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La locura sana y la violencia enfermiza: Don Quijote como hombre más violento que loco

El nombre Quijote es sinónimo de la locura y lo ha sido por mucho tiempo y en varios idiomas. A pesar de esto, deseo sugerir que esta perspectiva hace hincapié en la cosa equivocada. La locura de Quijote no está en sus ideas o moralidad, sino en la violencia que mutuamente se efectúa entre él y su comunidad. En sí, la palabra locura es poco apta para lo que ocurre con él. Quijote, y los que lo rodean, no son locos, sino violentos. Quijote es la víctima de un proceso de radicalización violenta, mientras la enfermedad mental ha sido el chivo expiatorio por sus disparates. Gracias a la dominancia de la ideología en la mente moderna, combinada con el ajuste de cuentas sobre el maltrato y la falsa representación de las personas con enfermedades mentales, la reforma de la imagen del Quijote tiene un valor cultural aumentado. Para esta discusión, se estudiarán primero los problemas con la asociación entre las hazañas de Quijote y sus errores de percepción, o sea, su enfermedad mental. Este componente tiene como propósito principal desvincular el legado de Quijote con la enfermedad mental. Después, se desarrollará la tesis alternativa que asociará la identidad de Quijote con la ideología violenta, la cual es, en este caso, la misma ideología caballeresca.

1. La tesis de la insania

Para demostrar unos problemas en la alegación que Don Quijote es quién es por su locura, podemos tomar el mismísimo ejemplo de las molinas del viento. Famosamente, Quijote percibe las molinas como si fuesen un grupo de aproximadamente treinta gigantes con múltiples brazos de unos diez kilómetros. La abundancia de brazos es sugerida por el desafío levantado por el caballero: “Pues aunque mováis más brazos que los del gigante Briareo, me lo habéis de pagar” (76). Quijote, como ya se conoce, decide que tal grupo ha de ser combatido, ya que “es gran servicio de Dios quitar tan mala simiente de sobre la faz de la tierra” (75).

La interpretación típica de esta escena hace hincapié en el desacuerdo alarmante entre gigantes y molinas de viento. Aunque, por cierto, esto es un problema llamativo, hay un problema de pensamiento más sutil en este episodio. ¿Por qué merecerían la muerte los gigantes por el mero hecho de existir?

No hay nada intrínseca en la idea misma del gigante que justificaría esta reacción. La clasificación de los gigantes como mala simiente va más allá de la definición de un ser con apariencia humana y una altura desmedida. A menos que el tamaño mismo sea tomado como una señal de la virtud, tendría que haber otro indicio para justificar el ataque de Don Quijote. El relato es escaso, tal de que, si existen otras justificaciones, tendrán que ser extratextuales.

El prejuicio que Quijote expresa hacia estos gigantes se vuelve aún menos si se considera el retrato de otros gigantes dentro del texto. Malambruno, en el episodio de la condesa Trifaldi, por ejemplo, es capaz de razonar y, “aunque es encantador, es cristiano y hace sus encantamentos con mucha sagacidad y con mucho tiento, sin meterse con nadie,” además de haber servido una familia real con distinción (856). Si Malambruno, como miembro de la especia de los gigantes, es capaz de fidelidad religiosa, servicio gubernamental y la sabiduría para obrar con encantamientos y magia, la especie obviamente es capaz de una vida altamente moral y filosófica, igual que cualquier humano. Como miembros de la misma especie (a menos que exista una taxonomía desconocida de gigantes), los gigantes molina han de ser capaces de la misma nobleza e inteligencia de Malambruno y Don Quijote mismo.

Por cierto, la descripción de Malambruno viene del artificio de los duques y no de la mente de Quijote. El otro gigante principal en la historia, el que atemoriza a la princesa Micomicona y su nación, tampoco es de la invención de Quijote. Esto limita la aplicación de sus casos al caso de las molinas, aunque no deja de establecer que la idea de gigantes pacíficos, cristianos o inteligentes es compatible con el entendimiento que tiene Quijote del mundo.

Para resolver esta ambigüedad, pensemos en las diferentes maneras por las cuales una molina de viento puede volverse un gigante. Por ejemplo, quizá los gigantes tuviesen un parecer espantoso, o el grupo, el parecer de unos invasores, y, gracias a la valentía de Quijote, él poseía la capacidad de enfrentarse a ellos para defender el país. Los artistas han interpretado a los gigantes de varias maneras, generalmente con varios brazos, rostros enojados y a veces con espadas (las espadas sirven también como una transformación de las aspas de las molinas) (véase “The Giants (Don Quijote)” para varios ejemplos). La manera consistente de retratar a los gigantes con disposiciones violentas será garantizada porque Quijote mismo los describe como violentos.

La dificultad que surge en la narración de Quijote es que la percepción errónea de gigantes, en sí, no tiene mucha razón de proporcionarles un aspecto violento. Es posible que sí, Quijote los percibe de esta manera independiente de todos los demás factores como la ideología. Aunque existe esta posibilidad, no existe razón para pensar que la tergiversación de la vista sea ponderada para preferir imágenes violentas. Es decir, la tergiversación debe ser un proceso más o menos neutro y aleatorio. Entonces, si los gigantes violentos tienen un parecer violento solamente en consecuencia de la percepción y no de otra cosa, este resultado tendría que corresponder puramente al azar. Si llamamos el proceso de tergiversación T, con la entrada de la imagen original y la salida de las imágenes potenciales que podría ver Quijote, entonces T(molina de viento) = {cualquier gigante} + {otros objetos aparte de gigantes}. Tomemos por sentado que la percepción nos mostrará gigantes y no otra cosa para descartar el conjunto de objetos aparte de gigantes, como torres, castillos, montañas y espíritus. Aunque limitemos así T(molina de viento) a {cualquier gigante}, el conjunto de cualquier gigante incluye gigantes violentos, gigantes pacíficos, gigantes neutros, gigantes que le causan un dialogo para cambiar su perspectiva sobre los gigantes. La figura 1 ilustra la poca diferencia entre un gigante que agita los brazos y un gigante que labra la tierra con azadas, desde el punto de vista de T. Los estímulos visuales, como el contorno de una imagen y la relación de los componentes, permiten muchas interpretaciones tergiversadoras. En breves palabras, el resultado no es único. La apariencia violenta no deja de ser posible, pero es lejos de inevitable o garantizada.

Figura 1.

Por consiguiente, el error de percepción asociado con la enfermedad mental (bajo el nombre tradicional de locura) difícilmente justifica a solas el episodio con las molinas del viento. Además, la atribución de la violencia de Don Quijote a la enfermedad mental se basa en un prejuicio no científico que falazmente sugiere las personas que sufren la enfermedad mental son más violentas que las personas sin tales enfermedades. Hasta las enfermedades mentales más asociadas con la violencia, como la esquizofrenia y el trastorno bipolar, no producen una taza de violencia mucho más alta que la taza de violencia en la población general. Aproximadamente 4% de toda la violencia societal parece ser el resultado de la enfermedad mental (Fazel et al.; Harvard Mental Health Letter). La enfermedad mental que sí se asocia con violencia elevada es el trastorno del uso de substancias, el cual no se halla presente en ninguna manera en Don Quijote. La violencia que ocurre en las personas con enfermedad mental es parecida a la que ocurre en cualquier persona: “[it] stems from multiple overlapping factors interacting in complex ways. These include family history, personal stressors (such as divorce or bereavement), and socioeconomic factors (such as poverty and homelessness)” (Harvard Mental Health Letter).

Ya que los elementos que generalmente instan la violencia están ausentes en Don Quijote, quien lleva una vida ociosa y cómoda, la tesis de locura, o en palabras más adecuadas, la tesis de enfermedad mental, es menos confiable o estable que generalmente se considera. Por cierto, Don Quijote sufre de alguna tergiversación desconocida de su percepción, pero no son los errores de percepción lo que le inculcó un deseo de matar gigantes y salir en tres aventuras para vencer y luchar.

En la sociedad actual, la enfermedad mental ha llegado a ser un chivo expiatorio para explicar todo tipo de violencia masiva: “Media accounts of mass shootings by disturbed individuals galvanize public attention and reinforce popular belief that mental illness often results in violence. Epidemiologic studies show that the large majority of people with serious mental illnesses are never violent” (Fazel et al.). El autor de este ensayo conoce personalmente los prejuicios asociados con la violencia masiva: de joven, cada vez que hubo un tiroteo masivo, como yo era callado, los compañeros de la escuela me dirigían el cliché vil: siempre son los callados. Esta persecución de personas con enfermedad mental no es justificada, especialmente con el conocimiento de que la persona que es más amenazada por la enfermedad mental es el mismo que sufre: la enfermedad mental sí se asocia con el suicidio (Frazer et al.).

Hay una necesidad urgente para cambiar la perspectiva alrededor de la violencia societal y la enfermedad mental, tanto para apoyar y proteger a los que sufren de la enfermedad mental como para combatir la violencia societal y ayudar a que las personas no lleguen a expresar impulsos violentos. La enfermedad mental no puede seguir siendo un chivo expiatorio por la violencia.

2. La tesis ideológica

El modelo alternativo que propongo para la locura quijotesca es la de la ideología. Don Quijote es víctima de la radicalización. Igual que en los casos del terrorismo, no es culpa de la enfermedad mental, sino de la fe basada en una ideología violenta. Quijote comete violencia masiva y dirigida repetidamente a lo largo de la historia. Una brevísima selección incluye los episodios siguientes: las molinas del viento, la lucha con el vizcaíno y su caravana, el robo del barbero, la lucha con los galeotes y los leones (estos episodios son mucho más frecuentes en la primera novela, conforme al humor distinto de la segunda novela). Por suerte, la tergiversación de perspectiva y la ausencia de enemigos auténticos u oficiales (como lo fueron los moros) aseguran que, en la mayoría de los casos, los ataques de Quijote son sin víctimas, pero no cambia la naturaleza del hecho. Que él no sea homicida resulta del cuidado de los con quienes se encuentra, no por virtud de él.

