Month: January 2016

This week our class has been reading the scholarly article by the literary theorist Judith Butler. She argues that we, as human beings, are interdependent and responsible for each other. According to Butler this responsibility comes from the mutual understanding of vulnerability we possess. Butler builds her theory around the example of bodies imposed to the external world. She argues that such factors as nationality, culture and territory shouldn’t be things that separate humanity and create different groups of people fighting with each other.

This article made me think about the value of people’s lives and the way we distinguish between valuable and invaluable lives. From my own experience I know how easy it is to be sympathetic to the problems one’s own country is facing and stay indifferent to the others. Two years ago the revolution happened in Ukraine. A lot of people lost their lives fighting for their rights and democracy. The whole nation was grieving and mourning over the enormous loss the country experienced. After these events the war with Russia made everyone concentrate on the conflict happening in the East of the country.  A lot of people look at current events as at something that happened just in Ukraine and nowhere else. However, the ability to relate to the similar invasions elsewhere in the world might make the suffering easier and create the connection with others experiencing the same problem.

In addition, these events added more nationalistic moods in society. People tend not to talk a lot about problems the world is facing. They prefer to stay indifferent to the “vulnerability” of others. I am pretty sure that there a lot of people who share the same point of view and make a choice to concentrate on their domestic issues solely. This is not the problem of one or another nation. It is rather a challenge for each individual to leave their comfort zone and see the interconnection with other people regardless of their nationality, race or culture.

Body is an organism that consists of different parts. People or humanity can also be seen as a body. We can all be different, possess different goals and values and speak different languages. However, the body can function properly when its different parts work together. Each nation or culture can be seen as a part of a body. Understanding this connection with each other allows an individual to value their own lives and lives of those around them in a different way.

Picture retrived from : https://www.pinterest.com/pin/394698354822859364/

My ASTU class has been focusing on the topic of trauma for the last 5 months and as a new term begins we continue obtaining new perspectives on this issue. This time our attention was drown to the Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremly Loud and Incredibly Close. This is the story of tragedy and loss shared not just within one family or a country, but within the whole world.

Events of the 9/11 shook the world with the incredible force. When four planes crashed into the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania people were terrified all over the planet. However, not everyone could relate to the events as to something personal. Foer’s novel helps understand the tragedy from the perspective of a nine-year-old, Oskar, who lost his dad. In this post I would like to focus on the topic of 9/11 exceptionalism and the way it is portrayed in Foer’s novel.

The concept of 9/11 exceptionalism seems to be something new for me, as I grew up in Ukraine and learned about the tragic events from the TV. I don’t think that Ukrainian media covered this topic enough. In addition I was pretty small to understand completely what had happened. However, right now learning and exploring more facts on this event, I can understand why people treat it as a starting point of a new history, history of War on Terror. As terrorist attack took place in one of the most crowded places in New York it spread the feeling of insecurity and instability all over the USA and the rest of the world. The security measures taken after 9/11 continue to exist and create even more control. The global order of things was forever changed and 9/11 might continue to influence the way people travel, spend their free time, work and live in general.

However, are the attacks of 9/11 actually exceptional? Terrorist attacks were happening and continue to happen now. People experience trauma all over the world. The way Foer emphasizes the existence of similarly between different traumatic events is through the story of Oskar’s grandparents, who experienced bombing in Dresden, seemingly a safe city during the WW2. People can feel unspeakable trauma and it connects them with others, who faced war or terror attack. Events like these are not supposed to set borders between people. On the contrary they can unite people and make them understand each other more.

Every trauma is exceptional and every personal experience is special. However, sometimes it is better to look at a bigger picture and connect pieces of puzzles. We all go our saparate ways in the same way Oskar did, but by making connections with other people’s stories he was able to understand himself and the world arund him better.