The first article my Arts Studies class had to read this term was titled “Youths, trauma and memorialization: The selfie as witnessing” by Kate Douglas. In it, Douglas describes how many people, especially the general media audience, vilify selfies taken at memorials of traumatic events, like smiling selfies taken at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. However, Douglas provides an alternative point of view to look at such “Selfies at serious places”; she posits that selfies are a new form of witnessing memorials of traumatic events that “[deserve] a more nuanced treatment” and do not necessarily indicate youths’ narcissism and ignorance.
While I am sincerely glad that there is an adult out there that believes that youths such as myself should not be characterized as having narcissism and ignorance as a defining trait, I think we cannot ignore the fact that there are indeed many young people, especially those who are frequent users of social media, who are pretty ignorant and narcissistic. Let’s consider the intention behind the selfies taken by young people at historical trauma sites – do the selfie-takers really think of the traumatic history at the point of the photograph? Is it likely that, at any point of their trip to such places of death, they fully considered the history that had occurred there?
For humanity’s sake, I hope the thought crossed their minds at least several times during their trip. But even so, does that emotion or thought last long in their memory? Do they actually think of the implications and causes of such gruesome crimes against humanity? And I also think it is quite probable that there are some who visit without even stopping to consider the bloody history that had taken place there.
The theme of trauma memorialization reminded of the university’s ritual of reciting and listening to how it was built on the “traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam people”, and is linked to Canada’s bloody history of conquest and colonization. No doubt there is a solemn air and a respectful silence when those words are said, but it is hard to prove that all or, at least, most students that actually fully try to comprehend this, or even think about it every now and then.
I do believe there is a lack of rumination about historical trauma in the current generation, and the selfie-taking incidents Douglas describes are a mere symptom of it. That brings us to the question of why this is the case.
A big part of it is attributable to the limitation of second-hand witnessing – that is, the difference between empathy and experience. Empathy definitely results in a less permanent impact, with people lacking the sensory and emotional experience of such trauma to effectively make them think deeply about it. Feeling and seeing do not often result in believing or understanding, and imagine as we may, we cannot ever simulate the actual horrifying experiences that firsthand witnesses do.
It is easy to display respect and act out behaviour that signifies respect on the outside, but we have to actually think of we’re doing such rituals. And the act of actually thinking about the dark parts of humanity’s history is arguably more important than the ritual we perform to memorialise it; the ritual is intended as a means for us to understand, but we must first allow ourselves to immerse ourselves in imagining it.
But is this phenomenon one that is specific to the young generation of the present? Would earlier generations of youth also perform similar behaviour? A more sinister hypothesis for the reason behind this behaviour occurred to me during my thinking process – one that is specific to the current generation of youth in particular.
I was wondering if modern technology, particularly our cellphones, could partially be responsible for a lack of empathy in today’s youth. Upon conducting a simple Google search, I came upon an article by Katrina Schwartz that suggests that the growing incapability of young people to focus, caused by the advent of extremely advanced, grossly profitable and highly distracting cellphones, may be hindering our ability to empathise. The article quotes “Focus: the Hidden Driver of Excellence” by Daniel Goleman, renowned science journalist for the behavioural sciences and former lecturer at Harvard University. His views, which I mostly agree with, are better read in his voice than mine, and I quote:
“The circuitry for paying attention is identical for the circuits for managing distressing emotion,”
Schwarz then expounds this by stating:
“The area of the brain that governs focus and executive functioning is known as the pre-frontal cortex. This is also the part of the brain that allows people to control themselves, to keep emotions in check and to feel empathy for other people.”
Goleman also says that:
“Children I’m particularly worried about because the brain is the last organ of the body to become anatomically mature. It keeps growing until the mid-20s.”
Personally, I am ashamed to admit that sometimes I act this way too.
When we read that “youths are ignorant” and “youths are narcissistic”, it is sometimes hard to place ourselves in this libelled group of young people – people don’t like to think badly of themselves, I think, and sometimes they’re more busy overtly defending themselves than actually thinking about whether they’re at fault too. It may be hard to break out of the norms and habits that have been sowed in us simply by being born in this type of society in a particular technological age, especially if they are due to the physiology and biology of our brain, as stated by Goleman above, but the fight to do so would definitely be a noble one. It would take some seriously committed change in habits, one that will definitely be gradual, but it is one that I would like to undertake.