States of Denial In memory of Stephanie States of Denial Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering STANLEY COHEN Polity Copyright © Stanley Cohen 2001 The right of Stanley Cohen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2001 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers, a Blackwell Publishing Company. Reprinted 2001 (twice), 2002, 2005, 2008 Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK Polity Press 350 Main Street Maiden, MA 02148, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ISBN 978-0-7456-1657-5 ISBN 978-0-7456-2392-4 (pbk) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and has been applied for from the Library of Congress. Typeset in 10 on 12 pt Palatino by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry Printed in the United States by Odyssey Press Inc., Gonic, New Hampshire This book is printed on acid-free paper. Each of us is aware in ourselves of the workings of denial, of our need to be innocent of a troubling recognition. — Christopher Bollas, Being a Character People could find no place in their consciousness for such an unimaginable horror... and they did not have the courage to face it. It is possible to live in a twilight between knowing and not knowing. —W. A. Visser’t Hooft, Protestant theologian [reflecting in 1973 on the Churches’ knowledge of the Holocaust] All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which, it is felt, ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied Indifference to object ive truth is encouraged by the sealing off of one part of the world from the other, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening If one harbours anywhere in one’s mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible. — George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. —W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts To know and not to act is not to know. —Wang Yang-ming Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements xv 1 The Elementary Forms of Denial 1 Psychological status: conscious or unconscious? 3 Content: literal, interpretive or implicatory? 7 Organization: personal, cultural or official? 9 Time: historical or contemporary? 12 Agent: victim, perpetrator or observer? 14 Space and place: your own or elsewhere? 18 2 Knowing and Not-Knowing: The Psychology of Denial 21 Everyday denial 21 The psychoanalysis of denial 25 Lies and self-deception 37 Cognitive errors 42 3 Denial at Work: Mechanisms and Rhetorical Devices 51 Normalization 51 Defence mechanisms and cognitive errors 52 Accounts and rhetorical devices 58 Collusion and cover-up 64 Everyday bystanders 68 4 Accounting for Atrocities: Perpetrators and Officials 76 Perpetrators: accounts as denials 77 The discourse of official denial 101 Viii Contents 5 Blocking out the Past: Personal Memories, Public Histories 117 Prelude: repression 118 Personal memories, personal past 120 Personal denials, public histories 124 Collective denials, public histories 132 6 Bystander States 140 Prologue: ‘It can’t happen to us’ 140 Internal bystanders 142 External audiences 160 7 Images of Suffering 168 Appeasing the media beast 168 Representation and the starving African child 178 Enlightenment fatigue 185 8 Appeals: Outrage into Action 196 Appeal narrative 197 Issues 202 9 Digging up Graves, Opening up Wounds: Acknowledging the Past 222 Modes of acknowledgement 227 Acknowledgement and social control 240 Over-acknowledgement 244 10 Acknowledgement Now 249 The meanings of acknowledgement 251 Telling the truth 255 Intervention: pro-social behaviour and altruism 261 Creating more acknowledgement 266 11 Towards Cultures of Denial? 278 Intellectual denial 280 More or less denial? 287 The photo never lies 296 Notes 302 Index 331