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Title
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Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
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Author
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Giesen, Bernhard
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Research Area
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Culture
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Topic
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Culture and Society
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Abstract
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In the following remarks, we present new developments in social theory and cultural analysis that converge in a particular focus on a third perspective beyond the distinction between inside and outside. This focus on “thirdness” transcends the classical structuralist paradigm of binary classification. It is especially sensitive for the analysis of sudden surprises, paradoxical twists, and disturbing events in history and social life and, thus, contrasts to the assumption of progress and orderly linear development. We outline this new paradigm with respect to three different domains: garbage, monsters, and victims.
-
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-
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-
Culture and Cognition (Sociology), Karen A. Cerulo
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Resilience (Psychology), Erica D. Diminich and George A. Bonanno
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Identifier
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etrds0009
-
extracted text
-
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
BERNHARD GIESEN
Abstract
In the following remarks, we present new developments in social theory and cultural analysis that converge in a particular focus on a third perspective beyond the
distinction between inside and outside. This focus on “thirdness” transcends the classical structuralist paradigm of binary classification. It is especially sensitive for the
analysis of sudden surprises, paradoxical twists, and disturbing events in history
and social life and, thus, contrasts to the assumption of progress and orderly linear
development. We outline this new paradigm with respect to three different domains:
garbage, monsters, and victims.
In the following remarks, we present new developments in social theory and
cultural analysis that converge in a particular focus on a third perspective
beyond the distinction between inside and outside. This focus on “thirdness”
transcends the classical structuralist paradigm of binary classification. It is
especially sensitive for the analysis of sudden surprises, paradoxical twists,
and disturbing events in history and social life and, thus, contrasts to the
assumption of progress and orderly linear development.
During its first century of academic existence, sociology thrust for being
accepted as a scientific discipline—preferably on a par with the respected
natural sciences, at least, however, on an equal footing with economics and
psychology. Issues of methodology took center stage and the attempt to find
objective knowledge about social reality on empirical facts was of paramount
salience. The emerging science of sociology was to cover a realm of action
above the individual persons who were influenced by and had to respond to
these “external” social facts.
A first challenge to this “positivistic” paradigm of social science emerged at
the turn of the century when—influenced by neo-Kantianism—some European theorists considered that every empirical observation presupposes conceptual distinctions in order to describe the empirical facts.
Conceptual distinctions frequently have an oppositional structure: one side
of the distinction hinted at its opposite, the other side. This mutual reference
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
to the opposite fitted nicely into the human imagination of boundaries. In
contrast to physical systems such as stones, human beings can hardly think
of boundaries without imagining the outside, the realm beyond the boundary. This imagination of the respective outside generates the classificatory
grid by which we map our life world. Furthermore, the turn toward categorical presuppositions allowed for the flexible relation between signs and
its references: what we have to deal with in reading social life is just signs,
stories, and nothing else. There is no such thing as raw, unmediated reality.
Reality itself provides no firm ground for neat classification and distinction.
In addition, the urge to get access to the presence of things will inevitably fail
(Heidegger).
This focus on categorical presuppositions drives a more refined sociological analysis ranging from the late Durkheimian sociology and the Weberian epistemology of ideal types to Parsonian systems theory and structuralism. Although originally elaborated in the domain of linguistic studies structuralism quickly took over ethnology and finally sociology to become the
most influential paradigm in the 1950s and 1960s (R. Barthes). Structuralism
remained not without critical objections: it was charged with a lack of historical sensitivity and for failing to grasp the dynamics of actions. Nevertheless
structural analysis dominated not only literary studies but it led to a domain
beyond itself: deconstructivism took over at the end of the seventies (Derrida, Foucault). Now it was less the investigation of the structure itself than
the discovery of the possibilities excluded by this structure that ascended to
the position of a master trophy driving research in the humanities and poststructuralist sociology. This focus on the excluded reference outside mated
well with the rising interest in minority studies, gender studies, and so on.
Deconstructivism, thus prepared the way for the second breakthrough that
led to a paradigm beyond the confines of structuralism. It questioned the
neo-Durkheimian assumption that social reality can be dissolved into neat
binary classifications. There is always a third possibility, a disregarded idea,
a rest or remainder that—despite all our efforts—cannot be assimilated to a
binary distinction. Something in the world escapes all our attempts to cage
the manifolds of reality into a classificatory grid. This gives salience to the
many attempts to pay attention to figures of inbetweenness and ambivalence
such as strangers and migrants, translators and parasites, folds, and monsters (Serres, Deleuze, Homi Bhabha, etc.). Today, respected theorists such
as Neil Smelser question the conventional paradigm of rationality and try to
replace it by the notion of ambivalence—thus drawing on the Freudian heritage. Zygmunt Bauman suggests that ambivalence and fluidity are to be the
core notions to describe the modern condition. Furthermore the very concept
of rule guided behavior is meanwhile extended from a dichotomic to a trichotomic structure: there is not just the distinction between conformity and
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
3
deviance, but there is also the practical decision to treat certain phenomena
as an exception to which the distinction does not apply (G. Ortmann).
While this reconstruction of the excluded other of an opposition has been
widely accepted, the space in between the opposites, the third possibility,
the transition between inside and outside, the “neither … nor” or the “as
well as … ,” the space of hybridity have only been marginally theorized by
mainstream cultural sociology, but centered by nonsociologist authors such
as Homi Bhabha, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres, or Yuri Lotman.
The sociology of ambivalence reverses this position. It claims that ambivalences, disturbances, paradoxes, misunderstandings, and exceptions are not
just critical risks for social order However, instead, that they are indispensable and powerful elements of this order. Stability of social order relies not
only on neat oppositions but also on the acceptance of the unclassifiable, of
surprises and coincidences, ambiguity, and fuzziness.
These phenomena of ambivalence do not just simply exist—a position that
can hardly be denied by traditional sociology, but they drive the process of
social communication.
We will, in the following, outline three cases of inbetweenness and ambivalence that in an exemplary way can tell us something about our cultural
response to these phenomena: garbage, monsters, and victims.
Garbage is less a matter of hygienics than a scandal for the cultural order.
