Hi Steph, Agree that sensationalisation and emotionalisation of this kind of event (along with "stranger danger", internet scares, etc etc etc) are playing into the hands of manipulative mechanisms to achieve social and political control. Think Adam Curtiz' documentary "The Power of Nightmares" is really worth watching if you can get it (it's up on usenet sometimes). I think Curtiz' analysis - that USA regimes since the fall of the Berlin Wall have been setting up "Islamic" terrorism as the new bogie-man in order to tighten its grip on the North American psyche is a valid one. I'm not sure if you're referring to Londoners as being traumatised by this event/ I didn't get the impression that Londoners were anywhere near traumatised by the latest bombing. Britain is a post-colonial nation and has had a very long time to digest the bitter pill that messing violently in other people's affairs will usually end in some sort of decentred retaliation eventually. Any loss of life is tragic, of course, but in comparison with conditions in any number of countries from Burma to Congo I think that most people can see that we don't have too much to complain about. I think most of us can also "do the math" that in a city of 7.5 million people, your chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a bombing claiming 38 lives is statistically minute and utterly negligible in comparison with your risk of cancer or car accident. The bomb on the underground system is a little freaky as going down underground is always mildly unpleasant. But we've got pretty well-trained minds on the whole . . . I suspect that most of the paranoia effect will actually be in "middle England" which is masochistic enough to read right-wing tabloid newspapers! Paula Stephanie Kent wrote:
Hi all - I generally just lurk, but I was struck by a discontinuity in discussion last Thursday and think it bears on this question of becoming inured to shock. There were 6 posts on "London...the internet accounts" interspersed with 4 on "AoIR 6.0 Chicago 2005 Registration is now open", 1 each on "iCS 8.2", "Call for proposals", and "Internet and fun/joy/pleasure".
In the three days since, "London" vanished, some of the other threads continued, and new ones appeared. This is no doubt the nature of most conversations on this list, and perhaps everything that could be said about shock and bearing up and giving sympathy was expressed in the comments that were posted, and/or continuation has moved to other venues. But I had some cognitive dissonance reading the disparate threads as business-as-usual went on for many (including me) while others were wondering just how "usual" their lives were going to continue to be.
I'm not familiar with any of the literature on shock, but some levels or layers of protection are evident in the acts of just getting on with things, whatever those immediate things that consume us may be. At the same time, I'm aware it would also be counterproductive (at least to purposes of peace and justice) to mine the event for all its tragedy, as this would play into political efforts to cast the attack in symbolic terms that fuel nationalisms and other hatreds.
Shock, by definition, puts one in a state of non-responsiveness; the challenge may be the degree to which that lack of response gets carried over or continued into the return to the mundane, especially after the state-of-shock has worn off.
best,
steph http://www.reflexivity.us
On Jul 10, 2005, at 3:07 PM, air-l-aoir.org-request@listserv.aoir.org wrote:
Hello all--a colleague of mine asked me if I could help him with the following question. I'm not an authority on the Frankfurt School or its theorization of shock but hope that some of you out there might be. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Ken
His problem/question is as follows:
Much ink has been spilt over shock within Frankfurt School writings. A concept clearly taken over from Simmel and Freud, shock runs to the heart of Benjamin's media theory. But have Benjamin and Adorno appropriated the term as face value without ever considering the implications of their assertions? Adorno's thinking would seem to intimate that at some future date nothing will ever shock us anymore, for the body will have developed such a thick protective barrier that nothing harmful will ever get through--an idea worth resisting in itself.
Are there any sustained studies of the question of shock particularly within the domain of media Are there any articles within media theory that address the matter of shock in a postmodern, digital world?
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