Elusive Trope's picture

    Humiliation Junction...What's Your Function?

    https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR4ieW6XnHOV2PjDJqOaDkNHpHGKP0N9MwUdXYrxTZY6jIZAg_wqA

    Sometimes one tries to move further along the tracks on a particular train of thought and then just like that one is right back at the old station. While I think humiliation and its role in the facilitation of what some authorities refer to as radicalization is an intriguing topic, I wanted to delve more into the collective perception of the radicalization process.

    Critical to understanding the (shifting) core of this perception, I believe, is people's relationship with and understanding of tension and conflict.  In particular, tension and conflict as it relates to not only as an expression of human nature, but also in the formation of that same human nature.  These perceptions inform our politics, our understanding of our place in the world, and the place of others.  As with one of the facets of this tension, humiliation, this topic quickly pushes one to the notion that the personal is political (and the political personal). 

    To make a long story short, delving into the phrase "the personal is political" itself, I ended up at Z Magazine and the article "The Personal is Political" by Anna Popkin (2006), which "describes the early days of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Popkin was involved in the Bread and Roses collective in Boston and tells about their struggles and successes, particularly the revelation that 'the personal is political.'"  

    It wasn't long in developing my take on this essay in light of the Boston Marathon bombings that I ended up at this quote [emphasis mine]:

    “It is true that freedom, when it is made up principally of privileges, insults labor and separates it from culture. But freedom is not made up principally of privileges; it is made up especially of duties. And the moment each of us tries to give freedom's duties precedence over its privileges, freedom joins together labor and culture and sets in motion the only force that can effectively serve justice. The rule of our action, the secret of our resistance can be easily stated: everything that humiliates labor also humiliates the intelligence, and vice versa. And the revolutionary struggle, the centuries-old straining toward liberation can be defined first of all as a double and constant rejection of humiliation.
    -- Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion and Death: Essays
     

    Well, here we are again. 

    What also comes into more clarity is that when we start to have any discourse on humiliation, we are talking about power and the struggles its engenders.  This is true whether we talking about class and gender struggles or the struggle of two individuals to make the relationship "work."  It is also in that perceived struggled between an individual and the universe, the god of his or her understanding.

    Probably in regards to the radicalization process, it is this last struggle which is of most particular interest.  It is not this individual or that group who is humiliating the individual, but rather the whole of creation (or at least the part of creation with all of the power) has conspired to humiliate one.  In an instance like Columbine, the victims became targets not because they were active participants in the humiliation (they could have been); rather they were representatives of the larger force which continually acted to humiliate the boys.

    Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are generally not described as having been radicalized since what seemed to motivate them was not overtly political in nature.  But I think maybe we should.  If the personal is political, one might argue, no matter what personal agenda drives someone to massacre other people simply because they are symbolic of the larger forces, it becomes a political agenda.  In this light, the act of bullying is also a political act.

    But to get there, we have to step back and re-examine our notions of politics and its dynamics.  Simple political frameworks of such as conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat, while having their value, provide no real advantage into the inquiry.  The synopsis of the collection entitled Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization (2011) sums up the breadth of this dynamic and the effort to address it:

    Degradation, dehumanization, instrumentalization, humiliation, and nonrecognition – these concepts point to ways in which we understand human beings to be violated in their dignity. Violations of human dignity are brought about by concrete practices and conditions; some commonly acknowledged, such as torture and rape, and others more contested, such as poverty and exclusion. This volume collates reflections on such concepts and a range of practices, deepening our understanding of human dignity and its violation, bringing to the surface interrelationships and commonalities, and pointing to the values that are thereby shown to be in danger. In presenting a streamlined discussion from a negative perspective, complemented by conclusions for a positive account of human dignity, the book is at once a contribution to the body of literature on what dignity is and how it should be protected as well as constituting an alternative, fresh and focused perspective relevant to this significant recurring debate. As the concept of human dignity itself crosses disciplinary boundaries, this is mirrored in the unique range of perspectives brought by the book’s European and American contributors – in philosophy and ethics, law, human rights, literature, cultural studies and interdisciplinary research.

    So, maybe I will stay here at this particular station for a little while.  Check out the view from this particular platform until the next train comes by.  Two initial facets come to mind.  First, as one book suggested regarding the mental state of depression: is there a positive side to humiliation?  In other words, was there some evolutionary advantage to being able to experience humiliation? 

    Second, while trying to look at humiliation holistically, what triggers or facilitates the experience of humiliation is ultimately a personal matter, and thus differs somewhat or dramatically from individual to individual. 

    I could be here awhile.

    Comments

    Wonderful written essay.  Do you have room to fit 20% of the population who is also humiliated and marginalized by the privleged in that waiting room with you?  The question is now when will those trains start to run?  We have reached a tipping point in this frustrated society.  Lots here to think about.  Thanks.


