explores trauma theory as well as its applications to the Holocaust, and to a lesser degree to American slavery and genocide of native people.
The chapter begins with a discussion of two trauma mechanisms, classified by La Capra as “acting out” and “working through” trauma. Acting out refers loosely to Freud’s “compulsion to repeat,” or “transference.” La Capra defines transference as the tendency to become implicated in the problems one is involved with – either in treatment or simple communication.
This transference, La Capra writes, occurs in many types of human relationships. Its connection to the compulsion to repeat, from what I understand, occurs in the person implicated in a victim’s trauma’s repetition of that trauma upon herself. A preoccupation with another’s trauma, La Capra seems to posit, is a repetition of that trauma. The further tendency to dwell repeatedly upon this empathetic experience is evidence of a transference, even, of the compulsion to repeat. La Capra does not specifically state this point in his work, rather, this is my effort to understand his theory.
La Capra posits “working through,” on the other hand, as a process of coming to terms with trauma and moving beyond it. He emphasizes that this does not mean the simple abandoning of an event, and further, that even if a victim has “worked through” their problem, further work may be required.
It is important to note that there is “working through” and “acting out” should not be considered binarily opposed. Rather, La Capra asserts, they are “distinct.”
In what seems like a nod to Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, La Capra highlights “processes of working through that are not simply therapeutic for the individual but also have political and ethical implications” (152). From this context, he touches upon the idea of trauma in politics, specifically from the point of view of identity politics.
La Capra’s discussion of identity, again, ties into Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity by emphasizing the ways in which trauma are internalized into one’s identity, and further, into a greater cultural identity. Internalization of the Holocaust into the global Jewish identity can be problematic for a number of reasons, he writes.
To close this rather lengthy write-up, I want to touch on La Capra’s discussion of the “redemptive narrative,” or the contemporary narrative structure that follows the Bible: paradise, fall, history, and redemption. These narratives obviously do not have to be biblical in their connection, indeed, the same structure is assigned in elementary school creative writing assignments – you must have a beginning, a problem, a solution, and an ending.
Closing his chapter, La Capra calls for a narrative structure that moves beyond this form, writing that the redemptive narrative has as a shortcoming a tendency to deny trauma. Indeed, in the idea of a complete solution at the conclusion, this structure denies the repetitive and pervasive effects of trauma. A narrative structure that takes into account post-traumatic reactions, including the processes of acting out and working through, represent a further-reaching contemporary model.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Shame in Social Theory
Thomas J. Scheff
Scheff argues, in this chapter, that both shame and denial of shame are ingrained in our civilization, and that this denial must be usurped by the introduction of a wider emotional language that allows for more nuanced emotional expression, such as that of shame.
Scheff frames shame, and its counterpart pride, as integral parts of social bonds, at one point in his article classifying the fear of shame as "social fear," citing especially the work of Cooley, who explores shame in human interaction, particularly physiological phenomena such as the lowering of the eyes and blushing at the occurrence of shame.
Scheff discusses what he calls "shame cultures" and "guilt cultures," positing shame as characteristic of traditional, non-Western societies, while guilt cultures are modern, industrialized societies. Both shame and guilt are used for "social control" in their respective civilizations (210). Our aggressive denial of shame in modern society has led to a sort of double shame - in shameful situations, we feel the immediate shame but also the shame at feeling shame, an emotion that seems so forbidden in modern society.
This awareness of the inappropriate nature of the emotion of shame emerges in a tendency toward "impression management" (210: citing Goffman 1959), or a constant attempt to control the self that is presented to others, even others the self does not consider important. This tendency obviously increases the likelihood of shame states in our daily lives. Interestingly, Scheff points out a similar tendency to feel shame at experiences of pride emotions (219).
Scheff concludes his article with a discussion of how guilt usurped shame in modern societies. Her ultimate conclusion is that as family structures change in a modernizing society, the culture becomes more characterized by isolation. As such, with the intersubjective focus of shame discussed throughout this course material, social regulation by the group becomes less effective.
Scheff points to an institutionalization of "the myth of individualism," and the above mentioned turning away of pride and shame with this isolation, as "defenses against the pain of threatened bonds" (224). This process of rejecting the rejector reflects the anger that accompanies shame.
