Mature
differentiation as response
to terrorism and humilitation:
Refrain
from the language of
'war' and 'evil'
By
Evelin
Lindner, TFF
Associate*
Founder of
Human
Dignity and Humiliation Studies,
HumanDHS
September 22, 2005
The 2005 bombs in London shook the
world. They reminded everybody of the Madrid bombings of
11th March 2004, or of what has become known as 'Nine
Eleven,' to name only two of the tragedies that currently
unsettle the world. Innocent civilians live in fear - not
only is the West, also in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle
East, in African countries and other world regions.
In many cases, the West is the
"addressee" and we have perpetrators acting as ultimate
humiliators of the Western world. Taking down the World
Trade Center's Twin Towers, proud symbols of Western
power, was a cruel "message of humiliation." Paralysing
world hubs such as London and Madrid is another "message
of humiliation."
Humiliation has to do with "putting
down." The word humiliation has at its core "humus,"
which means "earth" in Latin. Indeed, the Twin Towers
were taken down to the level of the ground, into the dust
of the earth. Whatever these towers stood for was cruelly
"debased" and "denigrated." And terrorising large cities,
Madrid, or London, certainly "takes down" their pride.
Debasement, denigration, these words have the prefix
"de-," which signifies "down from" in Latin, down from a
great height to the ground. Thousands of innocent victims
had to pay with their lives for a "message of
humiliation" that was "sent" to the mighty masters of
today's world in the act of "taking down" their
pride.
The response from the targeted
victims is "war on terror." In other words, the victims
of terror, in New York, Madrid and London, are sending a
message back to those who perpetrated this mayhem. It is
the message that the victims do not intend to succumb to
this humiliation, on the contrary, that they are set on
resisting it with proud resilience.
In this situation many ask, "How
come that we find ourselves enveloped in violence, war,
and terror, or at least in apprehension and fear of it,
even though the only thing we yearn for is peace?"
What drives
terrorists?
Initially, scholars and experts
identified the "Realpolitik" of conflicts of interest (as
to natural resources, for example), others deprivation as
the main causes of violent conflict. Deprivation may be
caused by poverty, for example, or low status or
alienation and marginalisation. The argument as to
deprivation goes as follows: deprivation represents a
"grievance" that leads to "resentment" and
"embitterment," and finally to a "backlash."
Nowadays, this line of thought must
be refined. Clearly, many "terrorists" are neither poor
nor destitute nor lacking a potentially bright future.
Why are they choosing death and mayhem?
Poverty, low status, alienation and
marginalisation do not automatically elicit feelings of
yearnings for retaliation. A religious person may join a
monastery and be proud of poverty, low status may be
explained as nature's order or God's will, and even
marginalisation and alienation may be the basis for
pride; not all minorities feel oppressed. Furthermore,
poverty may motivate a person to work hard in order to
get out of it, parents may sacrifice to enable their
children to have an education and a better life, and
every small incremental step towards a better quality of
life may be celebrated. Finally, we all know that
conflict, conflict of interest for example, even if at
hand, is not necessarily destructive - even the most
severe scarcity can lead to mutually enriching sharing.
When handled well, with mutual cooperation, any conflict
may lead to personal growth and new creativity, only when
managed badly, it brings pain.
The question must be: What is it
that creates unbearable suffering of a kind that triggers
the urge to retaliate with violence? Is not the
probability high that grievances breed depression and
apathy, rather than highly organised terror? Thus the
question becomes even more complicated: Firstly, what
kind of suffering is required for an urge for violent
retaliation to develop, and secondly, under which
conditions is this retaliation carried out in an
organised way?
