Trauma & Art

Hi. Today I’m posting an extract from another book informed by a deep deminist approach on waking up, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. The extract refers to victimization and victimhood, which is relevant to the previous post and what I have been re-exploring recently.

‘There’s always the danger, though, that as we open our eyes to the social, physical, psychological, and spiritual violence done to women throughout history, not to mention the wounding in our own personal histories, we will become paralyzed by a sense of victimization. For me, opening my eyes to the feminine wound was rather like getting hit by a stun gun. I felt knocked down by the force of it, and for a short while I didn’t get up. On some level, I felt overwhelmed by the depth of the feminine wound, which I was uncovering, not only in myself, but all around. The danger of getting stuck in feelings of victimization is real, but nevertheless, recognizing the feminine wound is important because in the end it’s the only way we can stop being victims. We can’t change anything until we acknowledge the problem. I’d been an unconscious victim before my awakening began. Discovering the truth was waking me up to my victimization, but it was also making it possible for me to move beyond it. Feminist writer Naomi Wolf has especially cautioned women not to shape our identity as victims. Yet shaping our identity as victims is quite different from naming the truth of our victimization in order to work against it and live into our power. If women don’t document and protest the harm done to us, who will? As Wolf says, “Women are not natural victims, but they sure are victimized.” While holding onto the awareness, then, that we must not fall into shaping our identity as victims, we have to tell ourselves the “flat-out truth’…….. we have come into a world, into a church or faith tradition, that for millennia has believed us inferior. It is a tradition permeated by an authoritarian attitude that devalues, diminishes, rejects, and limits women and the feminine. But seeing such truth can be dangerous. Philosopher Mary Daly reminds us, “It isn’t prudent for women to see all of this. Seeing means that everything changes: the old identifications and the old securities are gone.” The question, she says, is whether women can forgo prudence in favor of courage. That was the question that followed me.’

A couple of things that caught my attention this week….

We respond to incoming stimuli and information as we make it our own with thoughts, sensations, emotions, and shifts in ideas or actions….                    

I watched a documentary created by local school students about Lazaretto, the quarantine facility on the island, which is now an abandoned stone building complex. It was based on architectural plans by Weiler and was built after the Greek revolution. It was a rather impressive building on a spot with a breathtaking view of the sea and the town. It included a rectangular courtyard, kitchens and offices and 32 apartments for travelers. Initially, it served as a quarantine space for travelers who were forced to remain within its walls for several days in order to avoid the spread of infectious diseases like cholera. During the Cretan revolution it was used as a shelter for the refugees of Crete and then it functioned as a prison, a lunatic asylum for people deemed as mentally disturbed, addicts, the homeless, paupers, and Theofilos Kairis, who was charged with heresy, while after the civil war it was used for the detention of political prisoners. So, one could say that even during its early more glorious days when it brought income from travelers it was linked to isolation, human suffering and oppression. This was intensely felt during the film where potential restoration plans and ideas were also presented. The island has many derelict impressive buildings from older prosperous times and it is sad to watch them turn to rubble. I am all for restoring and creating new uses for buildings that can potentially create historical continuity, benefit neighborhoods aesthetically, create work places, bring revenue and also make use of old material and what has stood for so long. So, the ideas mentioned included a hotel with a spa where modern architectural features could be combined with what has remained of the building, a medical conference area, a university or other educational facility. But the lack of resources and other obstacles that were highlighted in the film practically means that it may eventually crumble. As I imagined what it could potentially become and how it could transform the area in many ways (even property prices would go up in the surrounding area) I was surprised to also feel that perhaps it is meant to eventually disappear and maybe the magnitude of the pain and suffering and its dark history call for it to dissolve. Could it be a kind of justice brought about by time? Sometimes old structures can be healed and restored, but sometimes the old has to die in order to release old dynamics and to create space for the new. Maybe returning the site to nature through restoring the natural environment to its former beauty; for instance, planting a park, could be a different kind of restoration.

Reading the article below brought to my attention an interesting distinction that I had not made previously; the distinction between vertical collectivism and horizontal collectivism. We usually discuss the overall qualities and advantages and disadvantages of more or less collective / individualistic cultures, but do not often consider this distinction.

‘Harry Triandis made this distinction between collectivism. Vertical collectivism is observing hierarchies, and so certain people have higher status and more authority than you. You have to respect those people, and you have to treat those people a certain way. But in a society that follows horizontal collectivism, there’s less emphasis on hierarchy, on authority, on power. You’re…… focused on your relationships and the goals of your social group’

(Retrieved from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_cultural_differences_shape_your_happiness?utm_source=Greater+Good+Science+Center&utm_campaign=ecea6c2bb1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_GG_Newsletter_May_22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5ae73e326e-ecea6c2bb1-70743655)