Torture and Homelessness: The Horrible Can Make No Claim to Singularity

Jean-Marie, Vivaldi

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-02345-4_2

Vivaldi Jean-Marie²

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Abstract

This chapter elaborates Améry’s account of torture and forgiveness to show that the inherent tactile memory of the tortured body makes granting forgiveness challenging for Améry, despite his rational acknowledgment of its necessity. It elaborates the prowess of the body, which relies on the mechanisms of memory to bring the rational faculties to their limits. It provides an account of Améry’s belief that torture was the essence of the Third Reich and his critique of the view of evil as banal. The stance on evil provides his musings on this philosophical motif of the Frankfurt School, which is his contribution to the Frankfurt School intelligentsia’s attempt to configure a coherent genealogy of the rise of evil. The chapter concludes that Améry’s inability to reconcile his memories with Belgian socio-cultural practices, specifically the prevailing vernacular, confines him to an inner country.

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Notes

1.
Jean Améry, At the Mind’s Limits. Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld (Trans.) (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 22. Heretofore, it will cited as AML.
2.
AML, p. 22.
3.
AML, p. 28.
4.
AML, p. 28.
5.
Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 37.
6.
AML, p. 28.
7.
AML, p. 28.
8.
AML, p. 29.
9.
Christopher Bigsby, Remembering and Imagining the Holocaust: The Chain of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 22.
10.
AML, p. 30 (my emphasis).
11.
AML, p. 30.
12.
AML, p. 31.
13.
AML, p. 33.
14.
AML, p. 34.
15.
AML, p. 40.
16.
AML, p. 34.
17.
AML, p. 32.
18.
Alan Udoff, Jean Améry: Evil and the Language of Loss in Truth, Reconciliation and Evil. Margaret Sonser Breen (Ed.) (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), p. 87.
19.
Eckart Goebel, ‘The One-Way Road of Aging: On Jean Améry’s Essay Über das Altern’, The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory, Vol. 89(2), 2014, p. 202.
20.
John Barlow, Introduction. On Aging: Resignation and Revolt, by Jean Améry (Indiana University Press) p. xi.
21.
Harm-Peer Zimmermann, ‘Alienation and Alterity: Age in the Existentialist Discourse on Others’, Journal of Aging Studies, Vol. 39, 2016, p. 83.
22.
John Barlow, Introduction. On Aging: Resignation and Revolt (Indiana University Press) 1994, p. xvi.
23.
On Aging, p. 10.
24.
On Aging, p. 15.
25.
On Aging, p. 30.
26.
On Aging, p. 16.
27.
On Aging, p. 16.
28.
On Aging, p. 34.
29.
On Aging, p. 35.
30.
On Aging, pp. 41–3.
31.
On Aging, p. 56.
32.
On Aging, p. 56.
33.
On Aging, p. 69.
34.
On Aging, p. 81.
35.
On Aging, p. 84.
36.
On Aging, p. 102.
37.
Jill Stauffer, ‘“A Fine Risk to Be Run”: Améry and Levinas on Aging, Responsibility, and Risk in the Wake of Atrocity’, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, Vol. 24(3), 2017, p. 38.
38.
On Aging, p. 114.
39.
On Aging, p. 109.
40.
On Aging, p. 112.
41.
On Aging, pp. 116–7.
42.
On Aging, pp. 116–7.
43.
Fred Alford, ‘Jean Améry: Resentment as Ethic and Ontology’, Topoi, Vol. 31, 2012, p. 235.
44.
AML, p. 34.
45.
AML, p. 35.
46.
AML, p. 36.
47.
Paul Gilroy, ‘Fanon and Améry: Theory, Torture, and the Prospect of Humanism’, Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 27(16), 2010, p. 24.
48.
AML, p. 39.
49.
AML, p. 40.
50.
AML, p. 40.
51.
AML, p. 40.
52.
AML, p. 40.
53.
Lillian Kremer, Holocaust Literature: Agosin to Lentin (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2003), p. 22.
54.
AML, p. 42.
55.
AML, p. 42 (my emphasis).
56.
Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. Albert Hofstadter (Trans.) (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1971), p. 189.
57.
Ibid., p. 192.
58.
AML, p. 43.
59.
AML, p. 43.
60.
AML, p. 43.
61.
Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature. David Patterson, Alan L. Berger, and Sarita Cargas (Ed.) (Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), p. 6.
62.
Alan Itkin, ‘Introduction: The Untimely Jean Améry’, The Germanic Review, Vol. 89, 2014, p. 196.
63.
AML, p. 44.
64.
AML, p. 44.
65.
AML, p. 45 (my emphasis).
66.
AML, p. 44.
67.
AML, p. 45 (my emphasis).
68.
AML, pp. 45–6.
69.
AML, p. 46.
70.
AML, p. 46.
71.
AML, p. 48.
72.
AML, p. 48.
73.
AML, p. 48.
74.
AML, p. 50.
75.
AML, p. 50.
76.
AML, p. 51.
77.
AML, p. 53.
78.
Christopher Bigsby, Remembering and Imagining the Holocaust: The Chain of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 22.
79.
AML, p. 53.
80.
Magdalena Zolkos, On Jean Améry: Philosophy of Catastrophe (New York: Lexington Books, 2011), p. 280.
81.
AML, p. 57.
82.
AML, pp. 58, 60.

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City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
Vivaldi Jean-Marie

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Jean-Marie, V. (2018). Torture and Homelessness: The Horrible Can Make No Claim to Singularity. In: Reflections on Jean Améry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02345-4_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02345-4_2
Published: 28 November 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02344-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02345-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)

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