Harald Weilnböck:
"Das Trauma muss dem Gedächtnis unverfügbar bleiben."
Trauma-Ontologie und anderer Miss-/Brauch von Traumakonzepten in geisteswissenschaftlichen Diskursen

(Summary: Dr. Goodheart, a (fictitious) young psycho-trauma clinician, delves into poststructuralist theories on trauma and is fascinated, baffled, and taken aback by paradoxical ontological statements like: A »trauma« is »always already inscribed« into the human psyche as its »enduring implication«; it »must remain inaccessible to memory« (Weinberg) and attempting to remember and express it represents an abominable »excorporation«, a »sacrilege«, and »betrayal of the dead« (Sebald, Bear, Braese), a violation of the »jouissance of traumatic knowledge« (Juranville, Bronfen), a deplorable loss of its »unique incomprehensibility« and its formidable capacity to realize an »assault on comprehension« (Caruth). This discourse is then reconstructed to reveal a pattern of (ab)using trauma and clinical sources to enhance an interdisciplinary academic profile while simultaneously buttressing mental defense mechanisms and re-traumatizing acting-out behaviors. Ultimately, this discourse lends itself to simplistic polemics against trauma therapy (Welzer) and at times even affects practicing psychoanalysts.)

Axel T. Paul
Die Gewalt der Scham.
Elias, Duerr und das Problem der Historizität menschlicher Gefühle

(Summary: This article takes up the controversy between Norbert Elias and Hans Peter Duerr and reexamines the latter’s doubts about Elias’s claim that the evolution of manners and behavior in early modern Europe is a reflection of secularization or, indeed, of the civilizing process. The role of shame merits special attention, since Elias and Duerr agree in their assumption that shame is inherently capable of taming violence. Whereas Elias expects violent interaction to recede due to a heightened awareness of shame, Duerr surmises that increasing violence is related to the decline of shame. On the basis of Duerr’s critical remarks, this contribution reconsiders the empirical and theoretical shortcomings of Elias’s interpretation of shame and outlines a historical anthropology of that emotion. Depending on the specific context, shame is capable of stimulating violence as well as inhibiting it. Elias and Duerr, it is argued, both prove to be right, for it is the advance of shame thresholds which accounts for numerous contemporary violent conflicts.)

In der Literaturbeilage rezensiert der Historiker Michael Wildt die unlängst publizierten, opulenten Bände des Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes zur Gesellschaftsgeschichte des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Wildt sondiert unter dem Titel »Volksgemeinschaft im Krieg«, ob die Zeitgeschichte tatsächlich schon über adäquate soziologische Instrumente für eine Analyse der Kriegsgesellschaft des Nationalsozialismus verfügt.