    No, thank you. Of course, once we start talking about putting the marginalized onto trains we're getting into some potentially dark territory.

    You have got me thinking about honor killings. That is all, (for now wink.)

    Ok, one P.S.: Last time I talked with my brother who works as a grade school coach, we were talking about some of our family dynamics being influenced by a bullying incident that happened to another brother. And he said that he has come to feel from his work that childhood bullying may be a source of more trouble in the world than we can ever imagine.


    Honor killings is one of the examples that came to mind when I was thinking about differing views of what causes a state of humiliation to be experienced. It also highlights the differing views on how to resolve the humiliation and achieve a state of closure and peace.

    Trope, this essay brings up lots of thoughts and I may may come back with some of them. For now I will just quote some Leonard Cohen lyrics that were brought to mind for some reason. Not sure why. [Actually, I don't have a clue] I hadn't listened to this for a while though, so thanks for that nudge even if accidental. Anyway, I think the ideas in this song are somewhat related to your blog, at least in places. The lyrics that came to mind are in this verse. To be clear, I'm not thinking of that italicized part as actually referring simply to domestic situations.

     

    It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
    the holy places where the races meet;
    from the homicidal bitchin'
    that goes down in every kitchen
    to determine who will serve and who will eat.

    From the wells of disappointment
    where the women kneel to pray
    for the grace of God in the desert here
    and the desert far away:
    Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

    Sail on, sail on

    Anyway, even if I am off base as to relevance you might enjoy the song.
     First time I clicked this it went straight to the song, second time I got a commercial first. Good luck.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU-RuR-qO4Y


    So much here! Well done.

    Humiliation... As an extreme form of humbling must have evolutionary advantage. Nature knows that we cannot all be Genghis Khan and that somebody, even when they really are not in the mood, has to make the conqueror a sandwich when he asks for it.

    But we also know that's not right. Why do we have to make him a sandwich while he can ignore us when we're hungry? For this arrangement to have worked on an evolutionary scale means nothing more than that it allows reproduction. It says nothing about quality of life.

    And, Thoreau tells us that the "mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Yet, we do nothing about it. Worldwide, the mass of people struggle and yet we choose to perpetuate a system that not only fails to make people happy, it fails to give the majority a fair shot at happiness.

    Our system subjugates the majority to a minority. That is, in practice, humiliating for most.

    i justify no one or no action when I say that extreme reactions to the impermeable system of power we have created for ourselves is only natural.

     


    We finally get a seat on a train leaving Humiliation only to hear the conductor tell us the next stop is Quiet Desperation.

    For this arrangement to have worked on an evolutionary scale means nothing more than that it allows reproduction. It says nothing about quality of life.

    This is  an important distinction, which many people tend to forget, especially when it comes to contemplating human evolution.  The development of opposable thumbs, increased frontal cortex, etc have definitely lead to an increase in a quality of life in many regards, although those who experienced the Spanish Inquisition might add there are some regards where these developments decreased the quality of life.

    https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTOx22Z9S83Ij48WY3n0g9o9V38K9NHuEqOVMWKtR-cmw_Q7wuELg

    Nature knows that we cannot all be Genghis Khan and that somebody, even when they really are not in the mood, has to make the conqueror a sandwich when he asks for it.

    It is very likely that the "extreme form of humility"was a way to help compensate for the other evolutionary developments, most notable being the development of human language, that were as much a hindrance as a compliment to the development of what we think of as society or civilization.

    The first season of Deadwood is one of the best examples of this dynamic I can think of, which might also be viewed as the unfolding of the battle between the alpha males for dominance of the troop. 

    Worldwide, the mass of people struggle and yet we choose to perpetuate a system that not only fails to make people happy, it fails to give the majority a fair shot at happiness.

    Without getting into all the details, this is what Judith Butler would say is witnessing what power really it is - it isn't so much us that we perpetuate the system, but that system perpetuates itself through us, as coded in the very language through which our sense of "I" emerges.

    From this perspective, much of the system can be said to be remnants of the pre-language days, remnants that were embedded into the discourse as it emerged.  As such, these remnants can be understood as windows into the baseline of what can be termed "human nature."

    It may be that the impermeable system of power itself  is only natural.  That it is only natural we have created it, just as it is only natural that we also resist it.  Maybe the only thing that is consistant about human nature is that we are a bundle of contradictions, that the pinnacle of achievement is the love/hate relationship.

     


    I couldn't find the Far Side cartoon I wanted to make a particular point, but this one seems relevant to the discussion ;)

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EIGairDXSQY/TixpvNssUNI/AAAAAAAAAOg/gREzUHu_7C4/s320/Chicken+of+Depression


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