It cannot be classified neither as sacred nor as profane and thus its scandalous inbetweenness disrupts our basic cultural distinctions. Garbage is
“dirt” in the sense of Mary Douglas: stuff in the wrong place. Hence disgusting garbage has to be removed into a space beyond our perception. Would it
be sacred than it would have to be protected for ordinary use and gaze. The
unveiled sight of the sacred is dangerous. It would blind us like the ancient
truth-teller Theiresias who watched the goddess Athena bathing. But neither is garbage a profane object that could be used, consumed, dissected
and transformed. To the contrary: garbage represents the death of things
and this death has to be hidden from our eyes because it may remind us
about our own mortality. Garbage is uncanny like the living deads, its pure
and absurd materiality urges us to keep a distance, to remove it in order
not to be contaminated by its decay and formlessness. If garbage cannot be
removed immediately its undeniable existence has to be concealed from our
eyes and sealed from our noses. As long as garbage can be sensually perceived it remains scandalous and dangerous, an indissoluble remainder that
resists any attempt at unambiguous classification.
However, occasionally garbage can even be turned into something sacred,
that has to be prevented from further decay: if we consider ruins and relics
as objects of memory that mediate between present and past or—in a more
general phrasing—as aesthetical objects, we change the meaningless stuff
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
into something sacred that, being eternal, should be exempted from temporal decay. However, garbage can also be transformed into profane usable
materials: this “recycling,” however, requires a certain elementarization and
reassembling of the raw materials. Before it can be adapted to new functions
it has to be dissolved into its elementary parts. Nothing should remind us of
its previous purpose.
Garbage is a special case of monstrous phenomena that cannot be assimilated to the cultural order of our everyday life. When we are unable to ignore
these phenomena or to classify them, then we are facing a “monster.”
Monsters emerge when we encounter anormal, enigmatic, and irregular
phenomena and our attempts to assimilate these weird phenomena to
normality fail. This encounter with monsters is threatening and dangerous
because it disrupts the fragile reality of our cultural order. We feel pressed
to reconstruct the boundary behind which we could ban the monstrous
phenomena or, if this endeavor fails, we try to escape.
In simple cultures, the demonic and monstrous is interpreted as an
autonomous source of agency. In this respect it is similar to the sacred, but,
in contrast to the sacred, it has evil or unclear intentions. Its true identity
and intentions are hidden behind a facade that cannot be trusted. Demons
introduce the possibility of deception into the world. Behind the surface
there is a reality that is stronger than the treacherous appearance. From
now on the world is under suspicion. It is driven by vampires and body
snatchers, seducers and tricksters, and we are well advised to distrust the
surface (Douglas, 1966).
As soon as they are visible, demons and monsters can be kept at a distance,
they can be expelled and ostracized, banned and stigmatized. This holds true
also for bodies that, by their physical features, evidently deviate from the
regular and normal scheme. In many ancient cultures disabled or disfigured
children were killed immediately after birth or they were banned to stay out
of sight.
A new mode of coping with monstrous defigurations emerged at the
princely courts of early modern Europe. Here monsters were increasingly
treated as curiosities, as miracles of nature, as rare objects of the princely
collection. The extraordinary monster loses its dreadful and shocking
impact; it is turned into a harmless sensation presented in a frame that is
devoid of all practical considerations: pure extraordinariness. The original
“demonological” gaze was replaced by the museological one. Dwarfs and
giants, defigured persons or monstreous animals were watched from a close
distance, but the thrill of facing the monsters did no longer engender anxiety
or fear, but just a pleasing frisson—there was no real danger and no risk of
contagion. The bar, the cage or the chains tame the monster—we can watch
it from a close distance, but we should not touch it.
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
5
The logic of collecting and exhibiting curiosities, of course, was not confined to princely courts. Wandering circuses and ethnic shows, anatomical
museums and zoological gardens continued this museological gaze at monsters on a more popular level.
While the museological gaze continued to exist in popular arenas the
twentieth century generated also a new way to frame monsters. The monster
was again regarded in terms of inferiority, but this inferiority was based
on pity, condescending charity and emphatic compassion. The originally
dreadful monster was turned into an innocent victim who could claim our
support and ask for our aid. Victims are embodiments of a special ambivalence between human beings and profane things. They partake in the sacred
nature of humans, but they have been treated as cattle, the killing of which
will not engender blood revenge or be seen as a sin by the perpetrators. The
imagination of victimhood mirrors this special inbetweenness (Agamben,
1998; Giesen, 2004). Victims are neither enemies nor cocitizens. According
to this imagination victims have no face and name, they are denied a proper
place within the community, they are expelled and displaced in camps in
the outlands at the fringe of human communities, their bodies are submitted
to mortal violence; their story is besilenced, their remainders are burnt to
ashes, nothing should remind of their existence. This state of exception
from regular civil rights clashes against our conviction that they are human
beings like us. Consequently, we try to reverse this expulsion from the civil
community by remembering their name and their story, by compensating
their handicaps and by supporting their ways of life. Thus, the former
expulsion of demonic monsters is turned into an emphatic identification
and approach: the disabled are like us and we are in a certain respect
disabled, too.
The public compassion conceals, however, a paternalistic condescendence.
The victims are not on equal footing with those who advocate and voice their
cause. Today, a new class of professionals mediate between the common citizens and their uncommon counter images: social workers and physicians,
welfare officers, and nurses take the place that, in the demonological gaze,
has been occupied by witchcraft doctors and prison guardians.
This seemingly inclusive turn does not stop at the boundaries of the human
race. Today, not only disabled and disfigured humans, but also animals are
discovered as to be “victims.” What was a dangerous wild beast before is
now an endangered species that should not be put behind bars, but live in
its natural habitat and have its natural diet: the dragon is transformed into a
pet dinosaur.