Feelings of humiliation, is our
answer to the first part of the question. Feelings of
debasement may lead to acts of humiliation perpetrated on
the perceived humiliator, setting off cycles of
humiliation in which everybody who is involved feels
denigrated and is convinced that humiliating the
humiliator is a just and holy duty. As to the second part
of the question, we would suggest that leaders are
required that channel the sufferings of masses into one
single joint project of retaliation. Hitler is not the
only master narrator of stories of humiliation that - as
he argued in the 1930s - had to be resisted and prevented
in a highly organised joint effort. Hitler incited the
entire German population to undo the disgrace that
Germany had suffered after World War I through the
Treaties of Versailles. Not enough, he also engaged
Germany in "preventive" extermination of the World-Jewry
that he feared was set to dominate and debase the globe
in the future, if not stopped. Undoing past humiliation
and preventing future humiliation, these were
justifications for unspeakable atrocities in Hitler
Germany, in Rwanda (1994 genocide), and other
mayhem.
Humiliation entails some aspects
that are universal and others that depend on
cultural-social contexts and on the intentions of the
involved parties. In everyday language, the word
humiliation is used threefold. Firstly, the word
humiliation signifies an act, secondly a feeling, and
thirdly, a process: 'I humiliate you, you feel
humiliated, and the entire process is one of
humiliation.' (In this text it is expected that the
reader understands from the context which alternative is
the one applied at a given point, since otherwise the
language would become too convoluted.)
How do feelings
of humiliation come about?
How do feelings of humiliation come
about? Based on many years of research on this phenomenon
(see www.humiliationstudies.org/whoweare/evelin.php), I
would suggest the following explanation: Feelings of
humiliation come about when deprivation (real or
imagined) is perceived as an illegitimate imposition of
lowering or degradation, one that cannot be explained in
constructive terms. All human beings basically yearn for
recognition and respect. It is when people perceive that
recognition and respect are withdrawn or denied that they
may feel humiliated, and this is the strongest force that
creates rifts between people and breaks down
relationships. Whether this withdrawal of recognition is
real or the result of misunderstandings, still, the
perceiver is prone to feel humiliated, whether he or she
is rich or poor, marginalised or not.
There is a significant literature
in philosophy on the politics of recognition and
ressentiment. Identity politics is motivated by a deep
human need for recognition, with injurious effects of
various forms of misrecognition.
Thomas Friedman in the New York
Times, states, "If I've learned one thing covering world
affairs, it's this: The single most underappreciated
force in international relations is humiliation" (New
York Times, November 9, 2003).
Aaron Lazare (2004) writes: "I
believe that humiliation is one of the most important
emotions we must understand and manage, both in ourselves
and in others, and on an individual and national level"
(Aaron Lazare, 2004, On Apology. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, p. 262-263).
Vamik Volkan (2004) has developed a
theory of collective violence, which he puts forth in his
recent book Blind Trust: Large groups and their leaders
in times of crisis and terror. He explains that when a
chosen trauma that is experienced as humiliation is not
mourned, it may lead to the feeling of entitlement to
revenge and, under the pressure of fear/anxiety, to
collective regression (Vamik Volkan, 2004, Blind
Trust: Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crisis
and Terror. Charlottesville, VA: Pitchstone
Publishing).
To conclude this point, we suggest
that the desire for recognition unites human beings, that
it is universal and can serve as a platform for contact
and cooperation. Consequently, many of the rifts that we
can observe stem from an equally universal phenomenon,
namely the humiliation that is felt when recognition and
respect is perceived as lacking. We do not therefore
believe that ethnic, religious, cultural differences or
conflicts of interests create rifts by themselves; on the
contrary, conflicts of interest can best be solved
through cooperation, and diversity can be a source of
mutual enrichment - however, cooperation and diversity
are possible and enriching only as long as they are
embedded within relationships that are characterised by
respect. It is when respect and recognition are failing,
that those who feel victimised are prone to highlight
differences in order to "justify" rifts that were caused,
not by these differences, but by something else, namely
by humiliation.
Secondary gains
can keep cycles of humiliation in motion
And as soon as cycles of
humiliation are in motion, they render "secondary gains"
that keep them going. The philosopher Avishai Margalit
(2002) highlights the significance of the memory of
humiliation and suggests that some people may become
attached - almost addicted - to this emotion, as this
secures the "benefits" of the victim status and an
entitlement for retaliation (Avishai Margalit, 2002,
The Ethics of Memory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press).
