Rhythm 0

Marina Abramović is best known for her performance pieces, in which she tries to explore what is possible for an artist to do in the name of art.  Her best known piece was the recent “The Artist Is Present,” in which she sat motionless for 736.5 hours over the course of three months, inviting visitors to sit opposite her and make eye contact for as long as they wanted.  So many people began spontaneously crying across from her that blogs and Facebook groups were set up for those people.  

Her bravest piece, however, is my favorite.  This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her.  She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted. 

Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly.  “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”

This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances. 

This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves.  I’m certain that no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.   

Edit: Several commenters have pointed out that I’ve overlooked an important variable here: gender.  They are right; I imagine that a lot of the dehumanization inherent in this performance is related to the gender of the artist.  I am sure that people would have reacted differently to an utterly non-responsive male than they did to Abramović.  

UN Probes Shock Therapy At US School

A Special-Needs School Is Under Fire For Its Treatment Of Students With Severe Behavioural Problems.




In 2002, Andre McCollins, an autistic 18-year-old, was restrained for several hours face-down, and electrically shocked 31 times in seven hours by a remote-controlled device for what a special-needs school described as an attack on a member of staff.

This American school's practice of using electric shocks to discipline students with severe behavioural problems has solicited renewed attention from the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture.

UN Special Rapporteur Juan Mendez confirmed to Al Jazeera that he has asked for access from the US government, asking them to investigate the use of "skin shock therapy" by the Judge Rotenberg Centre (JRC).

In 2010, Mendez's predecessor, Manfred Nowak, said he believed the practice constitutes torture. "I have no doubts about it," said Nowak at that time. "It is inflicted in a situation where a victim is powerless. And, I mean, a child in the restraint chair, being then subjected to electric shocks, how more powerless can you be?"


Skin shock therapy, in which students exhibiting extreme or dangerous behaviour are subjected to electric shocks from a remote-controlled device, is legal in the United States. Twelve US states currently send their children to the JRC. Parents and a probate court judge are required to approve the treatment on a case-by-case basis.

The practice has come under fire in the past few years, and the JRC faced renewed scrutiny in April, when a video of McCollins being repeatedly shocked surfaced. McCollins' mother, Cheryl, has said the incident in question occured because her son refused to take off his jacket, but JRC lawyer Michael Flammia countered her claim by saying Andre "started off that day by attacking a staff person on the bus", and that the punishment was not applied simply because he refused to remove his coat.

The JRC, founded by behavioural psychologist Matthew Israel and based in the Boston suburb of Canton, has a "zero-rejection, zero-expulsion policy", according to its website. Many of its residents have exhibited severely violent behaviour towards themselves and others: a summary statement on the JRC website says its students include people who have gouged out their own eyes, pulled out their own adult teeth, swallowed razor blades, and attempted to strangle their parents.

The JRC has 235 students, more than 30 of whom receive skin shock therapy.

"JRC is the place of last resort," said Flammia. The typical JRC student, he explained, "has come from a psychiatric hospital, or come from another programme that's expelling them because their behaviours are so dangerous that they can't keep them safe."

Students at the centre receive individually tailored treatment programmes that include both positive and negative reinforcement. Initially, new students are offered rewards for good behaviour, but if that doesn't work, aversive shock therapy is ultimately considered. The therapy delivers an electric shock to a student when he or she exhibits undesirable behaviours such as aggression or self-injury.

Skin Shock Therapy

Skin shock therapy, also known as aversive shock therapy, requires students to wear either a "fanny pack" or backpack containing a battery-operated device, known as a Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED), which is connected by wires to electrodes on the skin. The electrodes themselves are fastened onto the flesh with a fabric strap, which is connected to a metal lock to prevent students from removing them.


Staff members of the JRC then use a transmitter to activate two-second-long shocks when undesirable behaviour is exhibited. One former patient, Hilary Cook, told Al Jazeera that she had to wear the GED 24 hours a day.

Of the medical sources Al Jazeera spoke to, a majority raised questions about using skin shock therapy to treat severely maladaptive behaviour.

Dr Allison Baker, a psychiatrist at Columbia Presbyterian hospital in New York City, advocated the use of reinforcement-based procedures instead.

"There's a large evidence base to suggest that behavioural intervention programmes can be successful without the need of using aversive punishment-based procedure," she told Al Jazeera. "While the notion of a punishment-based procedure will diminish the maladaptive behaviour in the heat of the moment, you're not teaching the youngster. You're not giving them replacement behaviours and you're not giving them skills they can take with them into the future."