Thus, the demonological gaze is turned into its opposite. This victimological perspective centers a discrepancy between obvious appearance and
hidden essence, but the evaluation is reversed: whereas the demonological
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
gaze suspected the hidden evil core behind a harmless façade, the victimological perspective sees a sacred core behind a seemingly abnormal
façade. Here, too, the ambivalent inconsistency between surface and essence
thrusts for overcoming, but the evil of the façade does no longer frighten
or shock us. This attenuation of emotions is generated by media reports
about distant victims that avoid, too, abhorrent images showing the monstrous deformation of victims. Instead we watch faces that do not differ
from our own faces. We listen to the voices of reporters and see pictures
showing the traces of the evil. Hence on our sofas we can surrender to a
mild concernedness: we do not face the horror of victims and we cannot
change it.
The victimological gaze can be unfolded only from a far distance (Boltanski,
1999). Only from a distance can we opt for compassion, only from a distance
can we compensate for the impossibility of intervening. If really faced to
the dying victims we would respond by crying, mutedness and desperate
attempts to aid. Represented and civilized by the media, however, the victims stay at a distance that precludes shock. The horror is, thus, banned by
the image.
This inbetweeness of monstrous phenomena is, however, essential and
unavoidable for the operation of classifying, ordering and coding the world.
However, it is disregarded, invisibilized and besilenced in the order that
is generated by classification. In the natural attitude of everyday life the
world presents itself as neatly ordered. Cultural classification, however, is
somehow weirdly aware of this elementary but excluded inbetweeness. It
responds to this weirdness by producing order even in the realm that seems
to escape from it. It classifies the unclassifiable, it describes different kinds of
ambiguity, and it delineates inbetweenness by symbolic figures: it classifies
garbage, imagines monsters, and tells the story of the uncanny behind the
boundary.
Studies in the cultural history of ambivalent phenomena are usually
bridging the disciplinary divides between history and sociology, literary
studies and ethnography. Although their theoretical commitment may vary
they converge in a skeptical attitude toward the paradigm of rationalization
as the prime mover of modern society. Instead, they focus on rituals and
theatricality, images and emblems, ceremonial representations and symbolic
dislocations, hybridity and crossbreeding, fuzziness and ambiguity. Thus,
the limitations of structuralism—its lack of historicity and its strong focus
on stability is overcome. However, this does not engender a return to
traditional causal analysis. The search for causes is largely suspended and
replaced by deep hermeneutic interpretation: Clifford Geertz rules instead of
Jim Coleman.
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
7
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FURTHER READING
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BERNHARD GIESEN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Bernhard Giesen, professor emeritus, Universitat Konstanz, MA 1972 University of Heidelberg, 1974 Dr. Rer.pol. University of Augsburg, 1980 State
doctorate for Sociology at the Wilhelm University of Munster, 2006–2010
Cluster of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Integration” University of
Konstanz, 2001 and 2003 visiting professorship at Yale University, 1998–1999
Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
at Stanford, California, previously various visiting faculty positions at
UCLA, University of Gießen, University of Munster, University of Chicago,
University of Bielefeld, European Institute of University Florence, NYU.
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10
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
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-
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
BERNHARD GIESEN
Abstract
In the following remarks, we present new developments in social theory and cultural analysis that converge in a particular focus on a third perspective beyond the
distinction between inside and outside. This focus on “thirdness” transcends the classical structuralist paradigm of binary classification. It is especially sensitive for the
analysis of sudden surprises, paradoxical twists, and disturbing events in history
and social life and, thus, contrasts to the assumption of progress and orderly linear
development. We outline this new paradigm with respect to three different domains:
garbage, monsters, and victims.
In the following remarks, we present new developments in social theory and
cultural analysis that converge in a particular focus on a third perspective
beyond the distinction between inside and outside. This focus on “thirdness”
transcends the classical structuralist paradigm of binary classification. It is
especially sensitive for the analysis of sudden surprises, paradoxical twists,
and disturbing events in history and social life and, thus, contrasts to the
assumption of progress and orderly linear development.
During its first century of academic existence, sociology thrust for being
accepted as a scientific discipline—preferably on a par with the respected
natural sciences, at least, however, on an equal footing with economics and
psychology. Issues of methodology took center stage and the attempt to find
objective knowledge about social reality on empirical facts was of paramount
salience. The emerging science of sociology was to cover a realm of action
above the individual persons who were influenced by and had to respond to
these “external” social facts.
A first challenge to this “positivistic” paradigm of social science emerged at
the turn of the century when—influenced by neo-Kantianism—some European theorists considered that every empirical observation presupposes conceptual distinctions in order to describe the empirical facts.
Conceptual distinctions frequently have an oppositional structure: one side
of the distinction hinted at its opposite, the other side. This mutual reference
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
to the opposite fitted nicely into the human imagination of boundaries. In
contrast to physical systems such as stones, human beings can hardly think
of boundaries without imagining the outside, the realm beyond the boundary. This imagination of the respective outside generates the classificatory
grid by which we map our life world. Furthermore, the turn toward categorical presuppositions allowed for the flexible relation between signs and
its references: what we have to deal with in reading social life is just signs,
stories, and nothing else. There is no such thing as raw, unmediated reality.
Reality itself provides no firm ground for neat classification and distinction.
In addition, the urge to get access to the presence of things will inevitably fail
(Heidegger).
This focus on categorical presuppositions drives a more refined sociological analysis ranging from the late Durkheimian sociology and the Weberian epistemology of ideal types to Parsonian systems theory and structuralism. Although originally elaborated in the domain of linguistic studies structuralism quickly took over ethnology and finally sociology to become the
most influential paradigm in the 1950s and 1960s (R. Barthes). Structuralism
remained not without critical objections: it was charged with a lack of historical sensitivity and for failing to grasp the dynamics of actions. Nevertheless
structural analysis dominated not only literary studies but it led to a domain
beyond itself: deconstructivism took over at the end of the seventies (Derrida, Foucault). Now it was less the investigation of the structure itself than
the discovery of the possibilities excluded by this structure that ascended to
the position of a master trophy driving research in the humanities and poststructuralist sociology. This focus on the excluded reference outside mated
well with the rising interest in minority studies, gender studies, and so on.
