Secondary trauma

Geoffrey Hartman on the other hand supposes that direct and extremely realistic representations cause desensitization in the viewer, or as Robert Lifton writes: ‘psychic numbing’. “Terrible things, by continuing to be shown, begin to appear matter-of-fact, a natural rather than man-made catastrophe.” (See:  G. H. Hartman, Public Memory and Its Discontents, in: “Raritan” 14, 1994)

Comparable to an earthquake or tornado attack. The human element is taken out, therefore the possibility to hold others responsible for these acts is put into question. Moreover transmission of information about historical events such as Holocaust or other genocides doesn’t lead to conscious remembrance or healing of wounds, but secondary trauma, which is the result of representing the Holocaust, wars and other massive violations of human rights in modes that are themselves traumatizing. Ernst van Alphen, writes:

“Modes of representation capable of causing secondary trauma are those which seek to overwhelm the viewer with naked imagery: docudramas, the journalistic image and reports that attempt to expose the ‘bare truth’ or ‘naked facts’ – in short, those realistic modes that strive to convey historical truth. [...] It’s a paradoxical and ultimately hopeless endeavor to counter traumatic effects by using traumatic modes of representation, because a foreground effect has to be apprehended intellectually to be acted upon. In this case, the viewer is too overwhelmed to arrive at such a response.” (E. van Alphen, Caught by History. Holocaust Effects in Contemporary Art. Literature and Theory, Stanford University Press 1997, p. 165-66.)