York 1997
Copyright © Ariella Atzmon, 1997
All rights Reserved
Sympathy and Empathy in the conceptualization of the other:
the Case of Israel
ABSTRACT
What is an Israeli identity? or who is a Jew? These questions
are related to the crucial question of whether Israel is a Jewish
democratic state or a civic democracy for all its citizens? An
analysis of the concepts 'sympathy' vs. 'empathy' may resolve
the confusion around the conception of identity vs. identification.
The concepts of assimilation and integration as related to sympathy
should be presented along with the concept of hybridization as
related to empathy, in order to illustrate the entire range of
attitudes towards the 'other' in Israel. On the grounds of the
dilemma: How should it be possible for an empathic communication
to leap beyond the boundaries of distinguished discourses? Judaism
and Zionism will be questioned in a confrontation with the Levinasian
ethical idea of 'otherness' as linked to responsibility, reciprocity,
and diversity.
INTRODUCTION
An examination of the distinctions between the concepts of 'sympathy'
vs.'empathy' may contribute to the exploration of the entire range
of attitudes towards the 'other'. Dialogical styles among rival
discourses are affected by the prospects of empathic communicative
conduct. I would like to relate the dyad empathy/sympathy to the
concepts of Identity/Identification, in the context of the possible
creation of hybrid identity.
If 'Identification' means to be constituted through community,
state, ethnicity, or gender, then 'Identity' should be understood
as what is blocked and negated. The expression 'Israeli identity'
can be understood as a call for identification. A call which strives
to fixate Jewish citizens into discourses which ignore the logic
of difference.
THE UNIQUE CASE OF JUDAISM AS A RELIGION AND AS A NATION
Since Judaism is defined as a religion and a nation at the same
time, Israel portrays a unique case, in terms of the meanings
of citizenship, nationality, religious belonging, or 'home', 'exile'
and 'Diaspora'. The fact that Israel had been established as a
Jewish state, denotes the way in which the meanings of 'resident',
'migrant', 'stranger' and 'foreigner' are interpreted and signified.
If we try to deal with the question: 'what is Israeli identity'?
we find ourselves involved with two other disturbing questions:
what is the judicial statutes of immigrants in the state of Israel?
and 'what is considered Jewish in the context of the 'law of return'?
The fact that Judaism signifies a national group and a religion
at the same time, is the foundation for an intense need to maintain
the spirit of Judaism, based upon common destiny and a deep belief
in God's promise to his chosen people. This spirit is revealed
in the verse "For from the top of the rocks I see him, and
from the hills I behold him: it is a people that shall dwell alone,
and shall not be reckoned among the nations" (Bamidbar) .
In light of this verse, we can detect an aversion to intermingling
with 'others, and a strong repulsion to missionarism, manifested
by the creation of obstacles discouraging conversion to Judaism.
This deep seated spirit ends with a lack of empathy for what is
non-Jewish. The state of Israel portrays a new society which proclaims
brotherhood within the so called 'melting pot' designed for those
who are defined as Jewish. Other minorities who are called 'cousins'
at best, or strangers at worst do not count.
In the case of Israel, the meaning of identity is confused with
identification. The question is whether identity should refer
to the concept of citizenship, or to religious belonging. This
intricate situation brings about the unbearable permanent preoccupation
with the question: Who is a Jew? If citizenship is conditioned
upon a sense of religious belonging, then the legitimacy of conversion
becomes an acute problem. In the light of another verse: "converts
are as difficult for Israel as psoriasis", all political
crises around the procedures of conversion to Jewishness become
clear. Whenever personal identity is confused with identification,
we can trace a sharp inclination towards modes of assimilation
and integration. Both modes are related to sympathy.
SYMPATHY/ANTIPATHY AND EMPATHY
In his book 'The Order of Things' Foucault illustrates sympathy
as "an instance of the Same so strong and so insistent that
it will not rest content to be merely one of the forms of likeness:
it has the dangerous power of assimilating, of rendering things
identical to one another, of mingling them, of causing their individuality
to disappear" (Foucault, 1973:23) The principle of sympathy
transforms and alters things in the direction of identity, "so
that if its power were not counter-balanced it would reduce the
entire world to a homogeneous mass, to the featureless form of
the same" (Foucault:24). This tendency is opposed by the
compensating force of antipathy which "maintains the isolation
of things and prevents their assimilation [by keeping every being
within its] impenentrable difference and its propensity to continue
being what it is" (Foucault, 24).
