From the issue dated September 28, 2001
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Giving Meaning to SurvivalBy ROBERT JAY LIFTON
A healthier reaction, in my judgment, would be to take in, and attempt to absorb and recognize, our vulnerability. To do that would entail combining our compassion for the thousands of victims with a kind of survivor mission -- because we are all, to some degree, survivors here -- that would seek to diminish violence and avoid an escalation of violence in the world. I'm talking about the ways in which we translate our psychological responses into public and political policy. The country is suffused with rage, and, unfortunately, almost all of our leaders are joining in and limiting their rhetoric to warlike images and warmaking. I believe that the rage and calls for justice must be responded to, and that there must be measures to track down the terrorists and bring them to justice; but those approaches should be restrained and discriminating. I'm also talking about a dynamic of terrorism, in which terrorist acts can bring about extreme countermeasures that, in turn, can result in an escalation in terrorism and a continuing vicious circle. The psychological and the political are inevitably combined. For instance, political statements could have a constructive impact on our psychological responses. I think much wisdom would lie in giving Americans perspective on terrorism and its sources, on recognizing terrorism as a longstanding process that must be countered not just militarily, but also in diplomatic and political ways. That's very much the opposite of what we're hearing from our leaders; it's what we desperately need. Survivors of any event need to give form and meaning to their survival. They need to find significance in it that can help them bring significance and meaning to the rest of their lives. Otherwise, they are stuck in the terrible suffering and mass killing, and it's meaningless. Now, the kinds of meaning we can give, as a form of collective survival, can take two forms (or a combination of both): either the form of the most aggressive military behavior, or the form of a more thoughtful approach to preventing a recurrence of this kind of terrorism, which would include a focus on nonviolent approaches. That would be a more healthy, in my view, kind of survivor mission, translated into political policy. This disaster has an apocalyptic quality. It felt to many people close to it, in New York and Washington, like some version of the end of the world. That is how people in Hiroshima felt. (It is interesting that some of those who witnessed the recent disaster have associated it with nuclear weapons and Hiroshima. The explosions looked like a mushroom cloud, and there were large populations fleeing from "ground zero.") I first developed the themes of how survivors react in my work on Hiroshima, and I and others have used them as a kind of phenomenology or psychology of survivors. In Hiroshima, people's responses were accompanied by a sense of threat to the human chain, the great chain of being, a lasting image of the end of the world. In New York and Washington, that initial sense of the world ending can be altered and transformed into various expressions of rebuilding and reconstruction, physically, and in other ways as well. That occurred in Hiroshima, too. Despite the lasting sense of threat to human existence, there developed over many years among people in Hiroshima considerable energy toward rebuilding, finding some kind of survivor mission that would give the city's experience meaning for the world. That has strongly taken the direction of warning the world of the danger of nuclear weapons. In this case, especially in New York, where the devastation is greatest, the survivor mission is bound up with individual and collective feelings about America's role in the world. Although there are parallels with Hiroshima, there are differences -- most notably, that New York still stands, while most of Hiroshima was destroyed. One bomb, one city. In New York, the disaster is both more limited and more complicated. That allows room to unleash the energies of rebuilding -- and to give thoughtful responses to what has occurred. Robert Jay Lifton is a professor emeritus of psychiatry and psychology and director emeritus of the Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Page: B8
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Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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Reflections on the Fractured Landscape |
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