[lit-ideas] Re: Violence without Horror
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 09:16:11 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 8/27/2005 2:32:11 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Violence without Horror
>
> if this is a true and recent story..
>
> It happened a long time ago (hence the distance of "laundry, natch")
> when I lived in PA and owned a car. The "way into it," or what I
> hoped to discuss, was the experience of extreme situations, the
> complete absence of horror in the face of grievous catastrophe.
>
> I mean, we're talking about film violence and the horror of violence
> per se, but here's a real-life experience of arriving by chance at a
> stretch of road littered with dead or dying people and body parts.
>
> No horror. Shock, to be sure, and delayed reaction to the carnage.
> But in the experience itself, no horror. There was a disaster,
> things to do during the disaster, and a delayed reaction of a couple
> hours before I could get settled into my emotions. But there was no
> horror. It was more about the pity of those poor people and the
> buzzing of my nervous system from too much adrenaline.
>
> Maybe we have a natural defense mechanism that engages in that kind
> of extreme situation, and "horror" is really a leisurely product of
> our imaginations, something contemplated only in the absence of
> extreme situations? Such as a film.
>
> The notion is similar to what Andy and I were discussing about the
> imagination of pain versus real in-the-moment pain.
>
>
That is what I got out of this story. My understanding is that the mind
will go into shock initially. Eventually, as happened to you, and possibly
longer for some people, the mind slowly processes overwhelming information.
When the shocks keep coming faster than they can be processed, people shut
down. The emotions are the bloodstream, so to speak, of the mind. It's
the metaphysical counterpart of, say, a leg being severed and the body
trying to save itself from a hemorrhage by shutting down all but vital
functions. The mind does the same thing. It's essentially PTSD, first
diagnosed in soldiers. The emotions most associated with horror are, I
believe, fear and grief. Unfortunately, the emotions are still there, just
shut down, bottled up. Then something comes along that triggers these
bottled up emotions, and out they fly, as what happens no doubt with
President Bush. It's why, almost guaranteed, he drinks.
Depression is defined as being caused by, among other things, anger turned
*inward*, i.e., pushed down out of awareness, repressed. Emotions also
trade around. Fear is the hardest to deal with, so it often expresses as
anger. Anger is another major one, that often expresses itself as fear
(often seen in girls for whom anger is not ladylike). Under all of it is
the loss that accompanies needing to be afraid or angry, i.e., grief.
BTW, I don't hate Bush. I rather feel sorry for him. I wouldn't want to
be him. I just think he is emotionally unequipped to be president. I
think I did read somewhere that Bush Sr. used corporal punishment on W.
And his mother was very demanding, among other things, of language if I
recall correctly. It might be why he's always misspeaking. Just
speculating here, but especially if W were a sensitive child, he could,
even would, be afraid of his father (god the father, remember?) and convert
it to the more "manly" emotion of anger. I didn't read Frank's book but I
suspect it's something along these lines. I see you're all shutting down
read this ...
Andy
>
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