La pregunta fundamental de esta sección es por qué Don Quijote está tan predispuesto a usar la violencia en sus encuentros. Tal como Cervantes podría haber señalado, es culpa de la ideología caballeresca. Esta ideología es homicida en sí. Quijote mismo dijo: “¿y dónde has visto tú o leído jamás que caballero andante haya sido puesto ante la justicia, por más homicidios que hubiese cometido?” (91). El caballero tiene muchísima confianza en la capacidad y la justicia de cometer violencia libremente. Mientras Quijote vive bajo esta ideología, busca aventuras, donde la aventura requiere violencia. Por consiguiente, Quijote eleva la probabilidad de violencia en todo encuentro en que se halla. Él busca la violencia y, por lo tanto, necesita que los extranjeros sean violentos para justificar su violencia.

La ideología caballeresca tiene por lo menos dos axiomas. Primero, el caballero ejerce su oficio a través de la violencia. Segundo, la violencia caballeresca es justificada. Las circunstancias y el carácter de los demás tienen que conformar con esta verdad. Estos dos axiomas, por ejemplo, permiten que la violencia entre dos caballeros, por tan inútil y frívolo que sea, sea normalizada.

De regreso a los gigantes de las molinas, dentro de la ideología, caben muchas justificaciones para matar a cualquier gigante. La justificación más fácil será el racismo, el cual se halla fuertemente en la filosofía medieval y en los libros de caballería (aunque el racismo de la época de Cervantes es menos sistematizado como en la actualidad, o sea, la filosofía alrededor del concepto era menos formal, relacionada, cohesiva y desarrollada. De este modo, muchos elementos de la obra de Cervantes critica instantes del racismo sin llegar a una condenación sistemática del racismo). La ideología también se vale de conexiones superficiales con la religión, por lo que, dentro de la caballería, los pecados de Goliat bastarán para la condenación de la especie. Otra posibilidad es que los gigantes presentan en sí un riesgo a la seguridad popular, debido a su capacidad intrínseca militar, pero esto no es muy distinto al caso racista. Es difícil, en fin, que la tergiversación visual justifique la violencia quijotesca, pero la ideología provee muchas maneras fáciles para hacer lo mismo. Se dijo anteriormente que la tergiversación no tiene una probabilidad muy alta de crear una imagen de gigantes violentos sin algo que añada un sesgo al proceso. La ideología es precisamente aquel sesgo.

Hay espacio para decir que existen méritos parciales de la ideología del Quijote; validez que sería mayor si no fuese por la violencia. Por ejemplo, la historia está llena de personas que, de veras, tienen necesidad de ayuda extrajudicial para ayudarles donde las estructuras oficiales les han fallado. Esto incluye a Andrés, Dorotea, Cardenio, Lucinda, Doña Rodríguez, su hija, Ricote, Ana Félix y Roque Guinart. La mayoría es ayudada por la buena suerte o la intervención divina, mientras que Roque Guinart se hace la ayuda extrajudicial que necesita. En sí, de todos los personajes, Guinart es el que quizá más vive el credo caballeresco, pero se vuelve ladrón por organizarse con otros (el modelo del caballero andante a solas es reemplazado por la sistematización formal en un grupo de rebeldes, ya que el sistema les permite combatir con enemigos organizados a pesar de los avances de tecnología que tanto amenazan al caballero anacrónico). El punto decisivo se halla precisamente en que Quijote es demasiado violento y no lo usa medidamente. Así que, por tanta necesidad que la España de Cervantes tenía para un sabio armado viajero y fuera de la ley, la violencia acaba creando tantos problemas como resuelve (con referencia a la tortura de Andrés, la libertad de los galeotes y la autoflagelación de Sancho).

Que la ideología caballeresca sea condenada por el libro de Cervantes y que sea demasiado violenta no son conclusiones tan sorprendentes en sí. Más bien, este estudio sugiere que la violencia ideológica es el problema esencial de la novela, no la locura. Debemos clasificar a Don Quijote como radicalizado, en lugar de disparatado. De hecho, un estudio de la literatura caballeresca sugiere que la radicalización violenta no es tan accidental: el género es un género de modelos, enseñanzas, hechos e ideales que imitar, tanto dentro de las crónicas como las ficciones caballerescas. Bellis y Leitch documentan este fenómeno:

Chivalric literature was practical, not just in that it instructed knights in their métier … but in that it reflected to medieval society the image of its proper order. It was both inspirational and corrective, as Hoccleve’s advice to the Lollard Sir John Oldcastle made clear: ‘Clymbe no more in holy writ so hie!’ but ‘Rede the storie of Lancelot de lake,/ Or Vegece of the aart of Chiualrie,/ The seege of Troie or Thebes’. … Chivalric literature reinforced patterns of conduct and the proper structure of society: restraint and obeisance, exercising and recognising authority, muscularity moral and literal, when to stand and when to bend. (242)

A esto, se añade la declaración del cronista medieval Froissart: “In order that the honourable enterprises, noble adventures and deeds of arms which took place during the wars waged by France and England should be fittingly related and preserved for posterity, so that brave men should be inspired thereby to follow such examples, I wish to place on record these matters of great renown” (citado en 243). Esta literatura tiene elementos de enseñanza loable—“chivalry signified knights, fighting, and the ideas that encouraged them to be more than trained thugs”—pero no podemos escapar del hecho de que la literatura caballeresca fue diseñada para un mundo violento y que aumenta la violencia en personas como Quijote (251-252).

Figura 2.

Quijote no fue el último radicalizado por la literatura caballeresca, ya que la estética de los cruzados y los caballeros ha sido adoptada por extremistas derechistas. Esta adoptación llega hasta el odio del islam, un eco nefasto y aterrador de las campañas españolas contra los moros. Koch documenta, por ejemplo, un meme de una página (ya removida) de Facebook de la Liga de Defensa Española que combina dentro de contextos modernos la imagen caballeresca con la ecuación prejuiciado entre el islam y el terrorismo (17) (véase fig. 2). Koch resume la relación entre lo caballeresco y el derecho extremo en la modernidad:

For the extreme right wing (either the CJM or neo-Nazis and fascists) circles, Christianity is under a religious and demographic threat, posed by Muslims in general and by Jihadis in particular. … Right wing individuals, groups, movements, parties and organizations in Europe and North America use the same militant-religious symbols and rhetoric, … to provide an appropriate response to what they see as a threat posed by Muslims. Furthermore, it is being used not only as a motivational source … but also for recruitment, mobilization and propaganda. (20)

Entre la apropiación de la caballerosidad, el prejuicio anti-islam y el prejuicio anti-enfermidad mental, la distinción entre un Quijote disparatado y un Quijote radicalizado llega a tener más que un significado literario y filosófico.

3. Conclusión

Ya que Quijote es radicalizado y no disparatado, su declaración “Yo sé quién soy” resulta más verídico (58). Él puede formar su propia identidad, su quién soy, independiente de los esfuerzos de su familia y sus amigos de desradicalizarlo. La identidad de un radicalizado es consciente y, aunque puede ser irracional, no es sin su lógica. Reconocer la identidad de Quijote, tal como él la construyó, nos ayudará a entender mejor su vida y el deseo de Alonso Quijano de ser llamado “El Bueno.” El pensamiento cuidadoso en cuanto a la radicalización, el esfuerzo por la desradicalización y la liberación de la enfermedad mental de las asociaciones falsas con la violencia son proyectos urgentes en la sociedad moderna.

El ejemplo de Don Quijote radicalizado (y el Alonso Quijano desradicalizado) sirve para aviso. El mundo moderno está inundado por las ideologías—quizá la razón porque muchos académicos se ven en Quijote no es la locura, sino la abundancia de ideología que Quijote comparte con la modernidad. Toda ideología con rasgos o elementos violentos, igual que la caballeresca, merece mucha desconfianza. Aunque no participemos de una ideología violenta, el aviso queda para que tengamos más cuidado al poner fe en cualquier ideología, ya que esta nos puede consumir, hasta que salgamos en tres aventuras y muramos arrepentidos. Es decir, evitemos ser un nuevo Quijote. Alonso Quijano, el Bueno, dejó un ejemplo mejor.

Obras citadas

Bellis, Joann y Megan Leitch. “Chivalric Literature.” A Companion to Chivalry, editado por Robert Jones y Peter Coss, Boydell & Brewer, 2019, pp. 241-262.

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quijote de la Mancha. 2ª ed. Conmemorativa del IV Centenario Cervantes, editado por RAE, Penguin, 2015.

Fazel, Seena, et al. “Mental illness and reduction of gun violence and suicide: bringing epidemiologic research to policy.” Annals of Epidemiology, vol. 25, no. 5, 2015, pp. 366-376. PubMed Central,doi: 10.1016/j.annepidem.2014.03.004. Accedido 20 abril 2021.

Harvard Mental Health Letter. “Mental illness and violence.” Harvard Health Publishing, enero 2011, https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/mental-illness-and-violence. Accedido 20 abril 2021.

Koch, Ariel. “The New Crusaders: Contemporary Extreme Right Symbolism and Rhetoric.” Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 11, no. 5, 2017, pp. 13-24.

“The Giants (Don Quijote).” Villains Wiki, https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/The_Giants_(Don_Quixote)#Gallery. Accedido 20 abril 2021.

