Description
Book SynopsisTrauma is commonly understood as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Yet, as this book explains, the concept of PTSD is problematic because it is rooted in a solipsist Philosophy of the Subject. Within such a philosophical perspective, it is not only impossible to account for trauma’s causality, but the traumatic ‘event’ is also prioritised over traumatic social and political structures as trauma is depoliticised as an (individual) internal cognitive object.
Rooted in Frankfurt School critical theory, this book thus urges us to rethink the concept of trauma: trauma should not be understood as impaired subjectivity but rather as broken intersubjectivity. Hence, it not only presents a critique of the notion ‘PTSD’, but – drawing on the philosophies of Jurgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, Rahel Jaeggi and Heideggerian trauma theory in particular - it argues that trauma entails the violent imposition of traumatic status subordination. In traumatic status subordination, intersubjective parity (the counterfactual presupposition of being treated as an equal human being) is so violently betrayed that the symbolic realm of the lifeworld collapses. As the lifeworld collapses, one suffers an atomized state of speechless disorientation, wherein the potential of creative collective becoming is destroyed. In this sense, human induced trauma should thus be understood as a political tool par excellence.
As this monograph indicates, traumatic status subordination was a tool which the Egyptian counter-revolutionary actors (consisting of the Egyptian military, and its temporary subsidiary the Muslim Brotherhood) used unsparingly as they attempted to put the revolutionary genie back into the bottle. Importantly, the Egyptian military not only sought to destroy the object of revolutionary politics, but rather the underlying existential structures of the possibility of its very existence as such. And thus, in the violent instrumental pursuit of economic and political power, the counter-revolution inflicted multileveled status subordination. It did so through a consistent tripartite structural mechanism: the infliction of grave (deadly) violence, the procedural colonisation and repressive juridification of the public sphere, and the acceleration of neoliberal economic rationalism. This not only accumulated in Sisi’s prisonification of society and his politics of death, but rather also threw activists ever deeper into an atomized state of demoralized silence as it destroyed the very potential of revolutionary and transformative becoming.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction
Structure of the Book
Further Remarks
PART 1. TOWARDS A CRITICAL THEORY OF TRAUMA AS BROKEN SUBJECTIVITY
Introduction
Chapter 1. Trauma Studies and the Philosophy of the Subject
Towards Intersubjectivity: Habermas’ Critique of the Philosophy of the Subject
The Positivist Revolution and the Emergence of PTSD
Cognitive Trauma Theory: Intersubjectivity Within
Lazarus Never Dies: Anti-Mimeticism in Post-structural and Political Trauma
Chapter 2. Towards a Critical Trauma Studies: Trauma as Intersubjective Alienation
On Heideggerian Trauma Theory: Struggles of Intersubjectivity
Traumatic Status Subordination: Nany Fraser
Traumatic Alienation: Rahel Jaeggi
Traumatic Instrumentality: Jurgen Habermas
Conclusion
PART 2. COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY TRAUMA IN EGYPT: INFLICTING TRAUMATIC STATUS SUBORDINATION
Introduction: Political Trauma in Egypt
Chapter 3. A Legacy of Traumatic Status Subordination in Egypt: From Nasser to Mubarak
Maldistribution: Neoliberal Economics
Misrecognition: Security State Violence
Destroying Potentiality: Traumatic Alienation
Chapter 4. Revolutionary Becoming: The Politics of Prefigurative Intersubjective Parity
Revolutionary Precursor: Kifaya
Egypt’s 2011 Revolution: Politics of Intersubjective Parity
Chapter 5. Supreme Council of Armed Forces: The Politics of Traumatic Status Subordination
Political Proceduralism: Colonising the Political Public Sphere
Constitutional Amendments
Repressive Juridification
Direct Physical Force: Disorientation and Isolation
Neoliberal Economic Rationalism
Chapter 6. Mohammed Morsi: The Politics of Traumatic Status Subordination
Political Proceduralism: Morsi’s Struggle for Power
Direct Physical Force: Turning Violence Inwards
Neoliberal Economic Rationalism
Chapter 7. The Military’s Deadly Return
Tamarrod and the June 30th Protests
The Rabaa Massacre
Chapter 8. Abdel Fattah el Sisi: The Politics of Traumatic Status Subordination
Political Proceduralism: Sisi’s Colonisation of the Political Public Sphere
Repressive Juridification of the Public Sphere
Direct Physical Force
Neoliberal Economic Rationalism
Conclusion
PART 3. BREAKING THE REVOLUTIONARY LIFEWORLD AND POTENTIAL OF CREATIVE BECOMING
Introduction
Interregnum: Prefigurative Intersubjective Parity in Egypt’s Revolutionary Public Sphere
Chapter 9. Breaking the Lifeworld: On the Existential Burden of Violence and Death
Being against Death: Clashes and the Politics of Violence, Death, and Disorientation
Martyrs, Revolutionary Betrayal, and the Burden of Death
Chapter 10. Deepening Intersubjective Imparity: Turning Violence Inwards
Conspirational Victim Blaming and (Deadly) Revenge
Rabaa: Mass Murder and the Destruction of Potentiality
Social Death
The Destruction of Hope
Experiencing Existential Pain: Somatic Responses
Coping With the Counter-Revolution: Depoliticization
Chapter 11. Conclusion
Bibliography
About the Author
Index