Baker also noted that no "rigorous peer-reviewed publication for this kind of treament" had been released in nearly a decade, though the school rejects this claim.

Legislative Efforts

Brian Joyce, a Massachusetts state senator, echoed Baker's emphasis on alternative therapies. "We're successfully treating such individuals through positive interventions everywhere else in the country and throughout the world," he said. "We certainly don't need to resort to this barbaric treatment in Canton, Massachusetts."

Joyce, who says the practice is "inhumane and at times barbaric", is trying to ban aversive shock therapy altogether. He believes legislation has not yet passed due, in part, to what he says are the JRC's powerful lobbyists and deep pockets - he said that, in 2007, the centre took in $56m in revenue.


In 2011, the JRC was prevented from administering the therapy to newly admitted students, although the centre is appealing this decision.

Cook, the former JRC resident, told Al Jazeera that she is "kind of amazed" that the treatment continues to be legal. She described the therapy as "clearly a case of torture".

"I don't remember what the first thing I did to get a GED was. But I do remember what the GED felt like at the time," she said. "I was expecting a bee sting and what I got was pretty extreme pain that felt like longer than a few seconds, but was only a few seconds. It did cause me to scream and it was very intense and burned for a while afterwards. It actually left marks on me that went away after a few days, but it did leave marks."

'Immediate' Effect

Flammia told Al Jazeera: "Anybody who says this treatment is torture is 100 per cent wrong. It's no different than saying dental work is torture.

"If [the treatment] was taken away, they would either die or be put on drugs for the rest of their lives and they'd be comatose for the rest of their lives."


Some parents agree with Flammia's characterisation, and are convinced that the JRC's approach has saved their children from a life of misery.

Lauren Emmick, a mother of a current resident at the JRC, argued that aversive shock therapy should not be classified as torture, and credited the treatment with allowing her daughter to live a more normal life.

Emmick said her daughter Lian had been in therapy since age three and a half, and began taking medication at age six. She said Lian's behaviour was so aggressive that she had to be taught separately from the other children at the special-needs school she previously attended. "What she experienced before was torture," said Emmick. "She had been restrained so many times, both of her knees needed to have surgery."

Emmick had considered shock therapy as a last resort, but finally agreed to it after Lian had been at the JRC for five months without responding to other treatments. The therapy not only produced an "immediate" effect on her daughter, she said, but it also continues to limit her violent outbursts. "She works in the kitchen, she's got two roommates, she's in a classroom, she's learning, she's happy. I've never seen her happy. Ever."

Via: "Al-Jazeera"

Humanity and Its Absence

By David Kennedy
April 18, 2010
Courtesy Of "Information Clearing House"

Dear Franklin,

I have just read your letter to Janet with its heart-rending account of the Sabra-Shatilla massacre. It is good to know there are still people who care about humanity and display a decency that is all too rare among humans, especially the most powerful - those who control such events as the Sabra-Shatilla massacre as described at A Letter To Janet About Sabra-Shatilla.

We live in a sick, sick world, a world that is full of hypocrisy and duplicity. Science has opened the door to all kinds of wizardry that allows evil people to control the destiny of most of humanity. I was taught Physics by the man who first split the atom (in 1932). He was a mild-mannered man who, on seeing where his discovery was leading, left Cambridge to return to his native Ireland and dedicate himself to teaching. Ironically, he was a pacifist. Who can tell what evil men will do with our discoveries? But science marches on regardless, putting more and more powerful weapons into the hands of powerful and unscrupulous humans: such is the madness of the human brain.

Recently, I have read the accounts given by Arundhati Roy of what is happening to the poor forest-dwellers of India who are being dispossessed of their lands and way of life by International mining companies, aided and abetted by a government which actively supports global corporations against the people whose interests they supposedly represent. The lives of these innocent, harmless people are being torn apart in the most violent manner, both physically and mentally, by so-called educated and civilised human beings, the elite of our society. What is the future of humankind in such circumstances?

Robotic planes now deliver death from the sky on innocent civilians. These are the modern-day equivalents of the olden day thunderbolts of vengeful gods. They are controlled by vengeful and evil men, men that WE elect into power.

I have just finished reading a little of the evils perpetrated by Christian Europeans against many, many innocent millions in North America, in Central and South America, in Africa, in Australia, and in South and South-East Asia. Their evil rivals and, in scale, far outdoes all that happened in Sabra and Shatilla. All this is done by people who pride themselves on being the acme of cultured civilisation, but who are strangely blind to their own true nature.

