For several years now, we have seen activists approach literary and artistic works from a narrow political perspective. And they often do it as if it were the only legitimate way to approach them, whereas literary and artistic works do not have to respond to any political program whatsoever, for the simple reason that they are first and foremost designed from an aesthetic perspective. What we also note is that for these activists, the works do not really constitute objects to be understood and analyzed, objects whose richness of meaning would escape any immediate grasp and would also be able to teach us something ; rather, they see them as instruments, useful targets for the accomplishment of social work. The activists having given themselves the mission of fighting against such discrimination and having only that in their field of vision, they come to believe that literary and artistic works must also fight against such discrimination, that the only thing that When approaching works, it is important to determine whether or not they contribute to this social advancement. Armed with the conviction that the discrimination and injustices that exist in reality must be denounced, they expect works to fuel their struggles, to participate in their quest for recognition, to give an edifying image of their group or subgroup, etc.
However, the novel, to take this example, does not have to be the vehicle of any cause whatsoever, nor does it have to give an edifying image of anyone. Rather, it would be the opposite: the novel’s vocation is to show human beings as they are, with their flaws, their imperfections, their contradictions. Why ? Because that is the reality. The novel is not a discourse or an ideology. It responds to a requirement for truth, and the truth is that human beings are not perfect, that they are morally impure, and this truth also applies to victims and activists who denounce the immorality of others. Despite what some would like to believe, the status of victim does not confer holiness, victims remain human beings as fallible as all (if only because they are not victims in the totality of their being: to be victim at one level does not prevent being an executioner at another).
Traum warnings
In view of this, the new practice of preceding literary texts and academic teachings with traumatic warnings is – there are no other words – completely absurd. It is worth recalling here these famous words of Kafka: “One should only read books which bite and sting you. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a punch to the head, what’s the point of reading it? […] The book must be the ax that breaks the frozen sea within us. “
To ask that traumasks protect us from disturbing content is to have understood nothing about the raison d’être of literary works, the value and price of which derive precisely from their capacity to surprise us, to destabilize us, to make us to see the world in another way, to make us reconsider what we thought we knew, and even also to shock, to provoke, to disturb. Why ? Because the aesthetic experience they make us live is a reflection of the shock with reality that they precisely aim to reproduce. Delete that and you’ve just lost the gist.
By wanting to rule out the possibility of shock, the notion of safe space contributes to the repression of this fundamental truth: the real in its essence is what resists us, the real is not as hospitable as we would like, the real is as much a source of misfortune as of happiness. Out of desire for healing or appeasement, the traumatized would like to free themselves from this unpleasant truth that affects humanity as a whole, rich and poor, weak and powerful, dominant and dominated. Social discrimination does not affect everyone (or not everyone in the same way), but no one is spared death, illness, bereavement, failures, disappointments, humiliations, mistakes, etc. This is what we learn from great works, each in its own way. To be great, to tell us something that possesses a minimum of weight and importance, a work must strike.
Some people may be too fragile or too sensitive to read literary works. But nothing obliges them to do so, no one is required to study literature at the university, no one is required to face reality, and the arts departments do not have to respond to requests incompatible with the raison d’être of literature. […] We can understand the suffering of the traumatized, each of us also having our share of suffering, but that does not mean that we must meet the unreasonable demands that arise from this condition. It is not doing the traumatized a service to nourish in them the illusion that the real can be perfectly safe. It is not and for no one.
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