The cultural focus in this article draws a parallel to the two chapters discussed in previous posts from Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity; this article's focus on societies' experience of shame versus that of the individuals nods to a similar focus with regards to trauma in the previously discussed chapters.
Scheff argues, in this chapter, that both shame and denial of shame are ingrained in our civilization, and that this denial must be usurped by the introduction of a wider emotional language that allows for more nuanced emotional expression, such as that of shame.
Scheff frames shame, and its counterpart pride, as integral parts of social bonds, at one point in his article classifying the fear of shame as "social fear," citing especially the work of Cooley, who explores shame in human interaction, particularly physiological phenomena such as the lowering of the eyes and blushing at the occurrence of shame.
Scheff discusses what he calls "shame cultures" and "guilt cultures," positing shame as characteristic of traditional, non-Western societies, while guilt cultures are modern, industrialized societies. Both shame and guilt are used for "social control" in their respective civilizations (210). Our aggressive denial of shame in modern society has led to a sort of double shame - in shameful situations, we feel the immediate shame but also the shame at feeling shame, an emotion that seems so forbidden in modern society.
This awareness of the inappropriate nature of the emotion of shame emerges in a tendency toward "impression management" (210: citing Goffman 1959), or a constant attempt to control the self that is presented to others, even others the self does not consider important. This tendency obviously increases the likelihood of shame states in our daily lives. Interestingly, Scheff points out a similar tendency to feel shame at experiences of pride emotions (219).
Scheff concludes his article with a discussion of how guilt usurped shame in modern societies. Her ultimate conclusion is that as family structures change in a modernizing society, the culture becomes more characterized by isolation. As such, with the intersubjective focus of shame discussed throughout this course material, social regulation by the group becomes less effective.
Scheff points to an institutionalization of "the myth of individualism," and the above mentioned turning away of pride and shame with this isolation, as "defenses against the pain of threatened bonds" (224). This process of rejecting the rejector reflects the anger that accompanies shame.
The cultural focus in this article draws a parallel to the two chapters discussed in previous posts from Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity; this article's focus on societies' experience of shame versus that of the individuals nods to a similar focus with regards to trauma in the previously discussed chapters.
Shame, Narcissism, and Intersubjectivity
Andrew P. Morrison and Robert D. Stolorow
Beginning their article by defining narcissism as the yearning for uniqueness in the eyes of an idealized other, and a yearning to be the most important person to that other, Morrison and Stolorow endeavor to widen the understanding and definition of narcissism in the psychoanalytic context.
In following with Freud, the authors associate narcissism with infancy, pointing to the event of the infant's differentiation as an individual as the primary rupturing of this narcissism. The important point to take from this section of the article, however, is the authors' assertion that shame lies at the core of this derailment of the narcissistic experience.
The authors devote much of their chapter to a discussion of narcissism's path through the history of psychoanalysis, discussing not only Freud's views on the phenomenon but also Jung's, Adler's, and less well-known names.
With a discussion of two narcissistic states - feelings of worthlessness and smallness versus feelings of "expansive grandiosity," or egotistic versus dissociative, (Morrison's "dialectic of narcissism") the authors transition into a discussion of the "ideal self," and, by extension, the ego and the ego-ideal (67). Continuing their discussion of narcissism's history, the authors go on to further discuss the theories of other analysts', particularly the work of Helen Block Lewis (see earlier posts on her work) and her theory of bypassed shame.
The following half of the article is, if possible, more dense and confusing than the first. I need to do a closer reading, as at this point I cannot really effectively write it up!
The final section of the article is entitled "The Intersubjective Contexts of Shame," echoing the title.
Beginning their article by defining narcissism as the yearning for uniqueness in the eyes of an idealized other, and a yearning to be the most important person to that other, Morrison and Stolorow endeavor to widen the understanding and definition of narcissism in the psychoanalytic context.
In following with Freud, the authors associate narcissism with infancy, pointing to the event of the infant's differentiation as an individual as the primary rupturing of this narcissism. The important point to take from this section of the article, however, is the authors' assertion that shame lies at the core of this derailment of the narcissistic experience.
The authors devote much of their chapter to a discussion of narcissism's path through the history of psychoanalysis, discussing not only Freud's views on the phenomenon but also Jung's, Adler's, and less well-known names.