Moral Distress: A Systemic Issue in L2 Teaching

Introduction

Moral distress exists at epidemic levels, but most of its sufferers and potential doctors do not have the vocabulary to describe it. As long as moral distress remains unchecked, it self-perpetuates and spreads throughout schools and societies. This essay seeks to follow a handful of earlier researchers in introducing the teaching world to moral distress. Developing a thorough awareness of moral distress is urgent: “The adoption of a theoretical model of moral distress allows the visualisation of everyday situations, often perceived as ordinary, but frequently hiding traps, devices and strategies of subjectivation” (Devos Barlem & Souza Ramos, 2014, p. 6). After defining terms, this essay details moral distress’ parasitic relationship with the L2 classroom. That will be followed by an examination of its causes, methods of propagation, and finally a review of strengths and weaknesses in moral distress research within pedagogy.

Definitions

Three definitions are central to this discussion: that of moral distress itself, its causational partner, morally injurious experiences (MIEs), and networks (particularly, social networks).

Moral distress is a form of distress that corresponds to damage to one’s sense of what is right. Persons suffering moral distress typically feel decreased ability to trust, to advocate or self-advocate, and, naturally, intense stress. Severe cases can cause a breakdown of a person’s moral framework. Moral distress damages the affective state itself. Moral distress has also been found to potentially produce other severe mental ills such as PTSD and burnout (Currier et al., 2015).

MIEs can intuitively be defined as any event that produces moral distress. The term itself suggests how moral distress arises; a person experiences something that injures their sense of morality. These experiences are qualitatively diverse. The injury can come from failing to live up to one’s own expectations, that is, underperforming morally. The injury can also come from viewing others underperform, or cause harm. In short, MIEs are any sort of event that “challenge[s] one’s deeply held moral beliefs and values as well as possibly threatening death or injury” or otherwise “violate[s] deeply held moral values/beliefs” (Currier et al., 2015). Another scenario is a clash of moral systems, where a person may feel their own sense of right threatened or their commitment to doing good weakened. Most literature refers to moral distress rather than MIEs, however, the concepts are intimately related. In particular, distinguishing MIEs as the causational component and moral distress as the resultant component makes for clearer discussion.

Vachová (2019) alone identifies over 65 types of MIE typically encountered by teachers. A familiar handful of these teacher-specific MIEs include: “Required participation in school events cut down the time available for preparation for my teaching” (509). “I know that some colleagues set a bad example by their behaviour towards their pupils” (510). “I have to work with pupils with special educational needs even though it is not within my professional competencies” or “I do not have enough information for the elaboration of an individual educational plan” (511). “When I inform OSPOD (the [Czech] agency for the social-legal protection of children), I have concerns as to whether I will not cause more harm to the pupil” (511).

Beyond commonly recognizable MIEs where the typical person’s sense of morality is threatened, it is important to understand that some MIEs will be more intimate in definition and character. The fact that most people would not be affected by a given event does not mean an MIE and the moral distress resultant will not be any less real for the victim. What constitutes an MIE will vary from one person to the next.

The term network, as it is used here, is an abstract structure composed of connected objects. The connections may represent any manner of real or abstract connections and the objects may be any sort of real or abstract object. When studying social networks within schools, typical objects are students, teachers, administrators, and even entire schools. Connections may be teacher-student interaction, friendships, bonds of trust, mentorships, supervisor-supervisee relationships, and so on.

Social networks are a class of networks whose connections are social in nature. This type of network is valuable for studying moral distress because MIEs typically happen within preexisting social networks and affect the network structure itself. It is noted here that the common usage of the term social network to refer to sites like Facebook and Twitter is correct, but overly narrow, as many social networks exist outside the Internet. Many social networks exist simultaneously within schools. For instance, Cole and Weinbaum (2010) worked with networks built of connections between staff who went to each other for help; networks made of connections between staff formed by nonprofessional discussions, like relaxation or discussion of personal issues; and networks based on connections formed when a staff member recurred to another for help in implementing a given school reform program.

The L2 Context

Moral difficulty is found in many fields and, while it is pertinent to all branches of teaching, it is especially proximate to L2 classrooms. It must be emphasized that L2 teachers face not only all the typical MIEs encountered by all teachers, but their own MIEs particular to L2 teaching. Some MIEs are dramatically more common in L2 classrooms, as will be discussed in continuation. As if these were not enough, L2 teachers are still at-risk for all the MIEs that arise outside schools: the racism, discrimination, violence, and the like that exist within all societies. Moral distress, as it causes a breakdown of trust and confidence, will raise the affective filter between teacher and student. A student suffering moral distress tied to L2 culture cannot be expected to want to continue in language learning, just as a teacher under moral distress is far less able to meet their student’s needs.

Culture can be a flashpoint for MIEs. L2 classrooms are cultural contact points for both their teachers and students. Many L2 programs bridge majority-minority communities and involve all the moral challenges involved in bringing disparate (and sometimes hostile) communities together. Students, teachers, administrators, and parents may view the L2 or L2 culture as inferior, undesirable, or problematic. MIEs tied to cultural contact include bullying, classism, racism, and religious discrimination. This bridging runs both directions, as language majority students learn minority languages and language minority students learn majority languages. Substantive cultural exploration necessarily exposes moral differences between students, teachers, and the target culture. Teachers and students alike may be unprepared to handle those differences responsibly.

Consider the contextual variety of a concept like target culture. When a target culture is ostensibly faraway, learning its language becomes a problem of empathy, globalism, and international involvement. Closer to home, it is often the case that the target culture is the host culture, which implies a dangerous power dynamic that students and teachers must navigate. For instance, members of host cultures do not need to choose between their family’s cultural identity and an identity based on the host culture; for them, those cultures are the same. On the other hand, language and cultural minority students may be punished by their families for assimilating, while they may also be punished by peers for not assimilating. Those dueling pressures could well manifest as the student attempts to learn the L2.

Because so many L2 classrooms include individuals with immigrant, refugee, or other minority backgrounds, these individuals are more likely to suffer MIEs outside the classroom. Many refugees with profound, unresolved trauma. Students and teachers may have friends or family deported. They may be in danger of deportation themselves. Beyond deportation, there is a myriad of dangers and distractions found in navigating immigration law: document issues, court hearings, interviews. Even when a student belongs to a majority at home, they may discover that, in the target culture, they would belong to a minority suffering discrimination.

This contextual complexity creates moral complexity, increasing the risk of MIEs. MIEs suffered by teachers can affect students and vice versa. The fact that L2 students and teachers are at heightened risk for MIEs increases the risk their peers face, too. Thus, while all teachers are at risk for moral distress, moral distress is a particularly urgent issue in L2 teaching. Many of the same things that make L2 learning and teaching so valuable are the same things that create MIE risk. MIEs must be managed without sacrificing the cultural integrity of L2 classrooms.

A Model of Moral Distress

Current and previous conceptions of moral distress have repeatedly proven inadequate. (Devos Barlem & Souza Ramos, 2014; Bradbury-Jones et al., 2020). This inadequacy stems from several sources. One source is the variety of MIEs; as more MIEs are considered, the concept of moral distress is complicated and vice versa. Another is that moral distress is a young concept; it was first developed by the nursing field in the 1980s. Moral distress has been considered within pedagogy for only about a decade. In general, the movement has been towards a broader concept.

The concept began with this definition of an MIE: “one knows the right thing to do, but institutional constraints make it nearly impossible to pursue the right course of action” (Jameton, 1984, as cited in Bradbury-Jones et al., 2020). Constraints, institutional or otherwise, are what allows an MIE to produce moral distress.

Moral distress exhibits a cyclical, self-perpetuating structure in the individual, as described by Devos Barlem and Souza Ramos (2014). See Figure I on the next page. An individual experiences something that causes them moral sensitivity, uncertainty, or discomfort. The subject typically will attempt to resolve the source of their moral issue, through processes like deliberation and advocacy (possibly self-advocacy, possibly advocacy on another’s behalf). Devos Barlem and Souza Ramos suggest that moral distress begins when these resolving processes are obstructed.

The concept of obstruction should be interpreted broadly. Some subjects may take no action to resolve their initial feelings of moral distress, especially if it is their own actions that are morally troubling. A person may simply violate their own conscience and make a habit of doing so. The obstruction here, is the self. A similar case is when the moral distress is attached to a past, irreversible action, in which case it is time itself that causes the obstruction. Shapira-Lishchinsky (2011) found several teachers whose moral distress stemmed from their own past misbehavior (in this case, moral distress begins to overlap with concepts like guilt and shame). Furthermore, the initial conditions—moral sensitivity, uncertainty, and discomfort—can constitute obstruction in themselves. If they manifest severely enough, they may produce decision paralysis. Abstractions, like ignorance, uncertainty, or self-doubt can also provide obstructions, preventing the subject from even attempting action. It should also not be assumed that the initial MIE is composed of a single problem—the obstruction may be that too many morally distressing events are happening at once to handle.

The obstruction tends to compound the initial feelings of moral distress. The experience of having someone or something prevent the subject from doing what they feel is right tends to be morally injurious itself. Thus, what may have been thought to be a simple, single MIE may in fact be a multi-faceted process of morally injurious experience.

Figure 1. Conceptual model of moral distress (Devos Barlem & Souza Ramos, 2014, p. 5)

After nonresolution occurs, the subject begins to suffer feelings of powerlessness. Feelings of powerlessness reduce the subject’s resistance and mortify their interest. All three of these factors mutually reinforce each other, forming what Devos Barlem and Souza Ramos refer to as the “Chain of Moral Distress” (2014, p. 5). The reduced resistance to MIE increases moral sensitivity, uncertainty, and discomfort (that is, it aggravates the original condition of moral distress). Reduced resistance also may cause the subject to fail in preventing additional MIEs. The mortification of personal interests produces ethical, political, and advocational inexpressivity. Ethical, political, and advocational expressivity are all tools for preventing and correcting MIEs, heightening the risk of new MIEs again. The chain collectively produces moral distress, with distinct physical, psychical, and behavioral symptoms.