By the constant counterbalancing of sympathy and antipathy, identities
"can resemble others and be drawn to them, though without
being swallowed up or loosing singularity" (Foucault, 24).
To the concepts of assimilation and integration as related to
sympathy, I would like to juxtapose the concept of hybridization
as adjacent to the notion of empathy. The word 'Empathy' links
'em', as putting into, to pathos. To empathize according to the
Webster's Dictionary means to recognize diversity as the "the
action of understanding, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing
the feelings, thoughts and experience of another or either the
past or present, without having the feelings, thoughts and experience
fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner" .
On the contrary, 'sympathy' means: to experience 'sym' similarity,
"having common feelings, emotions or experience..... unification
and harmony that metaphorically means the capability of communication
in the same medium" (Webster's Dictionary), linked to pathos.
Sympathy is an expression of unification and harmony and the capability
to communicate in complete agreement.
THE CONCEPT OF 'THE DIFFEREND
While sympathy strives to assimilate the other, empathy stresses
difference, and awareness of 'The Differend' as an unsignified
communication. Lyotard stamped the title 'The Differend' as "the
case of conflict between (at least) two parties that cannot be
equitably resolved for lack of a rule of judgment applicable to
both arguments [discourses]". The concept of 'the Differend'
aims to illustrate precisely the logic of dominance of the hegemonic
which ignores the 'lack of the other'. The 'Differend' stresses
the idea of language as a limitation of reality. While the Differend
signals silence, a litigation is the possibility to settle an
argument by using phrases from a common rule. When conflicts are
signaled as litigations, differences are ignored and transgressed
.
In order to illustrate how the majorityof the Jewish population
in Israel became involved in paranoic master-slave relationships,
we shall discover that it is linked to the impossibility for a
realization of an emphatic course of action in the interrelations
among people in the state of Israel.
THE PROMISE
I shall refer the lack of empathy, characteristic to Judaism,
to the way the divine contract with God is grasped as a promise
to the children of Israel "you shall be my own treasure from
among all people... and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation" ((Shemot chap 19 sec 6). The status of
the Jews as committed to a contractual bondage creates the existential
Jewish desire to be hated and rejected as a cause and effect of
being 'God's treasure'. This inspiration became the reason for
maintaining Jewish community life throughout history. The rewarded
contractuality constructed the most complicated matter where the
demand for equality has been confused with the standpoint of the
self persuasion of being chosen.
JUDAISM AND NARCISSISM
I would like to share the psychoanalytic language in order to
apply the concept of narcissism as an answer to a deep sense of
loss endured in being Jewish.
Narcissism in terms of mirroring is defined by (Lasch, 1984: 33)
as: "a disposition to see the world as a mirror, more particularly
as a projection of one's own fears and desires".
Human beings are surrounded with phantasies, that are rooted in
loss and desire. Being Jewish means to experience a desire to
be validated by the other as chosen, and at the same time to proclaim
the demand for equality. This aspiration, which remains as a perpetually
unfulfilled desire, becomes the main barrier to empathic conduct.
The way in which it was maintained in the Diaspora is obvious,
but since Zionism took over, the lack of empathy became even more
severe. The perception of hatred, repugnance and horror, reflected
in those who are under occupation, leads over and again to the
conditions of paranoia. Since the Israeli Jew is confronted with
the returning gaze of enmity, the wishful urge for validation
is perceived as undone. The moment the narcissistic demand for
validation as superior is rejected, paranoia occurs. Interrelations
constructed upon antipathies in principle prevent any possibility
for empathy.
Narcissism emerges with the wish to see others as the same as
us and at the same time to strive for a victory affirmed by the
subjection of others in order to satisfy our desire for validation.
Narcissistic pathology manifests itself in: "fantasies of
grandiosity and mirror fixation, a mixture of an inflated image
of the self and a need to have this image constantly confirmed
by others" (Frosh, 1991:74-75). Narcissistic pathology is
recognized by self-centeredness and a radical lack of concern
for others manifested as an absence of empathy.