With a discussion of two narcissistic states - feelings of worthlessness and smallness versus feelings of "expansive grandiosity," or egotistic versus dissociative, (Morrison's "dialectic of narcissism") the authors transition into a discussion of the "ideal self," and, by extension, the ego and the ego-ideal (67). Continuing their discussion of narcissism's history, the authors go on to further discuss the theories of other analysts', particularly the work of Helen Block Lewis (see earlier posts on her work) and her theory of bypassed shame.
The following half of the article is, if possible, more dense and confusing than the first. I need to do a closer reading, as at this point I cannot really effectively write it up!
The final section of the article is entitled "The Intersubjective Contexts of Shame," echoing the title.
Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity Chapter 2
"Psychological Trauma and Cultural Trauma"
Neil J. Smelser
This chapter is devoted, as its title would suggest, to mapping the intersections between psychological and cultural traumas, focusing especially on the trauma experience as both an event and its accompanying context. Smelser argues that Freud, too, understood trama as growing from this relationship, although he says this can be hard to derive from his work.
From here, Smelser begins to tackle the idea of cultural trauma, translating his idea of trauma as an event plus context to the national scale. Smelser argues that there is no certainty that any event will become a trauma, despite how violent it may be, and that the range of events that can qualify as cultural traumas is vast and varied.
At this point, Smelser qualifies his statement with specifics. Citing the sociocultural context of an event, the production of memory and its association with a particular affect ["usually disgust, shame, or guilt (36)], and the time at which it is remembered, be it days, months, decades, or centuries, Smelser concludes that "cultural traumas are for the most part historically made, not born" (37).
Further, Smelser contends that a chief factor in the production of trauma is a massive disruption in the stable social system, which is "classified along functional lines," including economic, legal, medical, educational institutions, etc. (37). However, these disruptions are subjective. Smelser identifies "carrier groups," influential individuals and groups, that enforce the idea that a trauma has occurred, and work to memorialize it.
Essential factors of a cultural trauma, Smelser writes, are its duel statuses as both indelible and ingrained on the national psyche, and as such, its assimilation into the group's national collective identity. Beginning here with a discussion of defense and coping mechanisms (45), Smelser postulates that "collective memory work," the work done by carrier groups in trauma memory production, is essential in collective coping because it frames the 'traumatic' event as affecting the entire collective, indirectly if not directly.
Smelser closes his chapter with a discussion of ambivalence surrounding trauma. Memorials, he claims, can be considered paradoxical in their intents to both remember the event, but to have the done the work of mourning in the construction of the monument. As such, the trauma is both left open and slammed closed. As the chapter ends, Smelser warns the readers of the ever widening opportunities for trauma in an increasingly globalized world.
*definition of cultural trauma 44
Neil J. Smelser
This chapter is devoted, as its title would suggest, to mapping the intersections between psychological and cultural traumas, focusing especially on the trauma experience as both an event and its accompanying context. Smelser argues that Freud, too, understood trama as growing from this relationship, although he says this can be hard to derive from his work.
From here, Smelser begins to tackle the idea of cultural trauma, translating his idea of trauma as an event plus context to the national scale. Smelser argues that there is no certainty that any event will become a trauma, despite how violent it may be, and that the range of events that can qualify as cultural traumas is vast and varied.
At this point, Smelser qualifies his statement with specifics. Citing the sociocultural context of an event, the production of memory and its association with a particular affect ["usually disgust, shame, or guilt (36)], and the time at which it is remembered, be it days, months, decades, or centuries, Smelser concludes that "cultural traumas are for the most part historically made, not born" (37).
Further, Smelser contends that a chief factor in the production of trauma is a massive disruption in the stable social system, which is "classified along functional lines," including economic, legal, medical, educational institutions, etc. (37). However, these disruptions are subjective. Smelser identifies "carrier groups," influential individuals and groups, that enforce the idea that a trauma has occurred, and work to memorialize it.
Essential factors of a cultural trauma, Smelser writes, are its duel statuses as both indelible and ingrained on the national psyche, and as such, its assimilation into the group's national collective identity. Beginning here with a discussion of defense and coping mechanisms (45), Smelser postulates that "collective memory work," the work done by carrier groups in trauma memory production, is essential in collective coping because it frames the 'traumatic' event as affecting the entire collective, indirectly if not directly.