By way of note, there is a strong tendency to associate moral distress with institutional obstruction. Devos Barlem and Souza Ramos frame moral distress as occurring because of institutional power games. This certainly captures many moral distress situations. Institutions are effective at suppressing moral expression. Employees, dependents, and the like are unlikely to raise moral objections to people who control their pay, employment, or other necessities. The subordinate status of the nurse in the nurse-doctor and nurse-hospital relationship likely explains why moral distress was first identified within the nursing field. Teachers and students often find themselves in potentially subordinate positions: adjunct-tenure professor, teacher-administrator, teacher-school, student-teacher, student-parent, student-student, student-school, and sometimes teacher-parent. Additionally, social norms often demand moral suppression. A moral critique directed at a coworker may be viewed as poisoning the workplace environment by introducing conflict. It may damage all of a person’s workplace relationships, not just the relationship with the person creating the MIE. It is hard to question someone’s moral activity, even in an agreeable fashion, if that person is unlikely to be receptive. The source of the MIE may be a bully who already punishes the victim arbitrarily and without consequence. These social issues are worse in workplaces with low turnover, like schools, where the social repercussions of speaking up can last years. It is often the case that institutions punish people for doing the right thing.

The institutional view does not, however, address moral distress that stems from events like when genuinely incompatible interests need to be accommodated or when it’s not a game of power but there is simply insufficient power available to all involved actors to achieve an unambiguously good moral result. Moral distress from failing to prevent violence or death, for instance, cannot be resolved in the sense that violence and death cannot be undone.

Moral distress, as described in the prior model, reinforces itself at several levels. It occurs within the process itself, as obstruction becomes an MIE itself and the Chain of Moral Distress makes the subject more vulnerable to new MIEs. However, one of moral distress’ most effective methods of self-preservation is on the level of the social network. Three phenomena cause moral distress to spread across a network: the cascading effects of the original MIE on the social network, the implicit reach of an MIE, and the damage moral distress causes to the connections that compose social networks.

Typically, MIEs have victims. Moral distress is a distinct phenomenon from victimhood, but often forms part of the experience of victimhood (Currier et al., 2015). Moral distress can affect everyone from the victim themself to remote witnesses, people who only hear of the morally problematic event. Moral distress starts with being troubled about a moral issue. The subject need not be directly affected by it in any way. This makes managing MIEs difficult, as the waves of harm tend to be diverse and possibly far-reaching. Moral distress causes harm even beyond what victimhood predicts (Currier et al., 2015).

The second effect is how MIEs can spread across healthy connections. Many important connections are implicit: if person A is connected to person B and person B is connected to person C, even though person A is not connected to person C, their shared bonds with person B can allow them to influence each other. Classic examples of these implicit connections are love triangles or the person in a trio who is stuck between two friends-turned-enemies. Implicit connections can be especially potent because they can force connections between people who do not want to be connected. If person A is victimized, person B is likely to be distressed. Assuming the victimization goes unresolved, persons A and B will likely develop moral distress. Even though person C is not connected to person A, they are likely to share person B’s distress. If the MIE is foul enough, merely learning about it may cause person C, and anyone else who hears it, to become morally distressed. Moral distress does not need a positive, trust-filled, or friendly connection to spread. A nasty enough idea hurts anyone who hears it, even if they are not connected to the actual sufferer.

The third social effect is that those suffering moral distress will have their social relationships decay. Mortification of interests cuts the subject off from healing hobbies and interest-based relationships. Many MIEs involve betrayal, on the individual or institutional level. People suffering moral distress will often lose faith in those who caused the MIE and those who failed to resolve it. Loss of trust destroys social connections. Loss of connections isolates the individual, increasing stress and cutting them off from any support systems that may still be operational. The more a person sought help and failed to receive it, the more pronounced this effect will be.

When individuals reach this point, this makes it incredibly difficult for the institution to correct its own problems. This is especially true if the institution is at fault. The success of school reforms depends massively on connections of trust (Moolenaar & Sleegers, 2010). Furthermore, schools where the average connections per individual was lower (referred to as low density) were less successful at implementing reform. Moral distress damages and deletes connections. Trust tends to be lower in surviving social connections and connection loss, besides isolating the individual, lowers network density. In other words, not only are they cut off from everyone else, everyone else is cut off from them. The isolated teacher will not be an effective advocate for reform, even if they are receptive to the reform, because they cannot transfer their positive feelings towards reform to others. There may be a temptation to artificially bring schools together in such circumstances by forcing staff to interact. This is unlikely to be successful. These networks need to be natural; artificial social connections established to encourage reform were ineffective at propagating change (Cole & Weinbaum, 2010). Whatever attitudes spread over natural social networks, pro-reform or anti-reform, would prevail over attitude spread across artificial social networks. Trust, friendship, and mutual support are essential for helping those facing MIEs. A school with a weak social network, whatever the cause, suffers a heightened risk of moral distress because it cannot provide that support. Once that moral distress takes root, it will self-perpetuate unless serious action is taken.

Discussion

A great deal of research on moral distress remains to be done. The field is young. However, some strong conclusions exist. First, preventing is better than curing. Due to the self-perpetuating nature of MIEs and moral distress, it is harder to cure than prevent. The unfortunate companion to this observation is that, on some level, moral distress is inevitable. If there were a school that managed to perfect its internal moral systems, it would exist within broader social institutions that would continue to produce moral distress. Teachers and students cannot always rely on police, child-protection agencies, parents, and governments to do the right thing. As teachers are increasingly placed on the frontline of childcare and as school resources remain critically insufficient, moral distress among teachers will rise. It is good for teachers to do good and to do the best they can, but these social changes are exposing more and more teachers to profoundly troubling MIEs. The situation is only worse in third-world countries; Currier et al., in both the 2014 and 2015 studies, examined El Salvador, where teachers’ students were being murdered and kidnapped by gangs at global-record heights.

Both prevention and curation are more effective at the institutional level. As institutional mismanagement produces moral distress, the absence of moral distress implies proper institutional management. Institutions designed with robust and supportive moral systems are powerful tools against moral distress, both in terms of prevention and treatment. Some such structures already exist. For instance, Löfstrom et al. (2018) found that the strong antiplagiarism institutions in universities shielded professors from moral distress caused by their students’ plagiarism. Of special mention is how, in effective programs, professors were given the option to take on as much of the issue as they felt comfortable with and offload the rest to another professor. The freedom to handle the situation on one’s own combined with the assurance that they do not have to do any more than they are comfortable handling (even if that amount is zero) is an effective balance between individual agency and mutual support. Institutional solutions should avoid dictating precise solutions or stripping individuals of their ability to choose what to do, because that is precisely how institutions cause MIEs. Guidelines, default recommendations, and the like allow the institution to set standards while preserving the balance so long as they do not become tyrannical. The balance is delicate; if individuals are too independent, they will cause their peers moral distress, but if they are too limited, they will be unable to do what is right themselves. Many institutions have programs like this for specific MIEs. In light of rapidly changing social and educational contexts, it remains to implement similar systems, when appropriate, for other MIEs.

The development of such programs remains an open question and will likely come with great contextual variety. A systematic approach to solution development could begin by studying known examples of MIEs, such as in Váchova (2019), Thornberg (2010), and Shapira-Lishchinsky (2011). Identifying the original sources of moral distress and obstructions can guide solutions. Which MIEs are better handled at the systemic level and which at the individual level is a question as well. Developing robust curative systems, like better moral distress diagnostic tools, as Váchova’s work attempts, and is another necessary element.

Prior research on combating moral distress has naturally emphasized the role of the sufferer within moral distress (see Currier et al., 2014; Devos Barlem & Souza Ramos, 2014). Once moral distress arises, the sufferer needs attention and should be treated. Possibly on account of its origins in the medical industry, moral distress is often framed as a condition to be treated, with the problem ending once the condition passes. Some remaining problems on this front include effective treatment, but especially diagnosis. Underdiagnosis is likely both because awareness of moral distress is low and because it is associated with better known conditions, like PTSD, burnout, and direct victimization. This research is essential for the curative function. However, this orientation towards the morally distressed is incomplete.

As discussed, institutions are often at the core of MIEs, whether as the obstruction or the source. Within the teaching profession, there are an abundance of power structures in which teachers are not able to morally advocate. The problems that existed guaranteeing MIEs inside and outside schools are also preventing teachers from fixing them. Teachers often lack negotiation power vis-à-vis administration, parents, peers, and even students, with little resources to address the broad swathe of social issues that appear within the schooling context. In the face of poverty, crime, discrimination, and the whole spectrum of childhood and teenage suffering, teachers are often powerless to address the actual problems they and their students face. This fact must be repeated. The issue will remain urgent without serious commitment to resourcing schools and other social institutions.

Hand-in-hand, moral distress among students must be studied further. The current research almost exclusively focuses on teachers. Nonetheless, Thornberg (2010), without using the vocabulary of moral distress, found an incredible rate of MIEs among students, all the way down to preschoolers. Significant institutional and social norms were already producing significant obstacles to students attempting to act according to their conscience.

Finally, moral distress within the L2 context is little understood. It is, so to speak, an elephant in the room. It goes without saying that classes centered around minority language speakers, cultural integration, globalized populations and the like are going to encounter MIEs. The moral component of culture shock, even if it disappears from students over time, is experienced by every new cohort. Cultural exploration is almost guaranteed inefficacy if it cannot address moral distress in its students, just as its efficacy will be greatly enhanced if moral distress is anticipated and addressed. It is worth asking whether prior MIEs are a significant reason why so much cultural activity in the L2 classroom is insubstantial. L2 classrooms can help immigrants and refugees find their place in new societies, just as they can help natives find their place in the global community. The chief obstruction here is, perhaps, the absence of moral thinking. Discussing foods, dances, and dresses is all well and good, but they are but a skeleton without the moral lifeblood of culture.