Deconstructivism, thus prepared the way for the second breakthrough that
led to a paradigm beyond the confines of structuralism. It questioned the
neo-Durkheimian assumption that social reality can be dissolved into neat
binary classifications. There is always a third possibility, a disregarded idea,
a rest or remainder that—despite all our efforts—cannot be assimilated to a
binary distinction. Something in the world escapes all our attempts to cage
the manifolds of reality into a classificatory grid. This gives salience to the
many attempts to pay attention to figures of inbetweenness and ambivalence
such as strangers and migrants, translators and parasites, folds, and monsters (Serres, Deleuze, Homi Bhabha, etc.). Today, respected theorists such
as Neil Smelser question the conventional paradigm of rationality and try to
replace it by the notion of ambivalence—thus drawing on the Freudian heritage. Zygmunt Bauman suggests that ambivalence and fluidity are to be the
core notions to describe the modern condition. Furthermore the very concept
of rule guided behavior is meanwhile extended from a dichotomic to a trichotomic structure: there is not just the distinction between conformity and
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
3
deviance, but there is also the practical decision to treat certain phenomena
as an exception to which the distinction does not apply (G. Ortmann).
While this reconstruction of the excluded other of an opposition has been
widely accepted, the space in between the opposites, the third possibility,
the transition between inside and outside, the “neither … nor” or the “as
well as … ,” the space of hybridity have only been marginally theorized by
mainstream cultural sociology, but centered by nonsociologist authors such
as Homi Bhabha, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres, or Yuri Lotman.
The sociology of ambivalence reverses this position. It claims that ambivalences, disturbances, paradoxes, misunderstandings, and exceptions are not
just critical risks for social order However, instead, that they are indispensable and powerful elements of this order. Stability of social order relies not
only on neat oppositions but also on the acceptance of the unclassifiable, of
surprises and coincidences, ambiguity, and fuzziness.
These phenomena of ambivalence do not just simply exist—a position that
can hardly be denied by traditional sociology, but they drive the process of
social communication.
We will, in the following, outline three cases of inbetweenness and ambivalence that in an exemplary way can tell us something about our cultural
response to these phenomena: garbage, monsters, and victims.
Garbage is less a matter of hygienics than a scandal for the cultural order.
It cannot be classified neither as sacred nor as profane and thus its scandalous inbetweenness disrupts our basic cultural distinctions. Garbage is
“dirt” in the sense of Mary Douglas: stuff in the wrong place. Hence disgusting garbage has to be removed into a space beyond our perception. Would it
be sacred than it would have to be protected for ordinary use and gaze. The
unveiled sight of the sacred is dangerous. It would blind us like the ancient
truth-teller Theiresias who watched the goddess Athena bathing. But neither is garbage a profane object that could be used, consumed, dissected
and transformed. To the contrary: garbage represents the death of things
and this death has to be hidden from our eyes because it may remind us
about our own mortality. Garbage is uncanny like the living deads, its pure
and absurd materiality urges us to keep a distance, to remove it in order
not to be contaminated by its decay and formlessness. If garbage cannot be
removed immediately its undeniable existence has to be concealed from our
eyes and sealed from our noses. As long as garbage can be sensually perceived it remains scandalous and dangerous, an indissoluble remainder that
resists any attempt at unambiguous classification.
However, occasionally garbage can even be turned into something sacred,
that has to be prevented from further decay: if we consider ruins and relics
as objects of memory that mediate between present and past or—in a more
general phrasing—as aesthetical objects, we change the meaningless stuff
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
into something sacred that, being eternal, should be exempted from temporal decay. However, garbage can also be transformed into profane usable
materials: this “recycling,” however, requires a certain elementarization and
reassembling of the raw materials. Before it can be adapted to new functions
it has to be dissolved into its elementary parts. Nothing should remind us of
its previous purpose.
Garbage is a special case of monstrous phenomena that cannot be assimilated to the cultural order of our everyday life. When we are unable to ignore
these phenomena or to classify them, then we are facing a “monster.”
Monsters emerge when we encounter anormal, enigmatic, and irregular
phenomena and our attempts to assimilate these weird phenomena to
normality fail. This encounter with monsters is threatening and dangerous
because it disrupts the fragile reality of our cultural order. We feel pressed
to reconstruct the boundary behind which we could ban the monstrous
phenomena or, if this endeavor fails, we try to escape.
In simple cultures, the demonic and monstrous is interpreted as an
autonomous source of agency. In this respect it is similar to the sacred, but,
in contrast to the sacred, it has evil or unclear intentions. Its true identity
and intentions are hidden behind a facade that cannot be trusted. Demons
introduce the possibility of deception into the world. Behind the surface
there is a reality that is stronger than the treacherous appearance. From
now on the world is under suspicion. It is driven by vampires and body
snatchers, seducers and tricksters, and we are well advised to distrust the
surface (Douglas, 1966).
As soon as they are visible, demons and monsters can be kept at a distance,
they can be expelled and ostracized, banned and stigmatized. This holds true
also for bodies that, by their physical features, evidently deviate from the
regular and normal scheme. In many ancient cultures disabled or disfigured
children were killed immediately after birth or they were banned to stay out
of sight.
A new mode of coping with monstrous defigurations emerged at the
princely courts of early modern Europe. Here monsters were increasingly
treated as curiosities, as miracles of nature, as rare objects of the princely
collection. The extraordinary monster loses its dreadful and shocking
impact; it is turned into a harmless sensation presented in a frame that is
devoid of all practical considerations: pure extraordinariness. The original
“demonological” gaze was replaced by the museological one. Dwarfs and
giants, defigured persons or monstreous animals were watched from a close
distance, but the thrill of facing the monsters did no longer engender anxiety
or fear, but just a pleasing frisson—there was no real danger and no risk of
contagion. The bar, the cage or the chains tame the monster—we can watch
it from a close distance, but we should not touch it.
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
5
The logic of collecting and exhibiting curiosities, of course, was not confined to princely courts. Wandering circuses and ethnic shows, anatomical
museums and zoological gardens continued this museological gaze at monsters on a more popular level.