Smelser closes his chapter with a discussion of ambivalence surrounding trauma. Memorials, he claims, can be considered paradoxical in their intents to both remember the event, but to have the done the work of mourning in the construction of the monument. As such, the trauma is both left open and slammed closed. As the chapter ends, Smelser warns the readers of the ever widening opportunities for trauma in an increasingly globalized world.
*definition of cultural trauma 44
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity Chapter 1
"Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma"
Jeffrey C. Alexander
In this chapter, which serves as an introduction to Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, Alexander posits a theory of trauma intended to break away from what he calls “lay trauma theory” – a school of thought he separates into two schools, enlightenment and psychoanalytic.
The enlightenment school of lay trauma theory, Alexander writes, is useful for its collective emphasis, positing experiences of trauma as existing within a forward-moving social order. Indeed, according to the author, enlightenment trauma theory sees trauma as a positive social force. The occurrence of trauma, the theory posits, will lead to innovation and change. Improved economies following wars are used as evidence for this theory. Alexander calls this thinking “realist” (5).
The psychoanalytic understanding of trauma, on the other hand, remains individually based and is largely informed by theories of repression. In this section Alexander mentions the work of Cathy Caruth, another author featured on the course syllabus. Alexander conceptualizes psychoanalytic trauma theory as depending on a Freudian definition of trauma as arising from the unexpected, and truly manifesting itself in the haunting after effect of not knowing, and not expecting, what has happened.
Alexander classifies both approaches as “naturalistic.” By this, he means that both theories rely on an understanding that the type of trauma experienced is informed by the type of event. Alexander devotes his introduction to arguing that the type of trauma that occurs, and how it is consumed by a society, is informed not by the event but by a trauma process. Specifically, Alexander asserts that trauma does not arise from events themselves because no event can be inherently traumatic. Rather, trauma is “socially mediated,” and can arise from occurrences that never, in fact, took place (8).
Alexander goes on to identify the “social process of cultural trauma,” claiming that an event becomes traumatic as certain agents, members of “carrier groups,” work to ingrain that trauma into the collective identity. Questions must be brought forth as to the nature of the pain caused by the event, the nature of the victim, the relation of that victim to the wider group, and how that relationship and the event itself is then consumed by different “institutional areas.” Considering religious, aesthetic, legal, scientific, mass media, state bureaucracy, and stratificational hierarchies, Alexander goes into the questions raised in these specific groups and communities, and how this informs trauma’s entrance into the collective identity.
Ultimately, the experience of trauma can take place. Alexander calls this a “sociological process,” consisting of the definition of a painful injury, the establishment of a victim, attribution of responsibility, and distribution of the ideal and material consequences (22). This process, he continues, leads to relief, both in the public and private sphere.
Concluding his introduction with an assertion that trauma is a topic of interest in both Western and non-Western nations, Alexander posits that failure to recognize collective traumas by not participating in the trauma process leads to a lack of emergence of “lessons into collective identity” (26). Closing, Alexander emphasizes that the theory he has laid out is not simply "technical and scientific," but rather that is it "normatively relevant," and can inform trauma processes to ultimate "moral-practical action."
Jeffrey C. Alexander
In this chapter, which serves as an introduction to Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, Alexander posits a theory of trauma intended to break away from what he calls “lay trauma theory” – a school of thought he separates into two schools, enlightenment and psychoanalytic.
The enlightenment school of lay trauma theory, Alexander writes, is useful for its collective emphasis, positing experiences of trauma as existing within a forward-moving social order. Indeed, according to the author, enlightenment trauma theory sees trauma as a positive social force. The occurrence of trauma, the theory posits, will lead to innovation and change. Improved economies following wars are used as evidence for this theory. Alexander calls this thinking “realist” (5).
The psychoanalytic understanding of trauma, on the other hand, remains individually based and is largely informed by theories of repression. In this section Alexander mentions the work of Cathy Caruth, another author featured on the course syllabus. Alexander conceptualizes psychoanalytic trauma theory as depending on a Freudian definition of trauma as arising from the unexpected, and truly manifesting itself in the haunting after effect of not knowing, and not expecting, what has happened.