Conclusion

Moral thinking has the power to transform schools and society. As Thornberg (2010) concludes:

Moral development and education in … schools have to be far more proactive than merely making advances in moral reasoning and talking about hypothetical dilemmas indecontextualized classroom settings. Prosocial morality has to be practiced so that it can thereby become a significant part of students’ sense-making and actions in everyday real life. (p. 605)

L2 classrooms must be capable of meeting the moral challenges it invokes: those found by the host culture, those faced by the target culture, and those of the students themselves.

A world without moral distress is not a reasonable objective. It is fine for students to have morally difficult experiences. That is a part of moral growth and cultural discovery. The problem is that moral difficulty becomes moral injury. They find themselves alone, unsupported. What should have been one of a million moments in the slow growth of the human soul, a wound opens and is left to fester. The healing process, on the contrary, is the act of teaching itself: supporting a confused soul with the knowledge and resources they need to solve the problem themselves.

References

Bradbury-Jones, C., Ives, J., & Morley G. (2020). What is ‘moral distress’ in nursing? A feminist empirical bioethics study. Nursing Ethics, 27(5), 1297-1314. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733019874492.

Cole, R. P., & Weinbaum, E. H. (2010). Changes in attitude: peer influence in high school reform. In Daly, A. J. (Ed.), Social network theory and educational change (pp. 77-95). Harvard Education Press.

Currier, J., Foy D., Herrera, S., Holland, J., & Rojas-Floras, L. (2015). Morally injurious experiences and meaning in Salvadorian teachers exposed to violence. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 7(1), 24-33. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034092.

Currier, J., Herrera, S., Rojas-Flores, L., & Roland, A. (2014). Event centrality and posttraumatic outcomes in the context of pervasive violence: a study of teachers in El Salvador. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 27(3), 335-346. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2013.835402.

Devos Barlem, E. L., & Souza Ramos, F. R. (2014). Constructing a theoretical model of moral distress. Nursing Ethics, 22(5), 608-615. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733014551595.

Löfstrom, E., Nevgi, A., & Vehvilaäinen, S. (2018).  Dealing with plagiarism in the academic community: emotional engagement and moral distress. Higher Education, 75(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0112-6.

Moolenaar, N. M., & Sleegers, P. J. (2010). Social networks, trust, and innovation: The role of relationships in supporting an innovative climate in Dutch schools. In Daly, A. J. (Ed.), Social network theory and educational change (pp. 97-114). Harvard Education Press.

Shapira-Lishchinsky, O.  (2010).  Teachers’ critical incidents: Ethical dilemmas in teaching practice.  Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), 648-656. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2010.11.003.

Thornberg, R. (2010).  A student in distress: Moral frames and bystander behavior in school.  The Elementary School Journal, 110(4), 585-608. https://doi.org/10.1086/651197.

Váchová, M. (2019).  Development of a tool for determining moral distress among teachers in basic schools.  Pedagogika, 69(4), 503-515. https://doi.org/10.14712/23362189.2019.1524.

Human Rights Advocacy in “Insensatez”: Viewing, Foulness, and Powerlessness

Most writers will take up death as their subject at some point, but few ever write about murder. Yes, murder is a common plot device, but the sensation of murdering and being murdered, of a society that revolves around murder, of living under the real, experienced, undying threat of being destroyed by another human being, complex, living, breathing, hating, and perhaps loving also, that is a rare subject. This heady, sensory, personal concept of murder is the subject of Horacio Castellanos Moya’s Insensatez. It is a novel about what it means to view trauma permeate society, using the full foulness of language to evoke and elaborate the concept. As that is the subject of the novel, so is it the focus of this essay: by examining how Castellanos Moya handles the viewing of trauma via grotesque language, a theory for navigating issues faced by human rights advocates such as powerlessness, vicarious pain, and fear results.

1. KEY ELEMENTS OF THE NOVEL

Insensatez is concerned with two moments of history: the protracted genocide against the indigenous peoples of Guatemala by their government in the latter half of the 20th Century and the writing of Nunca Más, a report detailing in extensive detail that genocide, prepared by the Catholic Church and published on April 24, 1998. In time, the story belongs to the latter period, that is, the final moments before the publication of Nunca Más, plus a few days after. In space, the story takes place almost exclusively within Guatemala City, with a brief foray into the Guatemalan forest and, at the very end, an unnamed European country.

The European is the second unnamed country in the novel; the first is Guatemala itself. Just as it never names Nunca Más (the unnamed protagonist mentions only that he recommended a different name for the report, taken from indigenous testimony: “todos sabemos quienes son los asesinos”), the country at the center of the book is an open secret (153). The historical ties are oblique. The connection stems from events like the casual appearance of the names of a few Guatemalan politicians, mention of the Salvadoran border, and, naturally, the close correspondence of the events of the novel and Guatemala’s historical narrative.

The protagonist is an unnamed journalist, a recent exile and editor. He stands out as being peculiarly unpleasant, an unpleasantness magnified by his position as narrator. For instance, his exile began when he made the statement, which, at his insistence, was entirely nonracist, that “El Salvador era el primer país latinoamericano que contaba con un presidente africano. … yo no me había referido al hecho, por lo demás verificable, de que el presidente pareciera un negrito africano, que el color de la piel nada importa, sino a su actitud dictatorial y a su negativa a escuchar opiniones de quien no opinara como él” (49). Among his many vices and flaws are found growing paranoia, hyperarousal, compulsive behaviors, and, most predominantly, an aggressive and obsessive sexuality.

This protagonist is tasked with performing final edits to Nunca Más, reviewing the 1100-sheet document before publication. He is an odd choice, as a foreigner and an avid atheist with a hatred for the Catholic Church. As the work begins, the protagonist interacts poorly with the endless depictions of human cruelty in the document, facing increasing distress, paranoia, violent visions, and inability to focus or work. Partially due to literary interest, partially as a coping technique, he finds that much of the indigenous testimony in the report has a poetic quality to it, a quality he describes as Vallejano. He copies these poetic lines in a notebook and uses the lines to harangue disinterested conversation partners and interpret the events of his own life. Refer to the Appendix contains every such line given by the narrator and, for simplicity’s sake, they will be referred to as poems within this essay. Along the way, he attempts to seduce a couple of women, develops a bit of a social life in Guatemala, and picks up an STD along the way, before ultimately abandoning the country a few days before completing his work in a paranoid frenzy. Here, it is worth noting that his paranoia is not altogether irrational; the perpetrators named in Nunca Más were still very much in power.

Of the other dramatis personae, the most central is Erick, or rather, Archbishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, whom the character Erick represents. The connection between the character and the man depicted is strongest in their final moments: “le destruyeron la cabeza con un ladrillo” (155). The only significant difference between their deaths is that Erick died the night of the human rights report’s presentation, while the Archbishop died two days later, April 26, 1998 (“Assassination of Bishop Gerardi”). Erick is presented as a friend of the protagonist, who hired him for the editorial job. The last figure of note is Toto, a Guatemalan farmer and self-proclaimed poet who primarily serves as the protagonist’s conversation partner and guide to the local literary and bar environments— significant, because Castellanos Moya identifies himself as the type of writer and journalist for whom the adage “Dime en qué bar vives parte de tus días y te diré quién eres” is true (“Cartografías”).

2. LOOKING AT TRAUMA

At the center of Insensatez, and a recurring theme within Castellano Moya’s thought is the experience of looking at trauma. This extends beyond the witnessing of traumatic events as a victim or bystander. The primary mode of looking in the novel is vicarious trauma, the trauma that comes from learning about others’ traumatic history. This mode of looking is also the primary mode of most historical fiction, which is not read in the way Bernal Díaz read Historia general de las Indias, instead using a voyeuristic mode. Adjacent to the voyeuristic mode, superficial viewing is the sort of seeing and never perceiving that comes when someone sees another in suffering without processing it in any meaningful way.

The protagonist is locked into the vicarious mode. By the nature of his work, he must constantly read, review, revise, reread, and, in inevitable consequence, comprehend and actualize the awful testimonies he reads. In absence of context, there is a perverse aspect to intruding on someone’s suffering, given how most people will only confess their suffering to someone in whom they have an intimate trust. Furthermore, as he adapts the poems taken from indigenous testimony to his own life, he acknowledges that his situation is fundamentally different from theirs and that his use of their words is appropriation. Here, the vicarious mode is at risk of degenerating into a voyeuristic mode. Indeed, the very act of interpreting these testimonies of such profoundly awful histories as poetry is appropriating them from their justice-seeking context for the contextless, antiseptic study of poetic aesthetics. What prevents the degeneration into voyeurism is intent and context: intent to benefit victims or potential victims, context of acting according to that intent. The protagonist lacks altruistic intent, but the context of his work is guided by the good intent of others. At the very least, even if the Church’s intent in creating Nunca Más was merely “tocarle los huevos al tigre militar,” as the protagonist expresses, the report’s victim advocacy helps to keep him from falling into mere, grotesque voyeurism (17).

He encounters one person in the first mode, that is, a victim. She, a woman working within the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala, had been kidnapped as a 16-year-old student protester and subjected to diverse tortures which in much less graphic detail than the novel, include gangrape and an encounter with another prisoner who, still living, had such a decayed body that maggots were bursting from the flesh. What complicates his encounter with her is that he is privy to her history not because they have any relationship (they never speak), but because he read her testimony in the report. As he notes her beauty, his reaction stands out even stronger against his typical behavior. Contrary to his typical sexual proclivity, what he wants is to have nothing to do with her, to never see her again. As a person in the vicarious mode, exposure to a genuine victim causes the vicarious pain to flare and, in the protagonist’s case, to reach intolerable levels.