While the museological gaze continued to exist in popular arenas the
twentieth century generated also a new way to frame monsters. The monster
was again regarded in terms of inferiority, but this inferiority was based
on pity, condescending charity and emphatic compassion. The originally
dreadful monster was turned into an innocent victim who could claim our
support and ask for our aid. Victims are embodiments of a special ambivalence between human beings and profane things. They partake in the sacred
nature of humans, but they have been treated as cattle, the killing of which
will not engender blood revenge or be seen as a sin by the perpetrators. The
imagination of victimhood mirrors this special inbetweenness (Agamben,
1998; Giesen, 2004). Victims are neither enemies nor cocitizens. According
to this imagination victims have no face and name, they are denied a proper
place within the community, they are expelled and displaced in camps in
the outlands at the fringe of human communities, their bodies are submitted
to mortal violence; their story is besilenced, their remainders are burnt to
ashes, nothing should remind of their existence. This state of exception
from regular civil rights clashes against our conviction that they are human
beings like us. Consequently, we try to reverse this expulsion from the civil
community by remembering their name and their story, by compensating
their handicaps and by supporting their ways of life. Thus, the former
expulsion of demonic monsters is turned into an emphatic identification
and approach: the disabled are like us and we are in a certain respect
disabled, too.
The public compassion conceals, however, a paternalistic condescendence.
The victims are not on equal footing with those who advocate and voice their
cause. Today, a new class of professionals mediate between the common citizens and their uncommon counter images: social workers and physicians,
welfare officers, and nurses take the place that, in the demonological gaze,
has been occupied by witchcraft doctors and prison guardians.
This seemingly inclusive turn does not stop at the boundaries of the human
race. Today, not only disabled and disfigured humans, but also animals are
discovered as to be “victims.” What was a dangerous wild beast before is
now an endangered species that should not be put behind bars, but live in
its natural habitat and have its natural diet: the dragon is transformed into a
pet dinosaur.
Thus, the demonological gaze is turned into its opposite. This victimological perspective centers a discrepancy between obvious appearance and
hidden essence, but the evaluation is reversed: whereas the demonological
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
gaze suspected the hidden evil core behind a harmless façade, the victimological perspective sees a sacred core behind a seemingly abnormal
façade. Here, too, the ambivalent inconsistency between surface and essence
thrusts for overcoming, but the evil of the façade does no longer frighten
or shock us. This attenuation of emotions is generated by media reports
about distant victims that avoid, too, abhorrent images showing the monstrous deformation of victims. Instead we watch faces that do not differ
from our own faces. We listen to the voices of reporters and see pictures
showing the traces of the evil. Hence on our sofas we can surrender to a
mild concernedness: we do not face the horror of victims and we cannot
change it.
The victimological gaze can be unfolded only from a far distance (Boltanski,
1999). Only from a distance can we opt for compassion, only from a distance
can we compensate for the impossibility of intervening. If really faced to
the dying victims we would respond by crying, mutedness and desperate
attempts to aid. Represented and civilized by the media, however, the victims stay at a distance that precludes shock. The horror is, thus, banned by
the image.
This inbetweeness of monstrous phenomena is, however, essential and
unavoidable for the operation of classifying, ordering and coding the world.
However, it is disregarded, invisibilized and besilenced in the order that
is generated by classification. In the natural attitude of everyday life the
world presents itself as neatly ordered. Cultural classification, however, is
somehow weirdly aware of this elementary but excluded inbetweeness. It
responds to this weirdness by producing order even in the realm that seems
to escape from it. It classifies the unclassifiable, it describes different kinds of
ambiguity, and it delineates inbetweenness by symbolic figures: it classifies
garbage, imagines monsters, and tells the story of the uncanny behind the
boundary.
Studies in the cultural history of ambivalent phenomena are usually
bridging the disciplinary divides between history and sociology, literary
studies and ethnography. Although their theoretical commitment may vary
they converge in a skeptical attitude toward the paradigm of rationalization
as the prime mover of modern society. Instead, they focus on rituals and
theatricality, images and emblems, ceremonial representations and symbolic
dislocations, hybridity and crossbreeding, fuzziness and ambiguity. Thus,
the limitations of structuralism—its lack of historicity and its strong focus
on stability is overcome. However, this does not engender a return to
traditional causal analysis. The search for causes is largely suspended and
replaced by deep hermeneutic interpretation: Clifford Geertz rules instead of
Jim Coleman.
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
7
REFERENCES
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Boltanski, L. (1999). Distant suffering. Morality, media and politics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger. An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo.
London, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Giesen, B. (2004). Triumph and trauma. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
FURTHER READING
Alexander, J. C., Eyerman, R., Giesen, B., Smelser, N. J., & Sztompka, P. (2004). Cultural trauma and collective identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bataille, G. (1962). Death and sensuality. A study of eroticism and the taboo. New York,
NY: Ballantine Books.
Baudrillard, J. (1990). Seduction. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
Baumann, Z. (1991). Modernity and ambivalence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London, England: Routledge.
Caillois, R. (1960). Man and the sacred. New York, NY: Free Press of Glencoe.
Campbell, J. (1953). The hero with a thousand faces. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience. Trauma, narrative, and history. Baltimore, MD:
John Hopkins University Press.
Choderlos de Laclos, P. A. F. (1961). Les Liaisons dangereuses. Paris, France: Garnier.
Deleuze, G. (1968). Différence et répétition. Paris, France: Presses Universitaires de
France.
Deleuze, G. (1992). The fold. Leibniz and the Baroque. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Derrida, J. (1967). L’écriture et la différence. Paris, France: Editions du Seuil.
Edelman, M. (1988). Constructing the political spectacle. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Eisenstadt, S. (1982). The axial age: The emergence of transcendental visions and the
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Elias, N. (1969). Die höfische Gesellschaft. Untersuchungen zur Soziologie des Königtums
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Freud, S. (1970). Das Unheimliche. In S. Freud (Ed.), Psychologische Schriften. Studienausgabe (pp. 241–274). Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Fischer Verlag.
Freud, S., & Breuer, J. (1997). Studien über Hysterie. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag:
Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Giesen, B. (2005). Tales of transcendence: Imagining the sacred in politics. In B.
