Presentation Announcements by Ruth Lijtmaer (USA)
Are We to Consider Apologies as Naive and Disingenuous, or Can They Lessen Social Trauma and Lead to Forgiveness?
(2021). Panel: Forgiveness: Giving up all hope for a better past. American Psychological Association’s Division 39, Annual Spring Conference: Reckoning/Foresight, March 12, online.
Lijtmaer’s paper examines the social and emotional consequences on a population when the social system fails to protect them from racial discrimination, poverty, natural catastrophe, economic crisis or violence. When there is a blatant attack by the authorities on minorities or social repression on the bulk of the population, all these impacts lead to trauma. The individual experiences the presence of an absence. Living with a “dead third” is a testimonial of the failures of the other and of the world to repair the damage done to the experience of goodness. If what is lost is faith in an empathic world and what is found in its place is the reality of an indifferent world, can this experience be forgiven? Can people forgive the assault on their freedom of expression, and the torture (physical and emotional) that occurred because their ideas, class, race or culture are different from the ones the government supports?
Contemporary Perspectives with Immigrants, Exiles and Refugees: Covid and the Silence of Others
(2021). Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, Open House, May 7, online.
When a country is engulfed in war, or overrun by a dictator who starts killing people, or there are natural disasters and hunger, citizens are forced to flee. The only compassionate response in such situations is to take people in. However, as Lijtmaer explains in this hour-long presentation, with the ongoing mass migration to Europe, these refugees pay smugglers to take them to safety, but there is no safe place to go since nobody wants them. They leave in a rush to save their lives and their families due to political and religious fear, death threats, rape of women, or forced labor. They do not have time to mourn the losses, there is no time for “ideal migration,” where destination countries can choose whom they will take in. The initial hope and dream to escape to a safe “heaven” is transformed into a nightmare of humiliation and fear. All these asylum seekers will be or are already suffering from their massive psychic trauma. Lijtmaer also describes the difference among immigrants, exiles and asylum seekers and their different process of loss and mourning, loneliness, fear and despair.
“Black Mozart” and the Sound of Race Discrimination Then and Now
(2021). International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education Conference: (re) Vision, May 15, online.
In this paper, Lijtmaer reminds us that racial discrimination has been with us for centuries and still is present in the arts, particularly in classical music. She uses as an example Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Joseph de Bologne, 1745 –1799), African-French composer, violinist and conductor, who won fame as France’s finest fencer before launching his career in classical music. A contemporary of Mozart, Saint-Georges was considered a leader during his time. He came from a well-to-do family which allowed him to pursue his studies in music and fencing; he went on to lead a regiment of black soldiers in the French Revolution. Despite his renown, he was vulnerable to racial prejudice. Perhaps the most flagrant instance occurred in 1776 when his nomination by Louis XVI to head the prestigious Paris Opéra was derailed by a group of divas who argued that they could not be expected to, as they put it, “submit to the orders of a mulatto.” More recently, since the Black Lives Matter movement, white people have become more aware of the lack of representation of other races in the classical music world.
Where are the Women in Classical Music? Why are their Voices Silent?
(2021). International Psychoanalytic Association Conference: Identity & Conflict in History, Culture and Society, May 21, online.
Classical music is still a man’s world, and female performers learn this early. Across Europe, just 2.3% of classical and contemporary classical music performed in the last three seasons was written by women. In the USA, only 1.8% of music programmed by major orchestras was written by women. Is the patriarchy of the music business, the crushing influence of female musicians’ husbands, or society at large to blame for such a skewed situation? This paper explores the history of the neglect of the significant contribution of women in classical music and some of the few gains in the last century to now.
We Need Walls: Paranoid Fears on Immigrants as a Dangerous Virus
(2021) American Psychological Association Conference (Division 39): Psychoanalysis at the Wall: Remembering and Resisting, August 12, online.
One way to understand the building of walls is to keep immigrants and refugees away. An analogy to think of them as a virus. As with the immune system, anything foreign that invades this environment must be rapidly detected and removed. Nations, like bodies, possess sharply defined boundaries. When a nation feels that its boundaries are fragile, it may seek to create “walls” to prevent alien cells from entering the body politic. Immigrants, conceived as invaders, creep through porous boundaries, threatening to destroy a vulnerable self. The experience of one’s nations with insecure or porous boundaries is equivalent to the fear that one’s own body will be penetrated. All these corporeal fantasies became popular during the past administration, creating the idea that the American people was suffering from a disease caused by a potentially deadly infection: the immigrants. Because of them, fear was created and walls were needed psychologically, socially and concretely to maintain and protect that purity.
Ruth Lijtmaer, Ph.D.
Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA
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