Toto is the key example of the superficial mode, at least within his conversations with the protagonist. He is dismissive of the protagonist’s attempts to discuss his work, making Toto a nonoption to relieve the emotional burden under which the protagonist operates. When the protagonist quotes poems 2 through 6, in attempt to make Toto the poet acknowledge the poetic character of the testimonies, Toto responds mockingly with Quevedo’s “Sólo ya el no querer es lo que quiero,” without taking any interest in the protagonist’s selected poems (33). Notably, unlike the indigenous poems, this poetic line, the only conventional poem in the entire novel, is placed between Spanish comillas, not italicized. The superficial mode inoculates the viewer against empathetic pain from viewing trauma and, in many cases, that is probably why this mode arises: to prevent pain.

That it hurts to view others in pain is so essentially human that Rousseau identified it (using the name pity) as still extant even in his concept of the original condition of man and the source of all social virtues. This is truest for witnesses and direct witnesses. Their pain can be so intense that they may refuse to recall or testify of their own trauma, a pain described in the 27th poem: “Para mí recordar, siento yo que estoy viviendo otra vez” (149). To review trauma with memory is to resurrect it. The mind cannot understand a traumatic scene without reconstructing it (whether with specificity or abstraction). To understand trauma, trauma must be relived.

Insensatez represents the dangerous ability of this empathic pain to reach far past the event itself. Any viewer, no matter how distant, exposes themself to this pain if they do not operate under the superficial mode. Insensatez’s protagonist is a hapless victim of this pain, while a figure like Erick is not so helpless. They are not, however, the only ones involved in this question: throughout the novel, the spread of vicarious pain reaches the reader. If it did not, Insensatez would be senseless in title and substance. There are certain moments that must hurt the reader, like the graphic description of infants’ brains flying in the air or the story of a mute man whose torturers demanded a confession and, enraged by his silence, went on to brutalize him and his village (a conundrum of silence that could not even be solved by sign language, as, the report noted, his hands were bound).

This pain is essential because, as Rousseau argued, it spurs humans to preserve not just themselves, but each other, to oppose all cruelty, not just their own suffering. The problem, however, is that this pain can become so intense that it drives many viewers to abandon the vicarious, empathetic mode for the superficial mode. Once in the superficial mode, the impulse of opposition disappears. The superficial mode cannot inspire sacrifice on someone else’s behalf.

The difficulty of viewing trauma is an ancient defense mechanism of cruelty and tyranny, even as it has impulsed the overthrow of cruelty and tyranny. In a democratic era, tyranny needs to be able to endure modern challenges like a free press and international pressures. Mild and moderate cruelty are the easiest to stir public condemnation against. The pain is manageable for the masses. However, the depths of cruelty cannot be described within the bounds of taboo and politeness. Thus, the tyrant has a strategy in making their actions so grotesque that the mere act of reporting what has happened violates social norms, brings crippling emotional pain to the tyrant’s opponents. A human rights advocate with traumatic emotional disorders is less effective than a human rights advocate without them. Genocide is one form of cruelty that has survived modernity quite well, and it owes some of that survival to the fact that anyone who comprehends what is occurring will be deeply disturbed and, in a very real sense, wounded themself. Insensatez, in order to tackle Guatemala’s genocide of its peoples,breaks social norms throughout, especially in its graphic descriptions of torture by rape, violence against infants, and in its description of how readers exposed to such evil themselves reconstruct not only the victim’s perspective, but the perspective of the murderer as well.

3. FOUL MICRONARRATIVE

The question thus becomes, for the concerned author, inspiring enough pain for action but not enough to cause people to flee. Castellanos Moya identifies these two objects: exile/flight/escape and fear/anxiety/pain as permanent concerns of his. His description of the second is especially telling: “The second concern is paranoia, that is to say fear. Not on the individual level but as a collective feeling, as a way of surviving. Fear as a way of life” (Castro Luna). The pain involved in studying history and human rights is not a problem to be fixed, but a quality to be managed in historical and political writing.

Insensatez manages this in an iconoclastic fashion: drenching the entire narrative in nastiness. As has been mentioned, the protagonist himself is the brightest example of the foulness. As a fictional character, most traits of the protagonist are chosen rather than arbitrary. The choice of an atheistic, willfully immoral, predatorial, opportunistic, contemptuous, unreliable narrator to describe the work of the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala in the Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) project shows no intention to praise the efforts that produced Nunca Más. The protagonist and Erick are antitheses. Choosing to make such a character protagonist over Erick, the fictionalized archbishop, or other, more palatable members of REMHI is more than a move from macro to micronarrative. If the faults of the protagonist went unrecognized, it would signal an invective, polemic perspective on the part of the novel. The novel respects the work of REMHI but mocks it to do so. Thus, the choice of protagonist is a transition, not only from macronarratives, but a transition from conventional micronarrative as well. In particular, Insensatez is built of willfully foul micronarrative. (Foul micronarrative could be largely be substituted in Spanish with realismo sucio, which some authors like Manzoni have already identified with Castellanos Moya and Insensatez, but the English use of the phrase dirty realism already has its own conflicting associations.)

The use of foul micronarrative has several advantages. First, in terms of moral discussion, the protagonist represents a minimally tolerable standard of care. That is, if the protagonist feels morally obligated to do something, as a person with no moral capital, he sets a standard that everyone should follow, no matter how mediocre, detached, or troubled they are. The protagonist is deeply affected by the descriptions of violence and trauma. The argument, if it were presented as such, is that if this person can take these things seriously, then so can the reader.

Second, foul narrative sets up a pattern for the violation of social norms. Insensatez, as a novel, was going to violate social norms anyway by depicting graphic violence. The graphic depiction of sex, STDs, objectification, and masturbation normalize the breaking of norms. This technique, not without drawbacks, at least allows the reader to confront the taboo subjects of genocide and torture on their own terms, whereas the reader typically has to process the breaking of taboo at the same time as they are meant to contemplate the content itself beyond the taboo.

Third, foul narrative discourages binary thinking. Nunca Más included not only indigenous testimony, but also the testimony of soldiers and officers who killed and witnessed killing. The psychological damage they suffer is a nontrivial part of the conflict and represents political exploitation of soldiers. If soldiers suffer trauma, they become more amenable to acts of violence. Furthermore, damage to soldiers also represents damage to Guatemala, because they are citizens, too. Besse colorfully describes the damage in terms of psychoanalytic fragmentation:

Ese deseo y ese goce del sufrimiento impuesto al otro, esa destrucción de la persona tenderían, según los psicoanalistas, a regular una fragmentación interior infligiéndola al otro; por lo demás, las pulsiones de muerte buscan la disociación, el retorno a la nada. …

No sorprende, por lo tanto, que el texto de Horacio Castellanos Moya, que describe una verdadera carnicería, haga hincapié en el desmembramiento. Cuántas veces leemos verbos como «despedazar», «descuartizar», «destazar», «cortar», «tasajear», «desgarrar», «reventar», «machacar», con gran refuerzo de cuchillazos y machetazos, en una espiral de crueldad que raya en la demencia. El texto no sólo pone de relieve la acción sino su resultado: las personas tratadas como cuerpos sin alma resultan nada más que pedazos de carne, sanguinolentos, despojados de su humanidad y reducidos a objetos repugnantes. Esa orgía sangrienta de cuerpos mutilados, castrados o violados, y esa violación de los derechos humanos que deshumaniza tanto a la víctima como a aquel victimario que degenera hasta lo “infra-humano”, revela una locura total, entre violencia y delirio, sin que ya se sepa cuál de los dos es la causa o el efecto del otro.

Soldiers treat their victims as “cuerpos sin alma,” but to their superiors, the authors of genocide, the soldiers themselves tend also to be “pedazos de carne.” There is a strong inclination to vilify these soldiers and, without any exception, the commission of genocide deserves no apologetics. However, it must be understood that the scars they suffer hurt Guatemala as well and both sides of the conflict must be healed in order for the conflict to end in truth. As observed by poem 28, “eran personas como nosotros a las que teníamos miedo” (150). The study of genocide does not lead to the conclusion that every participant is monstrous. Most people who commit monstrosities do so because of their humanity, not in spite of it. This is insensatez at its finest.

Fourth, Insensatez is not only a depiction of trauma, but also a performance. The protagonist displays an array of symptoms associated with traumatic disorders: paranoia, panic attacks, hyperarousal, and compulsive behaviors. Sharing the space of his mind throughout the novel he narrates allows readers unfamiliar with the processes of trauma to experience, in part, the protagonist’s particular brand of traumatic experience. Since the actual experience of trauma and traumatic is diverse, this performance should not be understood as a generalized representation of trauma. Nevertheless, the protagonist serves as an excellent demonstration of a variety of symptoms a traumatized person may suffer.

Fifth, the protagonist’s fragmented mind shadows these fragmenting processes that are occurring throughout Guatemala and his home country of El Salvador. That is, the performance applies as a metaphor for the person and the nation. The narrator is perverse, divisive, and predatorial in semblance of the perversions, divisions, and predations that must exist in the sort of society that can produce genocide.

Sixth, there is no issue of lionization with foul narrative. If one chooses to respect the creators of Nunca Más, it is on one’s own terms. As far as the narrator is concerned, everyone is held in contempt. This significantly reduces the risks of the author being interpreted as sanctimonious or dogmatic.

Seventh, the novel has consistent narrative heaviness and tone. There is no surprising turn towards the dark, no out-of-place frivolity or humor. Like the issue with taboo, a consistent tone allows the reader to focus on important content rather than the presentation.

Now, this has been a discussion of advantages. There are also significant disadvantages to foul narrative that must be acknowledged:

First, the sensation of sharing perspective with the protagonist is often unpleasant. It is difficult to sympathize with him. For the reader more concerned with the description of human rights issues, he is a distraction and an obstacle. His personal exploits may feel increasingly like deviations from the plot.