Giesen & D. Suber (Eds.), Religion and politics. Cultural perspectives (pp. 93–137).
Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.
Girard, R. (1997). Das Heilige und die Gewalt. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Fischer
Verlag.
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Hagner, M. (Ed.) (1995). Der falsche Körper: Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der Monstrositäten. Göttingen, Germany: Wallstein Verlag.
Heidegger, M. (1993). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer, Germany.
Husserl, E. (1996). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie. Hamburg, Germany: Meiner.
Kantorowicz, E. H. (1992). Die zwei Körper des Königs. Eine Studie zur politischen Theologie des Mittelalters. Stuttgart, Germany: Klett-Cotta Verlag.
Kohl, K. H. (2003). Die Macht der Dinge. Geschichte und Theorie sakraler Objekte.
München, Germany: C.H. Beck.
Koschorke, A., Frank, T., Lüdemann, S., de Mazza, E. M., & von Andreas Kraß, M.
(2002). Des Kaisers neue Kleider: Über das Imaginäre politischer Herrschaft. Texte, Bilder,
Lektüren. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Fischer Verlag.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory.
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Levine, D. N. (1985). The flight from ambiguity. Essays in social and cultural theory.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1958). Anthropologie structurale. Paris, France: Plon.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1964). Mythologiques I. Le Cru et le cuit. Paris, France: Plon.
Lotman, J. M. (1976). Analysis of the poetic text. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis.
Lotman, J. M. (1990). Universe of the mind: A semiotic theory of culture. London, England: Tauris.
Merton, R. K. (1976). Sociological ambivalence and other essays. New York, NY: Free
Press.
Morris, I. (1975). The nobility of failure: Tragic heroes in the history of Japan. New York,
NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Ortmann, G. (2003). Regel und Ausnahme. Paradoxien. sozialer Ordnung. Frankfurt am
Main, Germany: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Otto, R. (2004). Das Heilige. Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen. München, Germany: C.H. Beck.
Quine, W. V. O. (1969). Word and object. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Rank, O. (1909). Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden: Versuch einer psychologischen
Mythendeutung. Wien, Austria: Deuticke.
Rickert, H. (1926). Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft. Tübingen, Germany:
Mohr Siebeck.
Ricoeur, P. (1986). The symbolism of evil. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Schütz, A. (1988). Strukturen der Lebenswelt Bd.1. Frankfurt am Main, Germany:
Suhrkamp.
Schütz, A. (2004). Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Konstanz, Germany: UVK.
Serres, M. (1980). Le Parasite. Paris, France: Grasset.
Shilling, C. (2003). The body and social theory. London, England: Sage.
Simmel, G. (1908). Soziologie. Leipzig, Germany: Dunker und Humblot.
Simmel, G. (1996). Die Koketterie. In Hauptprobleme der Philosophie. Gesammelte Aufsätze 14 (pp. 256–277). Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp.
Smelser, N. J. (1998a). The social edges of psychoanalysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Smelser, N. J. (1998b). The rational and the ambivalent in the social sciences: 1997
Presidential Address. American Sociological Review, 63, 1–16.
Szakolczai, A. (2000). Reflexive historical sociology. London, England: Routledge.
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Turner, V. W. (1967). Betwixt and between. The liminal period in Rites de Passage.
In V. W. Turner (Ed.), The forest of symbols. Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
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Turner, V. (1995). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. New Brunswick, NJ:
Aldine Transaction.
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Mohr Siebeck.
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am Main, Germany.
BERNHARD GIESEN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Bernhard Giesen, professor emeritus, Universitat Konstanz, MA 1972 University of Heidelberg, 1974 Dr. Rer.pol. University of Augsburg, 1980 State
doctorate for Sociology at the Wilhelm University of Munster, 2006–2010
Cluster of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Integration” University of
Konstanz, 2001 and 2003 visiting professorship at Yale University, 1998–1999
Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
at Stanford, California, previously various visiting faculty positions at
UCLA, University of Gießen, University of Munster, University of Chicago,
University of Bielefeld, European Institute of University Florence, NYU.
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
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Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
BERNHARD GIESEN
Abstract
In the following remarks, we present new developments in social theory and cultural analysis that converge in a particular focus on a third perspective beyond the
distinction between inside and outside. This focus on “thirdness” transcends the classical structuralist paradigm of binary classification. It is especially sensitive for the
analysis of sudden surprises, paradoxical twists, and disturbing events in history
and social life and, thus, contrasts to the assumption of progress and orderly linear
development. We outline this new paradigm with respect to three different domains:
garbage, monsters, and victims.
In the following remarks, we present new developments in social theory and
cultural analysis that converge in a particular focus on a third perspective
beyond the distinction between inside and outside. This focus on “thirdness”
transcends the classical structuralist paradigm of binary classification. It is
especially sensitive for the analysis of sudden surprises, paradoxical twists,
and disturbing events in history and social life and, thus, contrasts to the
assumption of progress and orderly linear development.
During its first century of academic existence, sociology thrust for being
accepted as a scientific discipline—preferably on a par with the respected
natural sciences, at least, however, on an equal footing with economics and
psychology. Issues of methodology took center stage and the attempt to find
objective knowledge about social reality on empirical facts was of paramount
salience. The emerging science of sociology was to cover a realm of action
above the individual persons who were influenced by and had to respond to
these “external” social facts.
A first challenge to this “positivistic” paradigm of social science emerged at
the turn of the century when—influenced by neo-Kantianism—some European theorists considered that every empirical observation presupposes conceptual distinctions in order to describe the empirical facts.
Conceptual distinctions frequently have an oppositional structure: one side
of the distinction hinted at its opposite, the other side. This mutual reference
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
to the opposite fitted nicely into the human imagination of boundaries. In
contrast to physical systems such as stones, human beings can hardly think
of boundaries without imagining the outside, the realm beyond the boundary. This imagination of the respective outside generates the classificatory
grid by which we map our life world. Furthermore, the turn toward categorical presuppositions allowed for the flexible relation between signs and
its references: what we have to deal with in reading social life is just signs,
stories, and nothing else. There is no such thing as raw, unmediated reality.
