Acknowledgment, Harming, and Political Trauma: Reflections After the Plague Year

Abstract

The author suggests that we use the lens of acknowledging harm to approach the political events of the pandemic, the revelation of the depth of racial inequity and injustice, as well as the neoliberal capitalism that holds oppression in place, contributing to the emiseration of the precariat. Beginning with the idea of knowing terrible things, she considers the inability of members of the liberal elite to actually name, know and confront the harm being done. The contradictory position of implicated subjects benefiting from systems of domination while nominally opposing their injustice is considered in light of the dissociative effort to protect the sense of goodness despite knowing otherwise. This self-protection is related to the imaginary construct Only One Can Live which the author elaborates as an aspect of the position of “doer and done to.” By contrast to that complementary opposition, she suggests the position of the moral Third in which we can acknowledge and repair harm; we can truly know what has been done wrong and take responsibility for putting it right. As opposed to clinging to the sense of goodness, the collective efforts on behalf of repairing harm allow us to contain knowing and bear the sense of badness; as co-created action they embody an intersubjective relation to the moral Third.

Keywords:

• acknowledgment
• fear of knowing
• doer-done to
• reparation
• moral third

Notes

¹ The uniquely American form of conservatism that combines individualism with “stand your ground” defense of gun violence—is the fertile ground of those who use libertarianism and so-called gun rights to sow neo-fascism. But similar ideologies have informed colonialism from its inception, and have been explicit under slavery or apartheid. It is noteworthy how many popular articles have now shown how current Right wing popular language mimics the words of Confederate leaders defending slavery.

² This insight was expressed by my colleague and mentor in the Acknowledgment Project, Eyad el Sarraj, who thought that Israelis believe that to own aggression and harming would remove their right to live (Benjamin, 2016).

³ Perhaps the contradictions that emerged might be typified by the fact that McKinsey Consulting, a gateway to positions in the Democratic political elite, develops strategies for corporations to prevent unions and beat back workers’ demands. This company that “turbo-charged the opioid epidemic” gave 27 times more money to Hillary Clinton than to Trump, and its women members attended the Women’s March against him.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Benjamin

Jessica Benjamin, PhD, is the author of The Bonds of Love (1988), Like Subjects, Love Objects (1995); and Shadow of the Other (1998). Her most recent book is Beyond Doer and done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third (2018). She is a supervisor and faculty member of the New York University Postdoctoral Psychology program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and the Stephen Mitchell Relational Studies Center where she is a founder and board member. [email protected]