I ask myself why these things happened, and keep on happening again and again? The only explanation I can think of is that it lies in the human brain, and in particular in the imagination, that uncontrolled part of the brain that in our blindness we so much admire: the inventive/creative imagination.

We invent language. We invent writing. We tell stories and invent god(s).

We invest these gods with all kinds of power. We then focus on a single god - THE GOD - God of gods! We imagine we are made in the image of this god of ours. We image that HE (note the gender - isn't that a give away?) gave us dominion over all life, to treat as we will, and, of course, this god of ours blesses us whenever we are called to arms to slaughter our fellow-men with the same enthusiasm and lack of conscience as we slaughter and destroy the rest of life. In raining death down without mercy on the innocent, we are indeed made in his image.

Your account of Sabra-Shatilla was a another painful reminder of just how despicable humans can be, not least when they are fulfilling the imagined destiny decreed by this god of ours.

If ever we are to find a way out of the mess our imaginations have created for us (and the rest of life) it will surely come from our confronting the evil that is us, and then seeking honestly to devise a better way of life. Your message serves this end since there can be no peace without justice, and no justice without truth.

Thank you for your contribution to truth.

Yours sincerely,

David Kennedy

Rice: Israeli Politics Preventing Peace

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND AP
WASHINGTON
Nov 23, 2008 23:33
Updated Nov 24, 2008 18:00
Courtesy Of The Jerusalem Post

The fact that Israel and the Palestinians have not reached a peace agreement and will likely fail to do so by the end of 2008 is "largely due to" political turmoil in Israel, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday night.

"Even though there was not an agreement by the end of the year, it is really largely because of the political situation in Israel," Rice told reporters.

Still, she tried to remain upbeat about the peace process, adding, "It's in pretty good shape."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Washington Sunday, and was set to meet with Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams later in the day to kick off his farewell visit with US President George W. Bush.

The parley with Abrams was one of a number of preparatory meetings before a working meeting and private dinner with Bush that Olmert will hold Monday night.

Iran, Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are expected to dominate the conversations, as Olmert looks to secure policies and priorities worked out with the Bush administration before both he and the US president leave office at the beginning of the next year.

While Bush and Olmert have enjoyed good relations and have seen eye-to-eye on many issues, they have struck different postures when it has come to negotiating with Syria, which Israel has been doing indirectly for many months.

"The prime minister wants to generate a final tailwind for the Syrian track," one of the PM's aides said, as quoted in Reuters ahead of the visit.

Olmert Spokesman Ya'akov Galanti told The Jerusalem Post that was in keeping with Olmert's efforts to continue pressing on these issues until he leaves office when Israeli elections are held in February.

The Oval Office meeting also presents an opportunity for the two leaders to leave a blueprint for fulfilling their ambitious but unrealized Israeli-Palestinian peace agendas. Paving the way for a smooth and productive transition is also an important aim of the visit.

Just a year ago, Olmert and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, proudly announced the resumption of peace talks after a seven-year hiatus at a summit hosted by Bush in Annapolis, Maryland. The three set a target of wrapping up a final peace deal by the end of 2008.

Despite frequent negotiating sessions, two trips to the region by Bush and eight more by Rice, the sides have little to show for their efforts and have acknowledged the year-end target will not be met.

With his time in power running out, Olmert has become increasingly candid, saying Israel will have to withdraw from almost all the West Bank and parts of east Jerusalem to make peace with the Palestinians. Talk of such concessions was virtually unheard of just a few years ago.

"I know that Mr. Olmert wants to leave to whomever is elected as the next prime minister the peace process in the best shape possible," spokesman Mark Regev said.

Bush, who spent the weekend in Peru at a meeting of Pacific Rim nations, invited Olmert to Washington as part of his final round of talks with world leaders before he leaves office January 20.

Olmert often speaks of the close personal friendship he has developed with Bush over the past three years. When Bush visited Israel in May, Olmert showered the president with praise, saying, "You're a great person, you're a great leader, and you're a great friend." Though largely unpopular internationally, Bush is loved in Israel, where he is seen as a staunch defender of the US ally.

"It's a farewell, a double farewell," said Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. "They will try to sum up a period and cement all the understandings and agreements between the US and Israel over the last eight years."

After Monday's meeting, Olmert and his wife, Aliza, will dine with the president and first lady Laura Bush at the White House.

The two leaders probably also will discuss the global financial crisis and the future of arms and aircraft deals with Israel.

During his visit to Washington, Olmert also planned to meet with Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, and congressional and Jewish leaders.

Bush leaves office on January 20. Olmert, who announced plans to resign in September amid corruption charges, will step down after a successor is chosen February 10.

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