Alexander classifies both approaches as “naturalistic.” By this, he means that both theories rely on an understanding that the type of trauma experienced is informed by the type of event. Alexander devotes his introduction to arguing that the type of trauma that occurs, and how it is consumed by a society, is informed not by the event but by a trauma process. Specifically, Alexander asserts that trauma does not arise from events themselves because no event can be inherently traumatic. Rather, trauma is “socially mediated,” and can arise from occurrences that never, in fact, took place (8).
Alexander goes on to identify the “social process of cultural trauma,” claiming that an event becomes traumatic as certain agents, members of “carrier groups,” work to ingrain that trauma into the collective identity. Questions must be brought forth as to the nature of the pain caused by the event, the nature of the victim, the relation of that victim to the wider group, and how that relationship and the event itself is then consumed by different “institutional areas.” Considering religious, aesthetic, legal, scientific, mass media, state bureaucracy, and stratificational hierarchies, Alexander goes into the questions raised in these specific groups and communities, and how this informs trauma’s entrance into the collective identity.
Ultimately, the experience of trauma can take place. Alexander calls this a “sociological process,” consisting of the definition of a painful injury, the establishment of a victim, attribution of responsibility, and distribution of the ideal and material consequences (22). This process, he continues, leads to relief, both in the public and private sphere.
Concluding his introduction with an assertion that trauma is a topic of interest in both Western and non-Western nations, Alexander posits that failure to recognize collective traumas by not participating in the trauma process leads to a lack of emergence of “lessons into collective identity” (26). Closing, Alexander emphasizes that the theory he has laid out is not simply "technical and scientific," but rather that is it "normatively relevant," and can inform trauma processes to ultimate "moral-practical action."
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Mourning and Melancholia
Sigmund Freud
In this chapter, Freud attempts to use the paradigm of mourning in order to understand and conceptualize melancholia, a condition that we would today call depression. Framing both mourning and melancholia in terms of loss of a loved object, Freud differentiates the two by identifying the loss in muorning as conscious, while the loss of a love-object in those experiencing melancholia can be unconscious, and can include not only a person but a wider definition of the love-object.
Perhaps the most significant factor of melancholia, as opposed to mourning, is the drawing in of the libido. In both conditions the idea of re-assigning the libido in the instance of the loss of the original object is undesirable, and both conditions, Freud claims, eventually pass leaving no trace. However, specific to melancholia, the libido instead turns in on the ego of the sufferer. During this process, identification takes place. In other words, as the libido is turned inward, the melancholic creates in her own ego a shadow of the lost love-object, a process that makes the reassignment of the libido onto another external object impossible, and also one that assures the internal attacking upon the self of the melancholic. Freud writes, "In grief the world becomes poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself"(167).
Freud goes on to further classify the state of melancholia, on its own and in conversation with grief and mourning. Significantly, Freud states that shame is a state absent in melancholia, replaced with a desire to speak and disparage the self. However, he highlights "an extraordinary fall in [the melancholic's] self-esteem, an impoverishment in his ego on a grand scale" (167). This sentiment expresses a sort of self-hatred characteristic of a working definition of shame presented in previous posts and readings on contemporary shame theory.
Significantly, Freud does not fall into the trap he is said to fall into in contemporary readings critical of his lack of attention to shame in his writings - that is, he does not misidentify shame as guilt. Indeed he makes no mention of guilt in this chapter, seeming to conceptualize melancholia as a condition separate from both shame and guilt. I would argue, however, that the level of turning against the ego described by Freud in this work does detail shame, and perhaps that a detailed look into shame instances in the patients he describes would help to assuage the sentiments of melancholia.
Near the end of the chapter, Freud discusses mania. The lifting of the states of mourning and melancholia, which, as mentioned above, Freud claims occurs after an unspecified time, is not accompanied with any degree of mania expected to accompany such a change. Rather, since the two states are so characteristically slow to change, this mania is absent.
Freud closes his chapter explicitly identifying the three conditions he has discussed for melancholia - loss of an object, ambivalence, and the regression of the libido into the ego. His discussion of ambivilance is a bit confusing. What I have taken from it is that ambivilance in the melancholic (and the mourner) exists as the afflicted experiences fury towards, and associates a lowering of the value of, their lost love-object.
