40
I'AltTISAN ItEVIEW
thought or mimesis, that we justifY this voluntary witnessing as a kind of
labor. Dominick LaCapra, for example, describes it as a "labor of listening
and attending that exposes the self to empathetic understanding and hence
to at least muted trauma."
In such statements, the Llbor metaphor not only rcnlOves the suspicion
of illegitimate enjoyment but modifies the spectator theory of knowledge
by evoking a more participatory state of mind. As LaCapra suggests, it
seems impossible
to
experience somcthing so traumatic as the Shoah, even
at a distance, without sufferillg a secolld;lry f()rIll of trauma. In the politi–
cal sphere, we often talk of a person being "radicalized." A parallel
radicalization among the survivors as wcll as those comillg bter is evi–
denced by their cOllsumillg effort to "scc," to filld a way of telling
others-and even themselves-what happelled.
The artistic illtellect, combillillg with the tcstimollial imperative, plays
an especially effective role in capturillg and commullicating a traumatic
ordeal. In
Litemlllre or
Lifi'
(its original titk was
lI 'ritill,\! or Death),
Jorge
Semprun confronts " deadly riches" of mcmory that Surgl' whell he hap–
pens on a film about the camps a few mOllths after his Iibcration fi-om
Buchenwald. " Seeing Oil the screen, under an April SUIl so near and yet so
far away, the
Appcl/plm::
of Buchenwald, where cohorts of survivors were
milling about in the disarr;IY of their recovered f,-cedolll , I saw myself
brought back to the reality of it, illstalkd once more ill the truth of an
incontrovertible experiencc. Everythillg, theil, had beell rcal, ;md contin–
ued to be so: Ilothillg had becll a dream." To counter the phantomization
or dissociation endemic to trauma alld thc ellsuillg f,-agility of transmis–
sion, a medium more permancnt than illdividual milld is necessary. Art and
the commull,11 memory interact to achieve this end.
Yet a pmtwar hunt to de-aes theticize art blocked the questioll as
to
whether the pleasure derived from it could have ethical value when its sub–
ject is the Shoah's ellormous, state-sponsored atroci ties. The issue was
displaced by Adorno's fUllOUS strictures. His emphasis fell exclusively on the
moral difficulty of represel1tillg-or admittillg illto thought-a catastrophe
of such magni tude. Adorno docs not doubt our techllical powcrs of mime–
sis but our moral alld illtellectual stamilla. The horror of the Shoah must
never be stylized, or becomc f()dder
(Frilss)
to satisfY a cr;wing f()r el1tertain–
ment.
Indeed, what pleasure could result fi-om art that depicts the Shoah?
Perhaps there is no sillglc, ullif,ed feeling and thercf()IT IlO sillgle word like
"pleasure" that adequately describes it. But whatever we name that
response, it ClIlnot be related to a delight in imitation ;lJJd only with many
qualifications to emotiollal cat harsis. III part it illvolves a distinction
between memory and imagination. Those who callnot reilleillber because