We may assume that many human beings are suffering from symptoms
of narcissistic pathology. These Symptoms include a lack of self
confidence, and involve a dispairing sense of emptiness and fragility.
These symptoms involve a dispairing sense of self in danger of
dissolution and death. These symptoms, typical of Jewish people,
may help in clarifying the obsessive occupation with death and
holocaust narrations in Israel.
REGRESSION AND CREATIVITY
The experience of loss and unfulfilled desire can produce two
opposite movements. Creativity on the one hand, and a regressive
turn, on the other hand.
But, since the ability to attain a driving force for creativity,
and a new shift of identity, represents a threat to the amalgamation
of a collectivity, we can grasp why the regressive turn takes
over in Israel. Singularity as the enemy of homogeneity, comprises
a surplus value of the creation of an hybrid identity. Following
Hegel's philosophical thought, identification is coupled in dialectic
relations with multiple negations, which embodies the possibility
to extend a new shift of identity. However, When a denial of difference
occurs and brings about regressivity, the possibility of an identity
shift is shut off.
Since cultural aspirations originate with an experience of loss,
the regressive turn is manifested by the production of historical
myths stressing the lost golden age. Fabricated legends which
are related to a primary fall from grace, find their way into
many societies, (many ethnic groups share the myth of being chosen).
A nostalgic clinging to the past, searching for 'roots', keeps
groups in a monolithic structure of similarity. On the contrary,
creativity, is a process of re-imagining the future. The permanent
drive to fill in the gap of loss may bring about creativity only
in the case of juxtaposing a new collage of hybridic identities
.
In Israel the yearning for a reunification with lost objects is
disclosed through the wish to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem,
including a 'recovery' of biblical worship. The regressive turn
is entangled with heaps of all-inclusive bans and prohibitions,
to keep 'the chosen people' those who are appropriate, completely
available. It is manifested by a tendency to protect the Children
of Israel from being 'contaminated' (hybridized) by what is non-Jewish.
The logic of equivalence , which fits the terminology of similarity,
sympathy, assimilation, up to integration, are signified as homogeneity
and purity - purity as opposed to contamination, as opposed to
hybridization.
PURITY VS. HYBRIDIZATION
The urge for Purity is a direct expression of regressive narcissism.
"'Purity' is what 'ideologies seek; the preservation of their
own image, at all costs. Purity is therefore, a direct expression
of regressive narcissism. (Frosh: 90).
The concept of Purity is one of the most obscure issues that emerge
from the readings of the old testament. In Vayiqra (chapter 19
sec19) we can find: "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender
with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled
seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and wool come upon
thee". What was originated as a command intended for a rural
society, turned into a general taboo on hybridization, in Jewish
tradition. A ban on all acts that increase disorder, carry contamination
or lead to a decrease in purity. (The panic of disorder and the
growth of entropy can be interpreted as a latent primordial fear
of chaos and death ).
THE 'REAL' AS AN IMPOSSIBILITY
As opposed to regression, creativity points to the 'gaps' of the
inexpressible, darkened zones that are related to the banned,
repressed, censored or forgotten. In order to discuss the possibility
for a creative comprehension of reality, I shall introduce Lacan
terminology relating to the three levels of human existence: The
Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real.
When Lacan asserts that the 'Real is impossible' he means that
the 'Real' is richer than any finite number of generalizations
of particular realities. The Real that resists symbolization creates
an abyss between groups which are constructed by distinct symbolic
discourses. It is the 'Symbolic' which, by its very nature, imposes
blind spots precisely around the focal points of a collective
group's repressed desires.
Each fragment of experience which is rejected in the linguistic
process (under cultural-social supervision), will remain unknown!
The unknown or the inexpressible is what draws the contours of
the group profile. The fact that language defines what the subject
is able to know about the world and about himself, is related
to the reconstruction of history and the fabrication of our most
inner experiences. Written materials such as historical textbooks,
government official propaganda publications, are all enlisteas
collective membrane for meanings in use. Therefore, if we accept
the idea that identity is located in the 'Real', the Real which
will never be covered by the meaning in use, then personal identity
is doomed to be silenced.
