44
I)ARTISAN R.EVIEW
friendly. The style may have a realism of its own, however: in the words of
Yves 130nnefoy, it "aggravates instead of resolving, points to what remains
obscure, takes clarities to be clouds that can always be dissipated ...."
Having described some aspects of intellectual witnessing, I want to
turn
to
the intellectual as witness. Without seeking a firm definition of the
intellectual, I can say that the Holocaust made his status even more prob–
lematic. The obvious reason for this is related to the behavior of many
well-educated Europeans, especial ly those Max Weinreich called "Hitler's
professors." After Hitler and Stalin, Irving Howe once wrote, "intellectuals
must never, no matter what the occasion or pretext, allow themselves to
provide ideological rationales for the suppression of liberty." l3ut there is
also a less obvious reason for doubt about the professional thinker: while
writers, journalists, and academics in Nazi-occupied Europe were often
active accomplices, there was also a large group who wai ted it out as
bystanders. The very concept, therefore, of bystander seems tainted. Given
the passivity of so many who knew or could have known, is it possible
11011)
to "stand and wait"?
A clear sign of our impatience with the bystander Illentality is the con–
troversy over America 's and also the Yishuv's (relative) inaction during the
War Against the Jews. The dubious claim, moreover, that most Germans
were ignorallt onlookers, shielded from or accidental ly happening upon the
murderous events, has often been challenged and Illay not recover from
Daniel Goldhagen's recent book. Also important is a renewed and exacting
interest in rethinking agency and cu lpability.
The intellectual's situation is paradoxical.
lt~
yie lding to the ca ll for
action, he engages himself on one side or the other and that side loses, he
finds himself compromised. If, avoiding action, he becomes a bystander who
takes his time, anti-intellectualism increases. Intellectuals tend to be among
the most pressured groups in society. l3ut the most significant factor affect–
ing
all
bystanders sin ce 1<145 is that the technology of real-time reporting
now brings every disaster and evil in the world to our attention and so takes
away all excuse. Through the media we become onlookers exposed to daily
violence and global misery in the same quasi-involuntary way that Germans
after 1<133 were directly exposed to overt incidents and vicious propaganda.
These bystanders saw yet did not see what was before their eyes.
Media exposure, then, may lead to Illore tension than ever between
knowing and not-knowing, between a guilty conscience and deliberate pal–
liation or forgetting. The constant spectacle of misery is already causing a
low-grade, perpetual anxiety. The very absence of feeling pains us instead of
the pain we think we shou ld be feeling. We sufTer a split, so that one part of
us cannot accept an insensibility for which the other quietly decrees for-
