horrifying act in NYC

[Lori Hitchcock]

This will be my last word on this, because I'd also like to see the list
return to what it's meant for once we've all had time to reflect on what
this means to us; however, since the author of this message seems to be
speaking to me, I'll just note that I'm aware of the essentially political
uses of the term 'dominant culture' and I'm in substantial agreement with
this assessment; however (and I may have been reading wrong - if so I
apologize), I've also seen it used in this discussion in what seems to be
in reference to 'dominant cultural representations' of what has happened,
which, in my own admittedly knee-jerk fashion I've taken to refer to US
entertainment/news culture, and how it has been representing these events.
It is this use (perhaps my own lens is reading it this way) that I find
problematic and hasty - not necessarily wrong, but an over-generalization
 - and which I was arguing against.

Mea culpa, if I misread the intent of any of the previous emails.

Best, Lori

On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 Nevetsgnow at aol.com wrote:

> 
> You have answered your own question - the blessing with which you now owe 
> your life, not having any emotions or wounds to Pearl Harbor may in fact 
> serve to show that perhaps the indirect relationship is enough. 
> 
> A little aside - I had quoted Marx in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis 
> Bonaparte which Marx himself had mischievously attributed to Hegel. It reads, 
> "that all great events of  world history occur twice, the first time as 
> tragedy, the second time as farce."
> I made this comment in relation to the Pearl Harbor references. I also 
> encouraged the discourse to return to Japanese Cinema with Black Rain and the 
> relationship between that film and how it successfully in my mind deals with 
> the issue of the wound.  
> 
> In the last e-mail, the writer very succinctly writes about the dangers of 
> the reference to Pearl Harbor, I don't think I need to reiterate it. 
> To answer that e-mail - I do not see how there have been rushes to condemn 
> dominant culture, if anything, it has poised a question of how wounds in this 
> culture or any other is addressed, even healed. 
> Dominant culture 
> Perhaps a naive way is the best way to give description to this term. Every 
> country in the world probably have showed the horrors of yesterday's events, 
> probably for hours on end, yet when East Timor or some other culture suffered 
> terrorists or absurd attacks, one only receives the most minute details, 
> irrespective of the scale. I think this clearly distinguishes the difference 
> between dominant and non dominant cultures. This can further be exemplified 
> by the reactions of this list itself. Prior to yesterday's events, some other 
> horrible terror acts were enacted on people in the middle east,  yet there 
> was dialogue on this and before everyone jumps into their own conclusions, I 
> am not asking for there to be,  yet when the twin towers fell, people are 
> outraged. Does this not state the obvious? No one is blaming any culture for 
> the mishaps that all people feel. Yet when a simple question is asked of how 
> a certain culture chooses to put into perspective a tragic incident - it does 
> so by reference to another tragic incident from its own past. Does this in 
> itself not already say everything. How can those wounds heal? Certainly not 
> by putting it on some kind of pedestal and making it celebrated. This may be 
> a perverse logic, but one that is firmly situated within Western culture. 
> 
>