But, paradoxically the more the symbolic order works as a constructive
negation, the greater the striving for creativity. It may end
with the creation of an hybrid mutation, the plunging into the
abyss of the inexpressible, the kingdom of the empathic act. The
fact that any language is condemned to an absence of words, is
the driving force for the production of new meanings by means
of shifts from existing repertoires. Israel reflects a regressive
tendency to 'signalize' past events into a common accepted single
interpretation. Group identification becomes conditioned upon
the up-lifting of the past events of a particular group at the
expense of the past events of other groups. We can realize in
the Israeli Jewish society that an inacceptance of the main national
ethos raises the most ferocious clashes. And this is before we
start analyzing the brutal conflict with the Arab-Palestinian
society which is internally divided as well.
The splitting of identification occurs while represented national
memories, cease to be matters of general concern. In the case
of the Holocaust, a national trauma, which distinguishes Jews
from non-Jews, recently Ethiopian new comers and people born to
families of Asian or north African origins, reject the call to
participate in the Holocaust memorial events. If 'Identity' is
what is blocked and negated, thus empathy can be activated in
the scar between the symbolic order signified by identification
and the muteness of identity. At this point one should stress
the insoluble dilemma: How can empathy be actualized, if a deliberate
expression can be constructed only at the price of an impoverishment
of the 'I''. How could it be possible for an empathic communication
to leap beyond the boundaries of language?
ISRAEL AS A JEWISH DEMOCRATIC STATE OR A CIVIC EMOCRACY?
By praising unification and blurring existential personal dilemmas,
Israeli Jews are torn between being Jewish or being Israeli. The
conflict is conditioned upon the question of whether Israel is
a Jewish state, or a state that promises full rights for Jewish
people. The essential principle of democracy as majority rule,
embodies the definition of the group to which this regime is directed.
In the case of Israel, 'Identification' is confused between a
commitment to the state as a defined territory, under a democratic
constitution on the one hand, and a commitment to a national,
religious ethnic group, on the other hand. The second choice immediately
excludes all citizens that are not Jewish as predestined to a
lower status. The Israeli Jew is torn between the Zionist revolutionary
promise for a new Jewish identity, and a nostalgic attachment
to the pre-revolutionary stage. The verse 'one nation and one
heart', signifies the hegemonic power of Jewish brotherhood, which
negates the creation of a new identity and exhibits a cancellation
of 'otherness'.
The logic of equivalence which prevails in Jewish society abates
any possibility for an empathic communication. The terminology
of 'the empty signifier' (Laclau, 1994:105-114) supports the argumentation
concerning the distorting mechanisms of the logic of equivalence:
"it consists...., in a double process according to which
between closure as an impossible operation and the particularity
of the object incarnating it, there is a mutual dependency in
which each pole partially limits the effects of the other. ........equivalence
deforms and weakens the particularity of each of its links. What
we have to add now is what happens from another angle:the effects
on the structuration of the chain, of what remains of those particularities.
These remainders are absolutely essential for any equivalence
for if they were to vanish, the chain would collapse into simple
identity."
The transmitted imperatives toward unification are supported by
rhetoric which insists upon common destiny, and the fact that
Jews are permanently persecuted by enemies and anti-Semitism.
This is why, the Holocaust becomes the main issue in every agenda,
including school curricula, academic courses, political confrontations,
conferences, etc....... All these facts point to the symptomatic
conditions of a regressive inclination.
We may conclude that questioning Judaism and Zionism, should be
confronted with the Levinasian ethical idea of 'otherness' as
linked with responsibility, reciprocity and diversity. Despite
the radical oppositionary streams in the case of Israeli democracy,
the meanings in use are elaborated under the same "rider"
. The imposition of an assimilative style of communication is
followed by an inability to accept the discourse of the "other".
To go along with the discourse of the other means to approve an
alternative way for the fabrication of the past. In other words,
to take into account abolished events, giving these events (another)
significance, to include other people's collective memories in
the dialog between the present and the past. The reading of other
narratives, with tolerance for other interpretations, means to
plunge into the abyss between two or even more symbolic orders.