Jennifer S. Goldman and Peter T.
Coleman (2005), posit that a humiliated person might feel
morally justified to act aggressively against others: "To
give up the status as a humiliated person would mean that
the aggression would no longer be morally justified, and
no further pleasure or catharsis could be derived from
it. It would also mean having to face the reality of
one's own perpetration, and one's own responsibility for
the other's pain" (Jennifer S. Goldman and Peter T.
Coleman, 2005, How Humiliation Fuels Intractable
Conflict: The Effects of Emotional Roles on Recall and
Reactions to Conflictual Encounters. New York, NY:
International Center for Cooperation & Conflict
Resolution, Teachers College, Columbia University, pp.
15-16).
The larger
context
Cycles of humiliation are affected
by historical and cultural changes that frame conflict
and emotions in profoundly new ways. The two strongest
forces undermining old ways at the current historical
juncture are the increasing intercultural
interconnectedness of the world (or globalisation) and
the human rights revolution (or egalisation, term coined
by Lindner). Lindner defines egalisation as the
implementation of the ideal of equal dignity for all,
including equal opportunities. If we imagine the world as
a container with a height and a width, globalisation
addresses the horizontal dimension, the shrinking of the
world, the shrinking of the diameter. Egalisation
concerns the vertical dimension. Egalisation is a process
away from a very high power distance of masters at the
top and underlings at the bottom, towards a flatter
"container" with everybody enjoying equal dignity.
Egalisation is a process that elicits hot feelings of
humiliation when it is promised but fails.
Nowadays, we no longer make people
accept explanations for inequality and deprivation that
allude to God's will, or to nature's order, or to
punishment for past failings. We live in a world that is
permeated by the promise of human rights that indicates
that every human being has a right to live in enabling
circumstances, that egality is the ruling idea and not
hierarchy, that every person has an inner core of dignity
that ought not be lowered. International experience
indicates that this message indeed is heard.
However, it has not, at least not
in the short term, had the effect that many human rights
advocates hope for, namely to decrease suffering around
the world. On the contrary, in the first instance, it
augments feelings of debasement, because inequalities and
deprivation that were accepted before turn into
unacceptable acts of humiliation perpetrated by the
powerful on the less powerful. The promise of human
rights, the promise of equal dignity for all, if
unfulfilled, creates an expectation gap that can
translate into wounds of humiliation if it is being
perceived to be inflicted by perpetrators, either
intentionally or through negligence. And, as mentioned
already, acts of debasement create feelings of
humiliation that in turn have a potential to lead to
retaliating acts of debasement.
Terror attacks indicates - at least
to our understanding - that the entire world community is
caught in cycles of humiliation. Men such as Osama bin
Laden would never have any followers, if there were not a
pool of sullen feelings of humiliation somewhere,
feelings that are so intense that young intelligent men,
who could found families and have satisfying careers, are
willing to follow such leaders and lose their lives in
destroying other lives.
The example of Nelson Mandela shows
alternative ways out of feelings of debasement, towards
constructive social change rather than turning the cycle
of humiliation another turn by retaliating with acts of
debasement as response for feeling debased. Nelson
Mandela shows that there is no automatic link between
feeling humiliated and retaliating with acts of
humiliation. Mandela shows that wounds from debasement
cannot serve as a "justification" or "excuse" for mayhem.
Mandela's example proves that strong constructive
leadership is what remedies the agony that emanates from
being forced into indignity, not inflicting wounds in
return. Thus, studying the dynamics of humiliation in no
way lends itself to condoning mayhem. On the contrary.
Mandela is immeasurable proof.
Gandhi disliked the words and ideas
of "passive resistance." The term Satyagraha (non-violent
action), is a combination of satya (truth-love) and
agraha (firmness/force). Satyagraha precisely
encapsulates the intertwining of coercion with respect.