Second, his unreliability makes it difficult to provide useful commentary or contextualization to the events within the novel or the tragedies depicted in Nunca Más. For the foul narrative to be successful, it needs to undermine its own credibility. In the case of Insensatez, this is achieved through the protagonist’s paranoia and flawed moral qualities. The protagonist argues for this himself: “yo no estoy completo de la mente, me dije, … porque solo de esa manera podía explicarse el hecho de que un ateo vicioso como yo estuviese iniciando un trabajo para la pérfida Iglesia católica,” as well as his willingness to read the madness of others (16). That this issue is peculiar to the choice of protagonist is emphasized midway through the novel during his discussions with the altogether sane psychiatrist who originally wrote much of the report the protagonist was editing. The protagonist characterizes the Church’s actions as selfish, resents Erick, and near the end of the novel, comes to believe in his delusions that Erick is conspiring with an enemy general. The reader understands that the protagonist’s value judgements hold little value and must make those judgments themself. This unreliability, however, applies to everything about the narrator. While the foul narrative decreases the negative impact of reading such narratives in its own ways, the narrator has an exceedingly narrowed capacity to provide wisdom, interpretation, and the like, all of which can help the reader mentally and emotionally process the difficult information. The narrator, as a helper, is useless.

Third, the reader is put at higher risk for vicarious distress. It is natural to ask, if I were to read Nunca Más, would I be damaged by it in a similar fashion to the damage it caused the narrator? The narrative offers only a limited perspective on the actual contents of the report, and those perspectives are already distressing.

Fourth, foul narrative significantly limits the novel’s potential audience. At least three audiences are excluded by this sort of novel. The first is, naturally, the group which Gabriela Mistral once described as (referring, in that case, specifically to female critics) “esas mujeres que para ser castas necesitan cerrar los ojos sobre la realidad cruel pero fatal” (528). It is unclear if this group can be reached by any serious literature about human cruelty, but if any can, it is certainly not the foul narrative. Second, there are those who, while more than willing to study genocide and human suffering, are uninterested or unwilling to follow the protagonist through his sexual escapades or coexist with his cynical perspective. This group is separate from the first because they are willing to engage with serious literature, but a willingness to engage with serious topics is not the same as a willingness to participate in a discussion regardless of presentation or context. The last group is people who, due to certain sensitivities, may react poorly to the foul parts of the narrative. Mental and emotional illness, being a victim of abuse or predation or the like, all could make reading Insensatez more difficult than it already is. People in this category are likely to be sensitive to the graphic descriptions of cruelty. It is one thing to work through one’s sensitivity to understand another’s suffering, a different thing entirely to be wounded in one’s sensitive heart or mind by nonessential, narrative elements. None of these groups should be excluded from the discussion of violations of human rights. The second group would quite plausibly include a character like Erick, while many victims themselves are liable to fall into the third category. Victims of human rights abuses already face traumatic insensitivity from interviewers, political enemies, and the like when they attempt to speak up.

Fifth, this sensitivity issue not only tends to exclude victims from the discussion, but also makes foul narrative unsatisfying to victims. As expressed by Nadia Murad, a Yazidi victim of genocide and human rights activist, regarding questions she had been asked, such as “When you think about the man who raped you, what do you want to happen to him?” or “Did you try to resist? Could you tell him no?”, “[t]hese kinds of questions are not the ones to ask. The things I want to be asked are ‘What must be done so Yazidis can have their rights?’ ‘What must be done so a woman will not be a victim of war?’ These are the kinds of things that I want to be asked more often” (“On Her Shoulders”). Foul narrative, and especially Insensatez by dint of its unreliable narrator, has little to no power to advocate solutions or change. The reader must turn to other sources to learn about action.

Sixth, the foulness of the narrative and the foulness of the history can mix in deeply unpleasant ways. The rampant sexuality of the narrator, for instance, is hard to forget as he describes the gangrape of his coworker in graphic detail. His tendency to imagine sexual encounters in graphic detail with other women, while not the case here, still adds a perverse color to the scene. It is hard to detach his description of damage to the tortured genitalia from his general obsession with genitalia.

Seventh, there is a heightened risk of misinterpretation by immature or inexperienced readers. In an ideal world, this type of text only lands in the hands of people who are sympathetic to genocide victims, opposed to racism, and can recognize the designed immorality of the protagonist. However, this type of literature would not even need to exist in an ideal world. All texts suffer the risk of misinterpretation, but graphic depictions and the lack of clear commentary make the risk more severe in the case of this text.

4. HISTORICAL FICTION AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Above all, this paper emphasizes the impossible question: how do you prepare a reader to think about the fact that there are people smashing babies’ brains against the floor? To, by the act of reading, relive it not just from the victim’s side, but also to revive the perpetrator? When the protagonist acknowledges “una sensación de levedad … como si mi transformación en el teniente que reventaba la cabeza de los bebés recién nacidos contra los horcones fuera la catarsis que me liberaba del dolor acumulado en las mil cien cuartillas,” and his visions appear not only as he reads but as he rests and does anything besides review and revise the report, it is hard to feel confidence in any good solution for discussing trauma (138-139). To remain in the vicarious mode of viewing trauma is dangerous, but to adopt the superficial view is to leave others permanently in that state as well. “Herido sí es duro quedar, pero muerto es tranquilo”–poem 25 (141). Castellanos Moya’s acknowledgements text at the end of the book, though it uses words that could be found in any acknowledgements section, takes on a special color: “Pude terminar este texto gracias al apoyo desinteresado de [the names of the thanked parties follow]” (156). Being able to finish a text such as this, remaining in the vicarious mode, viewing and reviewing, is terribly similar to the maddening task of the protagonist and, perhaps, requires “apoyo desinteresado” to finish the process whole.

Historical fiction often deals with traumatic events; unresolved trauma is one of the principle reasons why a past event still needs to be discussed. When human rights are at the center of a historical event, the line between historical fiction and political fiction blurs. For his part, Castellanos Moya has consistently denied letting his work be classified as political: “en Centroamérica, solo tenemos la política, o matar al prójimo, que es una continuación de la política; entonces no creo que escriba una literatura política en esencia porque una literatura de este tipo retrata los pleitos por el poder” (Castellanos Moya and Rodríguez Freire 65). For him, his fiction, and by extensión the genre he works in, is an alternative: historical fiction defined by micronarrative. His characters are not politicians, “se pueden encontrar afectados por la política y a veces determinados por ella, pero su problemática no pasa por tomar el poder, ni por convertirse en políticos.” The practice of history, as opposed to politics, is defined by this restraint: not taking power.

Historical fiction and political fiction are often differentiated simply by time, but the question of power is a more robust distinction. As Homi Bhabha argues, “Migrants and refugees spend much of their time caught in the anticipatory anxiety of waiting: waiting to leave, waiting to be caught by the police, waiting to have their testimony questioned, waiting for the legal documentation to come through, waiting for acceptance, waiting to make a new life … Waiting … The politics of waiting is not a passive condition” (qtd. in Karugia et al. 9). Crises of the past drift into the present. Efraín Ríos Montt, who presided over much of the Guatemalan genocide, died in 2018, never brought to justice. He had been convicted in 2013, but his sentence was overturned. In the case of the assassination of Archbishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, three military officials were convicted in 2001, but one has walked free since 2012 and the other has enjoyed the freedom to leave prison at his leisure for much of his time in prison (“Assassination of Bishop Gerardi”). The mere fact that a text be about the past does nothing to separate it from present affairs, just as a text about the present can be very much historical.

Now, if what defines historical fiction is its disassociation from power, rather than time, what can it do for the victim of genocide? Historical fiction’s power is not political—its power is found in perspective. It all goes back to viewing. Political power can subject people to trauma, but it cannot force them to move beyond the superficial mode. To make a person view trauma, with a willingness to endure the pain that entails, is the domain of historical fiction.

Castellanos Moya’s own approach to traumatic history is heavily influenced by Thomas Bernhard, best evidenced by his novel El asco, on account of its less known subtitle Thomas Bernhard en San Salvador. Thornton, referencing Matthias Konzett, argues that Bernhard “[strove] for ‘an aesthetics of witnessing,’ through irony, victimization, and violence, that reflects the ills of society amidst the normalization and rehabilitation processes in post-World War II Austria” and that Castellanos Moya did the same in Central America (216). Witnessing is viewing, viewing by any means necessary, no matter how distant or foreign the subject. As the primary vessel of that access is memory, the movement towards an aesthetic of witnessing is elsewhere called “una cultura de memoria” or “una clima de época” (Salto 138).

Insensatez’s protagonist is just that, a witness and purveyor of memories: his own, those of killers, those of the dead, those of survivors. He witnesses the crimes described in Nunca Más, the creation of that report, the character of its creator, his assassination, and the protagonist’s own vicarious victimization by the military and Church (who pushed him into the experience of vicarious viewing). In no meaningful sense is he an actor—the report would be published without his editing if it were necessary. He, like the victims themselves, like the reader who learns of genocide forty-plus years after it occurred, is powerless. Thus, together, this group can exclaim together, with wildly different spirits, intentions, and meanings the words of poem 21: ¡pero yo siempre me siento muy cansado de que no puedo hacer nada! (113).