It means an unawarded permanent attempt to negotiate meanings
in use with an endless effort to tentatively fill up signifiers
with ad hoc significations.
Such a view is conceived as a clash with the perception of the
existence of the state of Israel as vanguard of the jewish Diaspora
as a whole, sustaining the biblical jewish spirit since the primordial
God's promise to Abraham. If a litigation (Lyotard, 1993:351),
as distinguished from the Differend, is the possibility to settle
an argument by using phrases from the hegemonic discourse, the
Differend signals silence (as a negative phrase) as a result of
common rule. While all conflicts are assigned as litigations,
the differences are forgotten and the uncontrolled Differend is
transgressed.
Those who consistently insist upon Jewish brotherhood and common
destiny manifest the demand for assimilation (similarity, sympathy)
of all the colors in the wide spectrum. The verse declaring that
"the temple mount was destroyed due to unfounded hatred reflects
a denial of conflictual oppositions. It insists upon an Israeli
identification, constructed by blurring the meaning of being Jewish
and being Israeli. Since the pressure of censorship is loosened
in conflictual situations, that is precisely when the subject
has a chance to get closer to him/herself. Only by sharpening
conflicts is there any chance to create linguistic collages. The
production of a linguistic mutation necessitates empathy which
is entangled with social hybridizations.
ZIONISM AND THE ENTIRE RANGE FROM ASSIMILATION TOWARDS HYBRIDIZTION
Zionism is comprised of ideological nuances which unfold into
the entire range in between two poles. The continuum ranges from
the idea that conceives of Israeli identity as established upon
a citizenship based upon territorial grounds, to the notion that
Israel is the shelter for all Jews around the world. The first
strives towards a civic society perceiving Israeli identity as
a new entity in the process of becoming. An entity which insists
upon a complete liberation from any commitment and common destiny
with the Jewish Diaspora. The second version firmly declares that
'all Jews are responsible for one another. We can realize that
this second view represents a continuum from the assimilation
type of identity production up to the 'melting pot' type which
coordinates with the integration mode of Identity production.
This version coincides with the 'sympathy style' of communication
expressing suspicion and antipathy aimed at every voice that signals
a threat to the wholeness of Jewish entity.
By definition, all modes of Zionism manifests a demarcation between
two different kinds of Israeli identities: Arab identity which
is excluded by different degrees of hostility (antipathy), Israeli
Identity which is something vague up to the present.
The radical pole, which must no longer be called Zionist, is inclined
towards a production of an hybrid identity which consists of all
the ingredients of Israeli groups. It includes the demand of being
cut off from any obligation to the rest of the Jewish community
abroad. This radical version, which is shared by some Arab Palestinians
as well, attempts to charge the concept of Israeli identity with
the spirit of citizenship in a democracy defined as a civic society.
The reshaping of the understanding Jewish Identity opens creative
channels for a new synthesis of hybrid identity in the process
of becoming which is conditioned upon empathic communication.
To sum up we may say that Judaism is characterized by forms of
sympathy in an attempt to maintain boundaries on the one hand
and blurring diversity within those boundaries on the other hand.
The question of Identity has to do with language, meanings and
Differend, and empathic interrelations, rather than with social,
cultural and the political parameters. The new trend among sociologists
and historians towards a revision in the articulation of Zionism
reflects a conflict among those who fight to maintain forms of
identification, and those who stand for hybridic expressions of
identity. The second version should be excluded at the end of
the day as non-Zionism. The redefinition of Israeli democracy
is conditioned upon the distribution of power between the bearers
of these two trends.
REFERENCES
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FROSH, S. (1991), Identity Crisis, (London: Macmillan).
LACAN, J. (1977) "The signification of the phallus",
E'crits: a selection. (London: Tavistock,).
LACLAU, E & MOUFFE, C. (1994), Hegemony & Socialist Strategy
Toward a Radical Democratic Politics (London:Verso).
_________________ (1997), "The Death and Resurrection of
the Theory of Ideology" in
MLN 112 (1997):297-321) (John Hopkins University Press)
LASCH, C. (1984), The Minimal Self, (London: Picador).
LYOTARD, J. F. (1988), The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. (Manchester:
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______________ (1993), The Lyotard reader, Andrew Benjamin, (ed),
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