Wallace Shawn has always spoken to me. We were, after all, so much alike.
Even when I didn’t understand, he seemed to make sense. Often sad. Always true. – JDW
Troy Jollimore | Zyzzyva | Winter 2017 https://longreads.com/2018/01/17/wallace-shawns-late-night/
More than a decade ago, in the aftermath of the release of the Abu Ghraib photographs, the playwright and actor Wallace Shawn wrote:
A few months ago, the American public, who in political theory and to some extent even in reality are “sovereign” in the United States, were given a group of pictures showing American soldiers tormenting desperate, naked, extremely thin people in chains — degrading them, mocking them, and physically torturing them. And so the question arose, How would the American public react to that? And the answer was that in their capacity as individuals, certain people definitely suffered or were shocked when they saw those pictures. But in their capacity as the sovereign public, they did not react. A cry of lamentation and outrage did not rise up across the land. The president and his highest officials were not compelled to abase themselves publicly, apologize, and resign, nor did they find themselves thrown out of office, nor did the political candidates from the party out of power grow hoarse with denouncing the astounding crimes which were witnessed by practically everyone throughout the entire world. As far as one could tell, over a period of weeks, the atrocities shown in the pictures had been assimilated into the list of things which the American public was willing to consider normal and which they could accept. And so now one has to ask, well, what does that portend?
Thirteen years later, we have a quite good idea of what such a thing portends.
Thirteen years later we know much more than Shawn, or anyone, could have known at the time about just how much could be “assimilated into the list of things which the American public was willing to consider normal and which they could accept.”
We know so much about this now that it is rather a wonder any of us can sleep at night.
And in fact, some people tell me that they aren’t sleeping, that they have not been sleeping well for a while. Not since November.
That’s what I keep hearing.
Of course, there are those who lost the ability to enjoy an untroubled night’s sleep long before that.
From the article. “His conception of human nature is broadened to incorporate the recognition that in at least some human beings the bestial core may be accompanied by an intellectual apparatus which, while poorly designed, frequently self-serving, and as liable to be placed in the service of evil as of good purposes, nonetheless makes certain forms of reflection and self-control possible.”