Re: these days...'zone of difference'

From: David Daniel Preiss Contreras (davidpreiss@puc.cl)
Date: Tue Mar 22 2005 - 11:14:22 PST


Interesting spacial gist, Iraj.
Just to clarify, I was talinkg about the twenty thousand civilians reported
by iraqbodycount.com. Where did you pick the 100.000 value? It is five times
more!
David

IRAJ IMAM writes:

> David Preiss wrote:
>
>
> ". 1 life put against 20000. Is there a relative value for life in the
> media? Can the life of one person get 20000 times more attention than the
> life of thousand of Iraqis? I have never liked making human life relative,
> but the double standard is there for everybody to see. .. It has a horrible
> appearance of "I have seen this before". And so the life goes on. .."
>
>
>
> IN facing destruction of life, we seem to go to extremes -in our emotions,
> thoughts, and [in]actions. As you say, to put life of one American (brain
> dead) against 2000 (healthy young men and women), not to mention against the
> 100,000 Iraqi civilians (half women and children).
>
>
>
> This seems to be what 'we' do and get away with it by 'seeing' various
> deaths put in different social spaces of language and emotions and hence
> normalized. Perhaps the Italian 'dark' philosopher Giorgio
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-autho
> r=Giorgio%20Agamben/104-9504392-1123944> Agamben by studying Auschwitz has
> something to say about states (spaces) of our minds that can do this. In
> his new book State of Exception
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226009254/qid%3D1111515523/sr%3D2-1/
> ref%3Dpd%5Fbbs%5Fb%5F2%5F1/104-9504392-1123944
>
>
>
> He follows on his previous work (Home Sacer) to show how we do this.
> Oversimplifying, he suggests that we produce three social spaces and
> allocate three corresponding spaces in our minds to them. A 'center' is the
> life of that one person (brain dead). And a 'periphery' for those who are in
> the margin; the life of the 2000 American soldiers. It is 'normal' for
> soldiers to die, but not for the already brain dead woman. The third
> category is about those who are not allowed to be on our social radar--The
> 100,000 civilian Iraqis. He calls this hidden social space 'zone of
> indifference' -that was the Auschwitz in the 30s and it is also Guantanamo
> and Abu Gharaib and Baghram, and., and.today.
>
>
>
> "And then is when I wonder about the silence of these days..."
>
>
>
> Well, you broke the silence in this space. perhaps by making the 'zone of
> indifference' visible and connecting it to both the center and the margin,
> one can begin to 'see' the value of the death differently-from unequal
> deaths to equal deaths.
>
>
>
> Iraj
>
>
>
>
>
 

David D. Preiss
home page: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ddp6/



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