Equally, studying the phenomenon of humiliation does not
amount to "soft" sympathy for perpetrators of mayhem.
Quite the opposite. Human dignity is only safeguarded by
differentiation. Understanding does not automatically
mean condoning, listening does not necessarily mean
agreeing, and reaching out for dialogue has nothing to do
with appeasement. The world needs Nelson Mandelas who are
capable of mature differentiation that is both
inclusive-respectful and tough.
A case
study
How is humiliation played out? Here
is a case study.
Julius Paltiel, a Norwegian Jew,
was imprisoned in the "SS Strafgefangenenlager Falstad"
during World War II. Falstad is situated in the midst of
a breathtakingly beautiful landscape, in the middle of
Norway, not far away from Trondheim (something like the
latitude of Anchorage, albeit much milder, because of the
Gulf Stream). Falstad is a large building almost forlorn
in this lovely nature, wrapped around a rectangular
courtyard; it was once a special school for handicapped
boys. However, in 1941, it was taken over by the German
occupying power and turned into the "SS
Strafgefangenenlager Falstad," a detention camp for
political prisoners. I met Julius Paltiel in October
2002. He lived through a deeply gripping and
thought-provoking episode that I would like to narrate to
you here.
Once, one of the prisoners
was asked to sing. SS officers and prisoners,
including Julius Paltiel himself, stood in the
courtyard, listening. The prisoner who was to sing was
very knowledgeable and had an extremely beautiful
voice. He was able to recite several deeply reflective
songs from the German cultural heritage, in German. He
sang these songs so wonderfully and touchingly that
the SS officers were taken in to a degree that they
stood still and listened in silence; in complete
silence. Julius Paltiel explained that this had never
happened before; the SS officers never used to be
silent, on the contrary, they continuously shouted
insults and orders.
After about a quarter of an hour
of beautiful sounds filling the air, a dog began to
howl, trying to "accompany" the song. This "woke up"
the SS officers. They immediately set out to "cover
up" for their vulnerability with an excess of
humiliation. They ordered the prisoners to go to the
tree in the middle of the courtyard and shake off its
leaves; it was autumn. Then they ordered the prisoners
to lie down on their stomachs and crawl to the leaves,
take them up one by one with their mouths and bring
them to one of the corners of the courtyard, all this
while dragging themselves ahead on their stomachs.
Thus the prisoners had to lie on the ground and use
their mouths to "clean" the courtyard from the leaves
that they first had been ordered to shake off the
tree!
It seems fair to say that the
beautiful songs and their touching appeal had undermined
the hierarchy of "Übermensch" und "Untermensch" that
the SS officers otherwise attempted to maintain. In their
minds they were not "supposed" to feel and be touched in
the same way as other people. Being merely human beings
among other human beings, this was not their world; they
believed to be "higher" beings. However, the songs
confronted them with a truth they did not want to know,
namely that they, indeed, were mere human beings like
anybody else, and no more. When they "woke up," they
remembered the ideological frame they had subscribed to,
namely a hierarchy of lesser and higher beings where they
were supposed to occupy the seat of the master.
Interestingly, they did not beat the prisoners
"mindlessly" or treat them with mere physical brutality,
no, they perpetrated a highly symbolic and intelligent
"message" to both prisoners and themselves: they
reinstated physically, mentally and emotionally the
hierarchy of "Übermensch/Untermensch" by sending the
prisoners literally "down," down to the ground and let
them carry out "services" that were so "low" that there
could be no doubt as to who was their master!
What do we learn from this story?
We could conclude that the beauty of the songs performed
by the prisoner elicited humility in the SS officers, at
least for a few minutes, a humility that is at the core
of the human rights message of equal dignity for every
human being. Humiliation, on the contrary, characterises
a world of inhuman inequalities and brutal rankings of
human worth and value in "higher" and "lower" beings. It
seems that humankind's current task is to avoid such
rankings, and avoid cycles of humiliation where victims
turn into humiliators.
