This page of the Handke-Yugo blog
http://handke-yugo.blogspot.
is open for discussion only to those at least rudimentarily familiar with psycho-analysis.
Let us all make Noam Chomsky happy and answer his question to his satisfaction.
You may have to get yourself a g-mail address to be able to post a comment.
I will also make this my first comment on this page, so that you want need to juggle back and forth.
Forward to anyone who you feel might be interested.is open for discussion only to those at least rudimentarily familiar with psycho-analysis.
Let us all make Noam Chomsky happy and answer his question to his satisfaction.
You may have to get yourself a g-mail address to be able to post a comment.
I will also make this my first comment on this page, so that you want need to juggle back and forth.
michael r.
I propose as a focus the below observation of Noam Chomsky's
"The nefarious atrocities regularly elicit
religious fervor, dramatic posturing,
baseless claims to inflate, them as much as possible
- and fury if anyone does, not blindly join the parade,
but seeks to determine, the truth, cites the most
reputable authorities, exposes the innumerable fabrications.
The common reaction to such treachery is an
impressive torrent of deceit. There is an
instructive record quite well documented in many cases.
The reasons are not hard to explain.
The topic should be pursued, systematically,
but that is unlikely, obviously."
The topic should be pursued, systematically,
but that is unlikely, obviously."
“Did you ever see Hitler”“Did you ever see Milosevic?”“Do you know Handke’s works?”
This inquiry, too, is apost mortem, on the two matters in the subject line of this communication, two related subjects, the second arising out of the former, at the developing
pages of
and its 20+ pages, Links to which are at the bottom of this communication.
Although you may wish to use other examples with which you are more familiar other than the Yugoslav/ Handke which serves me so well because I am fairly well informed on the former, and exceedingly so on the latter, which is no guarantee of anything as I at least know only too well.
"The nefarious atrocities regularly elicit religious fervor, dramatic posturing, baseless claims to inflate, them as much as possible - and fury if anyone does, not blindly join the parade, but seeks to determine, the truth, cites the most reputable authorities, exposes the innumerable fabrications. The common reaction to such treachery is an impressive torrent of deceit. There is an instructive record quite well documented in many cases. The reasons are not hard to explain. The topic should be pursued, systematically, but that is unlikely, obviously."
I reformulate Kempowski’s question slightly into:“Have you ever seen Milosevic”How did you happen to hear of him,What news sources did you trust?Say, the New York Times?What network and network of friends…At what point did you feel that you knewenough to make up your mind.What images stuck in your mind?Did you discuss him and the breakup of Yugoslavia with the same kind of discernment and conscientiousness as you would a bone of analytic contention? To what extent did group consensus sway you? Or did you decide that there was no way you could reach a conclusion unless you devoted a great deal of work and time, which you lacked, to unraveling the question? That is, that you would let “history” decide for you?
And my and your answers to this challenging question will be our 100 birthday present to Noam!
I also wanted to ask you to forward this communication to those who you think might be interested.
My own bi-partite attempt to unravel this complex that lies at the intersection of mass and individual and class psychology you will find for the Yugoslavia question, on line, both as main-text and on the comments page to facilitate continuity, at:
for background material, and at:
And for the Handke at:
Several very long piece of mine in which I sought to puzzle out Handke’s involvement for myself are at:
http://handke-yugo.blogspot.com/2010/04/this-is-first- piece-i-wrote-on-subject.html [8]
http://handke-yugo.blogspot.com/2010/04/sorting-out- handkes-intervention-in.html [ 9]]
One page is devoted to bringing together a lot of basic material about Yugoslavia from its origins in the 19thCentury and earlier to the present.
Here is a summary of my response to Noam Chomsky’s query which are elaborated at the breviary and analytic and discussion pages and their respective comments:
1] Once a match was struck to the tinder box that Yugoslavia had become by the early 90s the disintegrating forces of Nationalism and Ethnicity and Religious fanaticism produced general mayhem, the more so because of certain violent features of Yugoslavia’s immediate past in the 20th century history. It is foolish to assign blame to one or the other tribe or nationalities, even the International Court in de Hague, whatever you may think of it, seeks to be even-handed in prosecuting individuals from all parties, Kosovo Albanians, Croatians, Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Serbs, and Serbians. Thus the Serbs indeed got the worst of it in each and every respect, ultimately.
2] Handke’s involvement was instantly suspect to me when I got wind of it in 1994, for its exhibitionism, also it seemed to contradict his recent [late 1980s] adoption of his grandfather’s Slovenian identity, his liking of small countries with difficult borders, yet also fit my understanding of him as someone who speaks up and goes to justice, for language, it had been as it were second nature to him since his first news-worthy appearance at Princeton in 1966. Thus I followed the 3+ anthing but pretty comings of the Handke part of the controversy with great attention and though my suspicions as to his exhibitionism and full use of his notoriety were confirmed, I came to agree with him on the chief point that no one tribe is to blame, and that THE MATCH that set this house on fire was German Foreign Minister Gentscher’s recognition of Croatia… we will never know whether the tinderbox might also have caught fire if circumstances had been other. And am delighted to report that Handke at least got a bunch of trips and some interesting accounts out of them, wrote two great works,VOYAGE BY DUGOUT: THE PLAY ABOUT THE FILM ABOUT THE WARand THE CUCKOSS OF VELICA HOCA [see the page devoted to it at:
3] To answer Noam Chomsky’s conundrum means to think on what it means to make people righteous, apparently babies can be, and it is one drive over which religions and political parties manage to acquire control. It means to address the psychic economy of the individual and of an educated certain class, information theory comes into it.You will find my long analytically formulated answer at the
2 comments:
Mike, we didn't know each other or of each other's existence at the inception of the Yugoslav disintegration, but
I think I have somewhat greater appreciation of the individuating tendencies of the various Slavic tribes, which is where you and I agree on Handke failing to appreciate that - one has to let people make mistakes in the vain
hope that they will learn from them, well one generation can but then it is forgotten,
and I only got to know and appreciate Handke's work through you, thus I can really only speak to
Noam Chomsky's question as it pertains to the phenomenon of Serb and Milosevic hatred. And
in that instance I tend to agree with you that this is an instance of a class of people, the
intellectuals, turning into a kind of mob; however, they might not have if the coverage on T.V.
and in the papers had not been so one-sided. It is of course especially ghastly to see people
who know how to read and who in many other ways are admirable, to degenerate into a righteous lynch mob,
to become so unreflective,
but you find this phenomenon also amongst the disciplines. Atavistic elements come into play.
The fear of thinking differently from the colleagues, the need for consensus. I gather that your friend
Zvi regards this as a "heikle" subject - apparently so by the looks of people contributing so far.
It can't be that people have entirely forgotten?
No doubt I am going about it in the wrong way, Franz! And, after all, who am I. But the silence even from good friends in the analytic community - perhaps I have no friends there? and look at all the teeensy matters that they can spend no end of time on.
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