This powerlessness is the origin of Castellanos Moya’s historical fiction. The pain of vicarious viewing disappears in the body of the powerful, because the powerful can eliminate the cruelty themselves. The space of this fiction exists precisely because the powerful do not act and thereby preserve the pain of the victim, the author, and the reader alike. It is necessarily anti-power, anti-status quo. This opposition is factionless, as the differences between guerrillas and governments fade away when change does not come, with the helpless victimized time and again (Vanegas V. 329). This fiction is a resentment of political power, which his character Vega expresses powerfully in El asco:

“Los políticos apestan en todas partes, Moya, pero en este país los políticos apestan particularmente, te puedo asegurar que nunca había visto políticos tan apestosos como los de acá, quizás sea por los cien mil cadáveres que carga cada uno de ellos, quizás la sangre de esos cien mil cadáveres es la que los hace apestar de esa manera tan particular, quizás el sufrimiento de esos cien mil muertos les impregnó esa manera particular de apestar.” (26)

The purpose of Castellanos Moya’s fiction is to apestar. It seeks to spread awareness of genocide, of cruelty, of violence in Central America and elsewhere in antipolitical tones.

This powerlessness is felt inside the genre itself. It stands in contrast to traditional history, as well as much of traditional historical fiction (especially testimonio, as described by Thornton). Thomas Bernhard said:

“Truth, it seems to me, is known only to the person who is affected by it; and if he chooses to communicate it to others, he automatically becomes a liar. Whatever is communicated can only be falsehood and falsification; hence it is only falsehoods and falsifications that are communicated … What matters is whether we want to lie or to tell and write the truth, even though it never can be the truth and never is the truth” (qtd. in Thornton 210).

Historical study typically intends to tell the truth, while historical fiction does not necessarily. Testimonio, as a genre, was certainly concerned with that truth, yet Castellanos Moya’s work is a move away from testimonio. William Castro identifies Castellano Moya’s El arma en el hombre, a testimonio-style novel from the perspective of the obviously fictional character Robocop emblematic of the problems with testimonio, that the central perspective of testimonio is necessarily a construction, a fiction. “The traditional subject of testimonio is both an absence and the very center of the novel” (133). Testimonio, historical study, and much of conventional historical fiction is hampered because it operates on the premise that it is true, but that premise is vacuous. Historical fiction, in the style of Bernhard and Castellanos Moya, serves the truth, not by intending to tell the truth as truth, but by acknowledging that he is using lies to create, not the truth, but an approximation thereof.

This is not an optimistic powerlessness; “lo que prevalece al final es la impunidad y el desamparo de las víctimas. Aunque se le atribuye cierta importancia a la memoria escrita, queda claro que esta verdad grabada en papel no lleva ni a la justicia ni a la persecución de los culpables” (Haas 180). Testimonio, the study of history, and historical fiction are powerless together and alike. When Efraín Ríos Montt’s conviction for genocide was overturned, Castellanos Moya wrote about how Guatemala had allowed a former president to be extradited at the same time for money laundering to calm international pressure against letting Ríos Montt go free, a murderer for a thief, a soldier for a civilian. Castellanos Moya was neither surprised nor efficacious, with no pretense that he could influence the event in any way (“Guatemala”).

Reflecting on how imminent death affects a writer, he concluded: “La eficacia del lenguaje responde, más que a una estrategia narrativa, a una condición vital en la que aquello que sobra, que estorba, es eliminado de forma tajante en la mente del escritor” (“Death at Their Heels”). Quite opposite to senselessness, he does rescue some (apolitical) power for language. This power does not stem from narrative skill (indeed, few, if any, of the indigenous witnesses whose poetry he describes in Insensatez could have been trained writers or orators), but from truth, a power conferred by the real conditions which the communicator experiences. This power is unlikely to ever change politics, but, at the very least, “golpea al lector con tanta fuerza que lo subyuga, lo hipnotiza, quizá porque en las frases se concentra la desesperación del hombre tocado por la muerte.” As Castellanos writes of fear, pain, torture, exile, and powerlessness as ways of life, indeed, the way of life of so many Central Americans and hopeless people throughout human time and space, this language that subjugates and hypnotizes is the closest thing to power he seeks.

5. CONCLUSION

There is no power to tell the truth, to effect change, to make people see, to prepare people to see, to make people safe when they see. This is the endless challenge of the human rights advocate: the fact there is no power to save. If the power to save were there, the fragility of human rights and the condition of war could almost disappear. To draw someone else into the conflict is fundamentally cruel, full of falsehood and little-understood processes, to expose them to a futile struggle. To advocate for the victim, the innocent must lose their innocence of heart and become a participant. This process, though it cannot bring anyone to truth or justice, can be described as senseless. Yet, what Elie Wiesel said rings as true of Castellanos Moya’s work as his own:

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done. One person … one person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

No matter how senseless his actions may be, Castellanos Moya still wrote Insensatez, still spoke up when Efraín Ríos Montt was pardoned, still advocates for Central American migrants, and will keep on writing pain, fear, exile, and death.

For the vicarious viewer, an alteration of Bernhard’s phrase serves: what matters is whether we want to see the truth, even though it never can be the truth and never is the truth. This is what saves the protagonist, in all his perversion, from becoming a voyeur into others’ pain. It also saves him from falling into the superficial mode. Still faithful to his training as a journalist, he wants to see the truth. In this senseless search to see something that cannot be seen, the lines blur between the victimized, witnessing, and the vicarious pains. The senselessness of violence must be mirrored in its opponents, in their senseless, futile quest for truth and a society ruled by powerlessness. If a reader can be persuaded to stick around long enough to become senseless, the question encountered earlier, of causing just enough pain to inspire action but not so much that the reader flees, is resolved. The reader will now endure the pain. Thus, the first objective of historical fiction is well and truly realized.

Finally, the second, hidden purpose of historical fiction can come to the fore. As expressed by Gabriela Mistral, “si la misión del arte es embellecerlo todo, es una inmensa misericordia, ¿por qué no hemos purificado, a los ojos de los impuros, esto? (528). She spoke of beautifying the condition of single mothers, abandoned by their lovers and families, all but their child. The spirit with which she fought for motherhood, aesthetic even in its pain, is true of the human: why have we not purified, in the eyes of the impure, the human, no matter what evils or pain they suffer under? Castellanos Moya, for all the foulness of his stories, is deeply concerned with the beauty of literature. Thus, he observes “pareciera ser común lo que debemos pasar algunos escritores de escribir en condiciones poco propicias, algunas veces evitando ser reprimidos por las ideas que profesamos, pero también sin hacer de la literatura un panfleto, sino que rescatando siempre la belleza de las formas literarias” (qtd. in Menjívar). In this fashion and under this light, the act of holding up indigenous poetry found in antigenocide testimony, rather than academic appropriation, is an act of sublime respect and appreciation. Nunca más, in its title, expressed a senseless, absurd, powerless, yet sublimely all-important, beautiful wish: that never again should the hideous, foul face of genocide appear.

Appendix: Index of Testimonial Quotes

The following are lines taken from indigenous testimony used throughout Insensatez. The page number given is the first appearance of the line, as several lines appear repeatedly (for instance, line 1 appears five times in Chapter One and is the focal point of that chapter). Each original was italicized, but they are written here without italics for ease of reading.

1. Yo no estoy completo de la mente (13).

2. Se queda triste su ropa (30).

3. Las casas estaban tristes porque ya no había personas dentro (31).

4. Quemaron nuestras casas, comieron nuestros animales, mataron nuestros niños, las mujeres, los hombres, ¡ay!, ¡ay!… ¿Quién va a reponer todas las casas? (31).

5. Tres días llorando, llorando que le quería yo ver. Ahí me senté abajo de la tierra para decir ahí está la crucita, ahí está él, ahí está nuestro polvito y lo vamos a ir a respetar, a dejar una su vela, pero cuando vamos a poner la vela no hay donde la vela poner (32).

6. Porque para mí el dolor es no enterrarlo yo (32).

7. A puro palo y cuchillo mataron a esos doce hombres de los que se habla allí. Agarraron a Diego Nap López y agarraron un cuchillo que cada patrullero tenía que tomar dándole un filazo o cortándole un poquito (38).

8. Lo que pienso es que pienso yo (43).

9. Tanto en sufrimiento que hemos sufrido tanto con ellos (43).

10. Mis hijos dicen: mamá, mi pobre papá dónde habrá quedado, tal vez pasa el sol sobre sus huesos, tal vez pasa la lluvia y el aire, ¿dónde estará? Como que fuera un animal mi pobre papá. Esto es el dolor (47-48).

11. Los cerdos lo están comiendo, están repasando sus huesos (48).

12. Quiero ver al menos los huesos (48).

13. Cuando los cadáveres se quemaron, todos dieron un aplauso y empezaron a comer (48).

14. Allá en el Izote estaban los sesos tirados, como a puro leño se los sacaron (63).

15. Hasta a veces no sé cómo me nace el rencor y contra quién desquitarme a veces (68-69).

16. Entonces se asustó y enloqueció de una vez (82).

17. Ése es mi hermano, ya está loco de tanto miedo que ha recibido; su mujer murió del susto también (82).

18. No son decires sino que yo lo vi cómo fue el asesinato de él (82).

19. Porque yo no quiero que maten la gente delante de mí (82).

20. Si yo me muero, no sé quién me va a enterrar (104).

21. ¡pero yo siempre me siento muy cansado de que no puedo hacer nada! (113).

22. Que siempre los sueños allí están todavía (122).

23. Hay momentos en que tengo ese miedo y hasta me pongo a gritar (129).

24. Al principio quise haber sido una culebra venenosa, pero ahora lo que pido es el arrepentimiento de ellos (135-136).

25. Herido sí es duro quedar, pero muerto es tranquilo (141).

26. Que se borre el nombre de los muertos para que queden libres y ya no tengamos problemas (144).

27. Para mí recordar, siento yo que estoy viviendo otra vez (149).

28. Eran personas como nosotros a las que teníamos miedo (150).

29. Mientras más matara, se iba más para arriba (152).

30. Todos sabemos quiénes son los asesinos (153).

31. Después vivimos el tiempo de la zozobra (154).

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