Reality itself provides no firm ground for neat classification and distinction.
In addition, the urge to get access to the presence of things will inevitably fail
(Heidegger).
This focus on categorical presuppositions drives a more refined sociological analysis ranging from the late Durkheimian sociology and the Weberian epistemology of ideal types to Parsonian systems theory and structuralism. Although originally elaborated in the domain of linguistic studies structuralism quickly took over ethnology and finally sociology to become the
most influential paradigm in the 1950s and 1960s (R. Barthes). Structuralism
remained not without critical objections: it was charged with a lack of historical sensitivity and for failing to grasp the dynamics of actions. Nevertheless
structural analysis dominated not only literary studies but it led to a domain
beyond itself: deconstructivism took over at the end of the seventies (Derrida, Foucault). Now it was less the investigation of the structure itself than
the discovery of the possibilities excluded by this structure that ascended to
the position of a master trophy driving research in the humanities and poststructuralist sociology. This focus on the excluded reference outside mated
well with the rising interest in minority studies, gender studies, and so on.
Deconstructivism, thus prepared the way for the second breakthrough that
led to a paradigm beyond the confines of structuralism. It questioned the
neo-Durkheimian assumption that social reality can be dissolved into neat
binary classifications. There is always a third possibility, a disregarded idea,
a rest or remainder that—despite all our efforts—cannot be assimilated to a
binary distinction. Something in the world escapes all our attempts to cage
the manifolds of reality into a classificatory grid. This gives salience to the
many attempts to pay attention to figures of inbetweenness and ambivalence
such as strangers and migrants, translators and parasites, folds, and monsters (Serres, Deleuze, Homi Bhabha, etc.). Today, respected theorists such
as Neil Smelser question the conventional paradigm of rationality and try to
replace it by the notion of ambivalence—thus drawing on the Freudian heritage. Zygmunt Bauman suggests that ambivalence and fluidity are to be the
core notions to describe the modern condition. Furthermore the very concept
of rule guided behavior is meanwhile extended from a dichotomic to a trichotomic structure: there is not just the distinction between conformity and
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
3
deviance, but there is also the practical decision to treat certain phenomena
as an exception to which the distinction does not apply (G. Ortmann).
While this reconstruction of the excluded other of an opposition has been
widely accepted, the space in between the opposites, the third possibility,
the transition between inside and outside, the “neither … nor” or the “as
well as … ,” the space of hybridity have only been marginally theorized by
mainstream cultural sociology, but centered by nonsociologist authors such
as Homi Bhabha, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Serres, or Yuri Lotman.
The sociology of ambivalence reverses this position. It claims that ambivalences, disturbances, paradoxes, misunderstandings, and exceptions are not
just critical risks for social order However, instead, that they are indispensable and powerful elements of this order. Stability of social order relies not
only on neat oppositions but also on the acceptance of the unclassifiable, of
surprises and coincidences, ambiguity, and fuzziness.
These phenomena of ambivalence do not just simply exist—a position that
can hardly be denied by traditional sociology, but they drive the process of
social communication.
We will, in the following, outline three cases of inbetweenness and ambivalence that in an exemplary way can tell us something about our cultural
response to these phenomena: garbage, monsters, and victims.
Garbage is less a matter of hygienics than a scandal for the cultural order.
It cannot be classified neither as sacred nor as profane and thus its scandalous inbetweenness disrupts our basic cultural distinctions. Garbage is
“dirt” in the sense of Mary Douglas: stuff in the wrong place. Hence disgusting garbage has to be removed into a space beyond our perception. Would it
be sacred than it would have to be protected for ordinary use and gaze. The
unveiled sight of the sacred is dangerous. It would blind us like the ancient
truth-teller Theiresias who watched the goddess Athena bathing. But neither is garbage a profane object that could be used, consumed, dissected
and transformed. To the contrary: garbage represents the death of things
and this death has to be hidden from our eyes because it may remind us
about our own mortality. Garbage is uncanny like the living deads, its pure
and absurd materiality urges us to keep a distance, to remove it in order
not to be contaminated by its decay and formlessness. If garbage cannot be
removed immediately its undeniable existence has to be concealed from our
eyes and sealed from our noses. As long as garbage can be sensually perceived it remains scandalous and dangerous, an indissoluble remainder that
resists any attempt at unambiguous classification.
However, occasionally garbage can even be turned into something sacred,
that has to be prevented from further decay: if we consider ruins and relics
as objects of memory that mediate between present and past or—in a more
general phrasing—as aesthetical objects, we change the meaningless stuff
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
into something sacred that, being eternal, should be exempted from temporal decay. However, garbage can also be transformed into profane usable
materials: this “recycling,” however, requires a certain elementarization and
reassembling of the raw materials. Before it can be adapted to new functions
it has to be dissolved into its elementary parts. Nothing should remind us of
its previous purpose.
Garbage is a special case of monstrous phenomena that cannot be assimilated to the cultural order of our everyday life. When we are unable to ignore
these phenomena or to classify them, then we are facing a “monster.”
Monsters emerge when we encounter anormal, enigmatic, and irregular
phenomena and our attempts to assimilate these weird phenomena to
normality fail. This encounter with monsters is threatening and dangerous
because it disrupts the fragile reality of our cultural order. We feel pressed
to reconstruct the boundary behind which we could ban the monstrous
phenomena or, if this endeavor fails, we try to escape.
In simple cultures, the demonic and monstrous is interpreted as an
autonomous source of agency. In this respect it is similar to the sacred, but,
in contrast to the sacred, it has evil or unclear intentions. Its true identity
and intentions are hidden behind a facade that cannot be trusted. Demons
introduce the possibility of deception into the world. Behind the surface
there is a reality that is stronger than the treacherous appearance. From
now on the world is under suspicion. It is driven by vampires and body
snatchers, seducers and tricksters, and we are well advised to distrust the
surface (Douglas, 1966).
As soon as they are visible, demons and monsters can be kept at a distance,
they can be expelled and ostracized, banned and stigmatized. This holds true
also for bodies that, by their physical features, evidently deviate from the
regular and normal scheme. In many ancient cultures disabled or disfigured
children were killed immediately after birth or they were banned to stay out
of sight.