In this chapter, Freud attempts to use the paradigm of mourning in order to understand and conceptualize melancholia, a condition that we would today call depression. Framing both mourning and melancholia in terms of loss of a loved object, Freud differentiates the two by identifying the loss in muorning as conscious, while the loss of a love-object in those experiencing melancholia can be unconscious, and can include not only a person but a wider definition of the love-object.
Perhaps the most significant factor of melancholia, as opposed to mourning, is the drawing in of the libido. In both conditions the idea of re-assigning the libido in the instance of the loss of the original object is undesirable, and both conditions, Freud claims, eventually pass leaving no trace. However, specific to melancholia, the libido instead turns in on the ego of the sufferer. During this process, identification takes place. In other words, as the libido is turned inward, the melancholic creates in her own ego a shadow of the lost love-object, a process that makes the reassignment of the libido onto another external object impossible, and also one that assures the internal attacking upon the self of the melancholic. Freud writes, "In grief the world becomes poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself"(167).
Freud goes on to further classify the state of melancholia, on its own and in conversation with grief and mourning. Significantly, Freud states that shame is a state absent in melancholia, replaced with a desire to speak and disparage the self. However, he highlights "an extraordinary fall in [the melancholic's] self-esteem, an impoverishment in his ego on a grand scale" (167). This sentiment expresses a sort of self-hatred characteristic of a working definition of shame presented in previous posts and readings on contemporary shame theory.
Significantly, Freud does not fall into the trap he is said to fall into in contemporary readings critical of his lack of attention to shame in his writings - that is, he does not misidentify shame as guilt. Indeed he makes no mention of guilt in this chapter, seeming to conceptualize melancholia as a condition separate from both shame and guilt. I would argue, however, that the level of turning against the ego described by Freud in this work does detail shame, and perhaps that a detailed look into shame instances in the patients he describes would help to assuage the sentiments of melancholia.
Near the end of the chapter, Freud discusses mania. The lifting of the states of mourning and melancholia, which, as mentioned above, Freud claims occurs after an unspecified time, is not accompanied with any degree of mania expected to accompany such a change. Rather, since the two states are so characteristically slow to change, this mania is absent.
Freud closes his chapter explicitly identifying the three conditions he has discussed for melancholia - loss of an object, ambivalence, and the regression of the libido into the ego. His discussion of ambivilance is a bit confusing. What I have taken from it is that ambivilance in the melancholic (and the mourner) exists as the afflicted experiences fury towards, and associates a lowering of the value of, their lost love-object.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Legacy of Freud's Writings on Shame
Lansky and Morrison
The goal of the article seems to be to identify the ways in which Freud's writings failed to appropriately deal with shame, and the ways in which recognition of shame could act as a unifying force in the psychoanalytic community.
The authors point to three ways Freud uses shame in his study: shame as a motive for defense, shame as a method of defense, and shame in relation to ideals and aspirations.
Shame functions as a motive for defense when patients do not want to access painful memories, and those incompatible with continued approval of the self by others. As such, shame leads to voluntary concealment, or the active avoidance of shame. Alternatively, shame as a method of defense acts as a safeguard, ensuring that we act in a socially appropriate manner in order to avoid the unpleasant emotion of shame.*
These uses, the article argues, represent a "mechanization of shame." In other words, he uses shame to hold only specific functions in his work, and as such eliminates the varied sources of shame. One of these such places is narcissism. This section was rather dense and I need to go over it again.
The following section details Freud's descriptions of four of his dreams, identifying that they all occurred on nights following days in which Freud experienced particularly humiliating or shameful occurrences. This section, I feel, is a weak point of the article. After devoting the beginning of their article to a discussion of Freud's misuse of the concept of guilt to encompass experiences that were actually shameful, Lansky and Morrison use a wide definition of shame in this section, including examples that could also be identified as irritating or frustrating, rather than humiliating.
*This is confusing to me. My notes say "so the fear is the motive, and the avoidance is the method?"
The goal of the article seems to be to identify the ways in which Freud's writings failed to appropriately deal with shame, and the ways in which recognition of shame could act as a unifying force in the psychoanalytic community.
The authors point to three ways Freud uses shame in his study: shame as a motive for defense, shame as a method of defense, and shame in relation to ideals and aspirations.
