brianlynchmd.com

[drlynch]

This assumes you have seen the move Munich. So as you know the plot is quite simple. It is a “docudrama” in that it covers the killings of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the Israeli response in the form of tracing down a series of Palestinians and executing them. I assume that it is only on the DVD that the director Steven Spielberg essentially offers, at the start, an apologia for the movie stating that he is not attacking Israel.

The movie was controversial so far in that it is claimed not to be accurate primarily by the Israeli’s in that they say that the portrayal of the Mossad agents is inaccurate in that there is no evidence that any of them had or expressed any qualms about their actions. This and that the portrayal of the French family as a contact for the Mossad is ridiculous. That such an intermediary does not make sense. How would such an information system exist that would be more powerful than that of the Mossad itself? In fact I read somewhere that the French family is inserted for efficiency of story line, that in fact the Mossad themselves did the intelligence work but it was very complicated, much more so than portrayed in the movie.

Now all that said I think it is all beside the point. I think the point is what is the movie asking as Spielberg says at the first? What does he say? He says he is just raising questions and the basic question is a very old one that is basically does an “eye for an eye” do any good?

It seems to me that is what the movie reduces to and one might say is therefor almost ridiculous.

For several months now I have been working with the idea of how as “humans” we live in so may levels of consciousness. Much of the time I think due to the fact that we do not have solutions to these most difficult problems that we easily slip into what might well be called not fully conscious states where we quickly accept non-logical solutions to problems. That is I think we live within various “selves” and “need” to live within those selves most of those times. That is all of us, to use the language, of affect psychology, have a “withdrawal self’, a “attack self”, an “avoidance self” and an “attack other” self and when we feel threatened we so easily slip into these “selves” and will be easily be convinced that “an eye for an eye” is a “just” solution under certain conditions because, for example, this or that action was particularly horrendous.

We simply become “stuck”.

It seems to be that we just are on the cusp of beginning to shift to equally strong paradigms or “habitual” “images” that are positive that offer solutions that will take us out of the cycle of withdrawal, blame self, avoid and attack.

One key item to turn to is the history of the word “humiliate”. This came to my attention the other day by reading a piece by Evelin Lindner which is entited such

The Role of Dignity and Humiliation in a Globalising World:
Reflections on Feedback from the Audience
“The Role of Dignity and Humiliation in a Globalising World: New Forms of Cooperative Approaches to Solve New Social Dilemma Situations as well as Succeed in Intercultural Encounters.” Workshop for graduate students, organised by Professor Hora Tjitra on the occasion of Evelin Lindner's visit to the Department of Applied Psychology, Zhejiang University, School of Psychology, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China, 13th April 2006. © Evelin G. Lindner

I quote this rather long passage in its entirety:

“In my work, I follow modern linguistic definitions and differentiate between humbling and humiliating and between humility and humiliation. I understand humility to be positive, a valuable virtue, and humiliation to be negative, a hurtful violation.

It is interesting to note that this differentiation is historically new. Until 1757, in the English language, both words meant the same. William Ian Miller informs us that “the earliest recorded use of to humiliate, meaning to mortify or to lower or to depress the dignity or self-respect of someone, does not occur until 1757” (Miller, 1993, p. 175, italics in original).


In other words, humiliation was not seen as hurtful until about 250 years ago. And this was not restricted to English-speaking people. For millennia, people around the world believed that it was normal and morally correct to have masters and underlings, and that masters were entitled to be treated as higher beings and underlings deserved to be shown down, “where they belonged.” Even when underlings rebelled, it was to replace the master rather than to dismantle the hierarchy.

The emergence of the modern meaning of the word humiliation (1757), namely that it is a violation of dignity, co-occurs with a number of other transitions. The author of The Invention of the Self, John O. Lyons, 1978, for example, analysed travellers’ descriptions of their experiences and found that around 1750 the authors began to insert themselves as subjects with a personal perspective on what they observed. This change closely preceded the American Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) and the French Revolution (August 4, 1789), rallying points for the development of the human rights movement. Undoubtedly, the ideas that culminated in today’s concepts of human rights predate 1757. However, these ideals did not move to the forefront of Western consciousness until about 250 years ago. At present, human rights ideals are in the process of permeating the normative frames of the entire global village.

In short, in the old hierarchical societies, prior to the start of the human rights revolution, showing underlings their due lowly place was seen as legitimate. The illegitimacy and the violation that is entailed in the modern understanding of the word humiliation, was not yet there. Today, in contrast, most people would no longer accept that humiliation has any positive outcome. In today’s globalising world, we need strong and creative individuals. Humiliation, however, does not create strong individuals, but weak individuals. This has been well explained well by Lakoff and Johnson (1999) in their discussion of parenting styles, a discussion that is relevant also for pedagogy and organisational psychology.”




This then highlights one aspect of our evolution, for one, it seems to be a rather rapid evolution of late.

Part of that evolution then, is to bring into a broad consciousness the concept of humiliation. This is a slow and relatively painful process. Slowly, to borrow a phrase, we approach a “tipping point”. One day it is ok to subject others to smoke and the next day it is not. One day it is ok to deny someone a place at the counter and the next day it isn’t.

The world is still very much a nationality, tribal and familial place and will be for a very long time. That is the case, yet our technology moves full steam ahead at an ever-faster pace and forces us together. The technology itself causes great humiliation and shame but also get opportunity to push through to solutions.

Such experiences as a movie such as Munich are small weigh stations along the way in this revolution. Its use of real events to raise questions is laudable and it certainly asks universal questions. To critique it as a movie dealing with the Palestinian Israeli conflict certainly seems a waste. No, it is about universals.

Indeed to take a position of HAVING SIDES in any such conflict is the problem that we are trying to overcome. How do you rise above this? How do you resolve conflict? Once you even hint at taking a side it seems as if you are perpetuating the conflict?

Finally, a comment on the thought on whether the Mossad members had any remorse about their activities. To deny that they did or to even vehemently deny that they did not feel guilt or remorse, as some seem to do, would of course be to “shut down” and cut off any debate and assume a righteous stance and imply that what was done was simply right and should not be questioned. Or at the very least imply some naïve view of the military that shoulders simply carry out orders and do not feel.

There was at least one excellent exchange of dialogue between an older team member and the team leader where the older is warning the leader that it eventually “catches” up with you. The younger is saying he does not like “confusion” but clarity. As long as there is activity, “action”, movement he is all right, as long as someone is telling him to move forward, the older again, is simply saying, of course, that is the problem, it is not that simple.

I can say, even from the relative safety of a Chicago office, that I have been touched quite enough by the terrors of war in general, torture and the Middle East to know first hand from patients that no one escapes without lasting scars.

Dr. Brian Lynch