“Statistics Don’t Bleed”: Rhetorical Psychology, Presence, and Psychic Numbing in Genocide Pedagogy
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Date
2011
Authors
Frank, David A.
Slovic, Paul
Vastfjall, Daniel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
JSTOR
Abstract
Desperate to make present the unfolding Holocaust in central Europe,
Arthur Koestler in a 1944 article in the New York Times Magazine
grouped himself with the "screamers" who were unheard as millions were
murdered in the concentration camps. Seeking to explain why "a dog run
over by a car upsets our emotional balance and digestion; three million
Jews killed in Poland cause but a moderate uneasiness," Koestler
observed: "Statistics don't bleed; it is the detail which counts. We are
unable to embrace the total process of our awareness; we can only focus
on little lumps of reality" ( Yogi92). Matthew J. Newcomb struggles in his
classroom and recent article, "Feeling the Vulgarity of Numbers: The
Rwandan Genocide and the Classroom as a Site of Response to Suffering,"
with the problem he, Koestler, and a host of others face when
attempting to move people to moral action in response to trauma that may
seem beyond the pale of representation.
Description
16 pages
Keywords
Holocaust, Arthur Koestler, Matthew J. Newcomb
Citation
Frank, D. A., Slovic, P., & Vastfjall, D. (2011). “Statistics Don’t Bleed”: Rhetorical Psychology, Presence, and Psychic Numbing in Genocide Pedagogy. JAC, 31(3/4), 609—624. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41709662