Shame functions as a motive for defense when patients do not want to access painful memories, and those incompatible with continued approval of the self by others. As such, shame leads to voluntary concealment, or the active avoidance of shame. Alternatively, shame as a method of defense acts as a safeguard, ensuring that we act in a socially appropriate manner in order to avoid the unpleasant emotion of shame.*
These uses, the article argues, represent a "mechanization of shame." In other words, he uses shame to hold only specific functions in his work, and as such eliminates the varied sources of shame. One of these such places is narcissism. This section was rather dense and I need to go over it again.
The following section details Freud's descriptions of four of his dreams, identifying that they all occurred on nights following days in which Freud experienced particularly humiliating or shameful occurrences. This section, I feel, is a weak point of the article. After devoting the beginning of their article to a discussion of Freud's misuse of the concept of guilt to encompass experiences that were actually shameful, Lansky and Morrison use a wide definition of shame in this section, including examples that could also be identified as irritating or frustrating, rather than humiliating.
*This is confusing to me. My notes say "so the fear is the motive, and the avoidance is the method?"
The Role of Shame in Depression Over the Life Span
Helen Block Lewis
In this chapter, Lewis devotes space to the discussion of the "humiliated fury" said to accompany shame. Lewis frames this progression as fury directed at the loss of love, and the accompanying loss of self-esteem, occurring in the Other's rejection of the Self. Lewis identifies humiliated fury and shame as communicative as well as emotional states. Further, she highlights that guilt is a logical state following humiliated fury.
The chapter goes on to look into depression theories, explaining the Bibring theory of depression, which envisions depression as a reaction to helplessness. A primary cause of depression in this theory is the ego being unable to maintain a position of being loved in the eyes of the Self and the Other. Notably, this follows a similar trajectory of her earlier shame narrative.
It is important for analysts to communicate with patients on their own terms, Lewis writes. This means, for example, that if a patient thinks she is possessed by the devil, then it is not useful for the analyst to tell the patient that this is impossible, but rather to ask the patient if she knows how this happened, and to negotiate on these terms a solution from this torment.
In this chapter, Lewis devotes space to the discussion of the "humiliated fury" said to accompany shame. Lewis frames this progression as fury directed at the loss of love, and the accompanying loss of self-esteem, occurring in the Other's rejection of the Self. Lewis identifies humiliated fury and shame as communicative as well as emotional states. Further, she highlights that guilt is a logical state following humiliated fury.
The chapter goes on to look into depression theories, explaining the Bibring theory of depression, which envisions depression as a reaction to helplessness. A primary cause of depression in this theory is the ego being unable to maintain a position of being loved in the eyes of the Self and the Other. Notably, this follows a similar trajectory of her earlier shame narrative.
It is important for analysts to communicate with patients on their own terms, Lewis writes. This means, for example, that if a patient thinks she is possessed by the devil, then it is not useful for the analyst to tell the patient that this is impossible, but rather to ask the patient if she knows how this happened, and to negotiate on these terms a solution from this torment.
Shame: The "Sleeper" in Psychopathology
Helen Block Lewis
In this chapter, Lewis goes into the ways shame is not addressed in psychoanalysis, making a case for why this failure limits the field. Lewis points to a trend of substituting guilt for shame in analysis, which she says leads to misdiagnosis.
Lewis points out that Freud's original theory of seduction allowed for a more in depth consideration of shame than his later writings on fantasy and guilt, which replaced his work in seduction.
Lewis illustrates her experiments in spatial orientation, which led to her theories of field dependent and independent people. She ties these categories to gender socialization, depression, guilt, and shame over the course of this chapter and the next. Women, she writes, are more likely to be field dependent, and also to experience shame and depression. She attributes this to women's inferior social position. Men, she writes, are more likely to be field independent, and experience guilt and paranoia. This is a function of their superior social position and inherent aggression.
Lewis classifies shame as a "vicarious experience" of another's scorn. This idea, which is developed in this reading and further ones, posits shame as a self-conscious phenomenon, a negative emotion that carries a judgment of the self, rather than of an action committed by the self, which is how Lewis classifies guilt. (Lewis, 15). Lewis further ties shame to the loss of affectional bonds or the loss of love.