Concluding
remarks - decency and the global village
What we learn is that we have to
introduce humility - humble awareness of our shared
humanity and our joint responsibility for sustaining our
planet, socially and ecologically. We need to refrain
from language of "war" and "evil." These labels might
give us the feeling of control and pride over our own
heroism. However, "war" needs to be won "against"
"enemies," and "evil" calls for "extermination" and
"flushing out." In an interdependent world - rather than
rendering peace - this strategy risks fuelling ever new
cycles of humiliation, because hearts and minds can only
be won and not "flushed out."
Sharon Ellison (2003) asks us "to
take the war out of our language" (Sharon Ellison, 2003,
Taking the War Out of Our Words: The Art of Powerful
Non-Defensive Communication. Berkeley, CA: Bay Tree
Publishing). We recommend the language of policing -
rather than war - for those extremists who commit mayhem
and a language of inclusion for the potentially moderate
rest. Ralph Summy writes (in a personal message, 24th
July 2005): "Your research [on humiliation] is
very much needed in today's violence-prone world where a
failure to empathise with THE OTHER, looking at a
situation from the other's perspective without
necessarily condoning it or the response, lies at the
root of much of the violence problem."
Avishai Margalit (1996) wrote a
book entitled The Decent Society, in which he
calls for institutions that do not anymore humiliate
citizens (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Decency reigns when humiliation is being minimised,
humiliation in relationships, but also humiliation
inflicted by institutions. Decency rules when dignity for
all is made possible. Decency does not mean that
everybody should like everybody; decency is the minimum
that is necessary to keep a neighbourhood functioning -
coexisting without mayhem - even when neighbours dislike
each other.
I wish to extend the call for
decency from national to global levels. The vision of a
decent global village is spelled out in detail in the
United Nations Millennium Declaration of September 2000.
As mentioned earlier, another relevant key term is
sustainability, sustainability both ecological and
social. However, on the way to a decent and sustainable
global village, we have to be alert to dynamics of
humiliation and heal and prevent them. Particularly the
danger emanating from the current lack of egalisation
must be taken seriously. Lagging egalisation threatens to
fuel feelings of humiliation, and feelings of humiliation
in turn entail the potential to lead to violence.
This danger has to be heeded, since
feelings of humiliation represent the "nuclear bomb of
the emotions" (term coined by Lindner). Former masters
must learn new humility and former underlings develop new
self-empowerment so that all can cooperate as equally
dignified players of a global team. And all have to learn
the mature handling of conflict, in the spirit of
Mandela's ability of differentiation. Even the gravest
humiliation does not have to lead to mayhem; we can
jointly foster constructive change.
All, the international community,
its men and its women, carry a particular responsibility
in the current transition period. People who are caught
in cycles of humiliation may not be able to exit from
them on their own; they need the support and sometimes
even pressure from outside. The international community,
if they wish to extinguish local fires that might inflame
the globe, need to take up this responsibility. The
international community has to learn from people like
Nelson Mandela and M. K. Gandhi - and several others -
how to stand up and not stand by. Humiliation should best
be avoided and prevented, however, even if present, it
can be translated into beneficial social transformation.
Fuelling cycles of humiliation-for-humiliation does not
lead to peace and justice.
To conclude, therefore, we call for
a world-wide Moratorium on Humiliation in order to
facilitate the building of a decent global
village.
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*
Evelin Gerda Lindner, M.D., Ph.D. (Dr. med.), Ph.D. (Dr.
psychol.) Social scientist, founding manager of
Human
Dignity and Humiliation Studies
(HumanDHS) and anchored at the
Columbia University Conflict Resolution Network, New
York. Furthermore affiliated to the University
of Oslo, Department of
Psychology. Senior Lecturer at
the Norwegian
University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim,
Department of Psychology and
affiliated to the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in
Paris.
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