A new mode of coping with monstrous defigurations emerged at the
princely courts of early modern Europe. Here monsters were increasingly
treated as curiosities, as miracles of nature, as rare objects of the princely
collection. The extraordinary monster loses its dreadful and shocking
impact; it is turned into a harmless sensation presented in a frame that is
devoid of all practical considerations: pure extraordinariness. The original
“demonological” gaze was replaced by the museological one. Dwarfs and
giants, defigured persons or monstreous animals were watched from a close
distance, but the thrill of facing the monsters did no longer engender anxiety
or fear, but just a pleasing frisson—there was no real danger and no risk of
contagion. The bar, the cage or the chains tame the monster—we can watch
it from a close distance, but we should not touch it.
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
5
The logic of collecting and exhibiting curiosities, of course, was not confined to princely courts. Wandering circuses and ethnic shows, anatomical
museums and zoological gardens continued this museological gaze at monsters on a more popular level.
While the museological gaze continued to exist in popular arenas the
twentieth century generated also a new way to frame monsters. The monster
was again regarded in terms of inferiority, but this inferiority was based
on pity, condescending charity and emphatic compassion. The originally
dreadful monster was turned into an innocent victim who could claim our
support and ask for our aid. Victims are embodiments of a special ambivalence between human beings and profane things. They partake in the sacred
nature of humans, but they have been treated as cattle, the killing of which
will not engender blood revenge or be seen as a sin by the perpetrators. The
imagination of victimhood mirrors this special inbetweenness (Agamben,
1998; Giesen, 2004). Victims are neither enemies nor cocitizens. According
to this imagination victims have no face and name, they are denied a proper
place within the community, they are expelled and displaced in camps in
the outlands at the fringe of human communities, their bodies are submitted
to mortal violence; their story is besilenced, their remainders are burnt to
ashes, nothing should remind of their existence. This state of exception
from regular civil rights clashes against our conviction that they are human
beings like us. Consequently, we try to reverse this expulsion from the civil
community by remembering their name and their story, by compensating
their handicaps and by supporting their ways of life. Thus, the former
expulsion of demonic monsters is turned into an emphatic identification
and approach: the disabled are like us and we are in a certain respect
disabled, too.
The public compassion conceals, however, a paternalistic condescendence.
The victims are not on equal footing with those who advocate and voice their
cause. Today, a new class of professionals mediate between the common citizens and their uncommon counter images: social workers and physicians,
welfare officers, and nurses take the place that, in the demonological gaze,
has been occupied by witchcraft doctors and prison guardians.
This seemingly inclusive turn does not stop at the boundaries of the human
race. Today, not only disabled and disfigured humans, but also animals are
discovered as to be “victims.” What was a dangerous wild beast before is
now an endangered species that should not be put behind bars, but live in
its natural habitat and have its natural diet: the dragon is transformed into a
pet dinosaur.
Thus, the demonological gaze is turned into its opposite. This victimological perspective centers a discrepancy between obvious appearance and
hidden essence, but the evaluation is reversed: whereas the demonological
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
gaze suspected the hidden evil core behind a harmless façade, the victimological perspective sees a sacred core behind a seemingly abnormal
façade. Here, too, the ambivalent inconsistency between surface and essence
thrusts for overcoming, but the evil of the façade does no longer frighten
or shock us. This attenuation of emotions is generated by media reports
about distant victims that avoid, too, abhorrent images showing the monstrous deformation of victims. Instead we watch faces that do not differ
from our own faces. We listen to the voices of reporters and see pictures
showing the traces of the evil. Hence on our sofas we can surrender to a
mild concernedness: we do not face the horror of victims and we cannot
change it.
The victimological gaze can be unfolded only from a far distance (Boltanski,
1999). Only from a distance can we opt for compassion, only from a distance
can we compensate for the impossibility of intervening. If really faced to
the dying victims we would respond by crying, mutedness and desperate
attempts to aid. Represented and civilized by the media, however, the victims stay at a distance that precludes shock. The horror is, thus, banned by
the image.
This inbetweeness of monstrous phenomena is, however, essential and
unavoidable for the operation of classifying, ordering and coding the world.
However, it is disregarded, invisibilized and besilenced in the order that
is generated by classification. In the natural attitude of everyday life the
world presents itself as neatly ordered. Cultural classification, however, is
somehow weirdly aware of this elementary but excluded inbetweeness. It
responds to this weirdness by producing order even in the realm that seems
to escape from it. It classifies the unclassifiable, it describes different kinds of
ambiguity, and it delineates inbetweenness by symbolic figures: it classifies
garbage, imagines monsters, and tells the story of the uncanny behind the
boundary.
Studies in the cultural history of ambivalent phenomena are usually
bridging the disciplinary divides between history and sociology, literary
studies and ethnography. Although their theoretical commitment may vary
they converge in a skeptical attitude toward the paradigm of rationalization
as the prime mover of modern society. Instead, they focus on rituals and
theatricality, images and emblems, ceremonial representations and symbolic
dislocations, hybridity and crossbreeding, fuzziness and ambiguity. Thus,
the limitations of structuralism—its lack of historicity and its strong focus
on stability is overcome. However, this does not engender a return to
traditional causal analysis. The search for causes is largely suspended and
replaced by deep hermeneutic interpretation: Clifford Geertz rules instead of
Jim Coleman.
Ambivalence and Inbetweeness
7
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FURTHER READING
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BERNHARD GIESEN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Bernhard Giesen, professor emeritus, Universitat Konstanz, MA 1972 University of Heidelberg, 1974 Dr. Rer.pol. University of Augsburg, 1980 State
doctorate for Sociology at the Wilhelm University of Munster, 2006–2010
Cluster of Excellence “Cultural Foundations of Integration” University of
Konstanz, 2001 and 2003 visiting professorship at Yale University, 1998–1999
Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
at Stanford, California, previously various visiting faculty positions at
UCLA, University of Gießen, University of Munster, University of Chicago,
University of Bielefeld, European Institute of University Florence, NYU.
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