Question: Lewis calls shame a "wordless" state. I wonder how this can relate to analysis and the "talking cure." Further, as Lewis classifies shame as a state experienced chiefly by women, and women are stereotypically more likely to talk about their feelings, how does this inform shame as a "wordless" state?
In this chapter, Lewis goes into the ways shame is not addressed in psychoanalysis, making a case for why this failure limits the field. Lewis points to a trend of substituting guilt for shame in analysis, which she says leads to misdiagnosis.
Lewis points out that Freud's original theory of seduction allowed for a more in depth consideration of shame than his later writings on fantasy and guilt, which replaced his work in seduction.
Lewis illustrates her experiments in spatial orientation, which led to her theories of field dependent and independent people. She ties these categories to gender socialization, depression, guilt, and shame over the course of this chapter and the next. Women, she writes, are more likely to be field dependent, and also to experience shame and depression. She attributes this to women's inferior social position. Men, she writes, are more likely to be field independent, and experience guilt and paranoia. This is a function of their superior social position and inherent aggression.
Lewis classifies shame as a "vicarious experience" of another's scorn. This idea, which is developed in this reading and further ones, posits shame as a self-conscious phenomenon, a negative emotion that carries a judgment of the self, rather than of an action committed by the self, which is how Lewis classifies guilt. (Lewis, 15). Lewis further ties shame to the loss of affectional bonds or the loss of love.
Question: Lewis calls shame a "wordless" state. I wonder how this can relate to analysis and the "talking cure." Further, as Lewis classifies shame as a state experienced chiefly by women, and women are stereotypically more likely to talk about their feelings, how does this inform shame as a "wordless" state?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
6/12/10
replied to Pat at FHL
emailed B.H. about FHL
checked links on mycourses page - all are functioning except for the one labeled "Freud's study and library," which was a link to the Freud museum which is now dead. New link: http://www.freud.org.uk/
checked OCRA page:
Mourning and Melancholia - good. could be rotated in the original
Assault on Truth - good - this one is supposed to only be the introduction but it also includes the afterword, which is PDFed later. that link doesn't work, and should be removed
Aeitology of Hysteria - good
Shame - the "Sleeper" in Psychopathology - good
The Role of Shame in Depression Over the Lifespan - 2 PDFs, both the same, we could delete one
Lapache Narcissism - good
The Legacy of Freud's Writings on Shame - good
Shame, Narcissism, and Intersubjectivity - good
Shame in Social Theory - good
Writing the Holocaust - good
Mourning and Postmodernity - good
Transgenerational Effects of the Transmission of the Holocaust - good
Intergenerational Memory of the Holocaust - good
NUMBER 100 - TEST - TO BE UPLOADED BY PROFESSOR - not a PDF
Unspeakable Things Unspoken - good
The Science of Child Sexual Abuse - cannot be accessed off the Brown network, accessible on network/with proxy
Letters: The Problem of Child Sexual Abuse - accessible on network/with proxy
Beyond Memory: Child Sexual Abuse and the Statute of Limitations - good
emailed B.H. about FHL
checked links on mycourses page - all are functioning except for the one labeled "Freud's study and library," which was a link to the Freud museum which is now dead. New link: http://www.freud.org.uk/
checked OCRA page:
Mourning and Melancholia - good. could be rotated in the original
Assault on Truth - good - this one is supposed to only be the introduction but it also includes the afterword, which is PDFed later. that link doesn't work, and should be removed
Aeitology of Hysteria - good
Shame - the "Sleeper" in Psychopathology - good
The Role of Shame in Depression Over the Lifespan - 2 PDFs, both the same, we could delete one
Lapache Narcissism - good
The Legacy of Freud's Writings on Shame - good
Shame, Narcissism, and Intersubjectivity - good
Shame in Social Theory - good
Writing the Holocaust - good
Mourning and Postmodernity - good
Transgenerational Effects of the Transmission of the Holocaust - good
Intergenerational Memory of the Holocaust - good
NUMBER 100 - TEST - TO BE UPLOADED BY PROFESSOR - not a PDF
Unspeakable Things Unspoken - good
The Science of Child Sexual Abuse - cannot be accessed off the Brown network, accessible on network/with proxy
Letters: The Problem of Child Sexual Abuse - accessible on network/with proxy
Beyond Memory: Child Sexual Abuse and the Statute of Limitations - good
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