Recent Reading

The late Viktor Frankl, he passed away in 1997, was an Austrian therapist specialising in neurology and psychiatry. He was also a Viennese Jew, arrested by the Nazis in 1942, from which time he spent his life in various concentration camps (including briefly Auschwitz), mostly working in infirmaries as a psychiatrist and a doctor, until his liberation by the Americans near Dachau in late 1944. Frankl's observations on suffering in the camps led him to begin writing Man's Search for Meaning, which he published in German in 1946 and which has subsequently been translated into twenty-six languages including English from 1959. This edition includes a preface by Harvard Professor Gordon Allport, Frankl's preface to a 1992 edition, and a 1984 Postscript entitled 'The Case for a Tragic Optimism'. The book itself, however, comprises two parts: 'Experiences in a Concentration Camp' and 'Logotherapy in a Nutshell'.

Fundamentally rooted in existentialism, Frankl takes up the first and, at 83 pages, the larger part of the book, to describe his personal experiences in the concentration camp system. He offers a psychological insight into the prisoners, from the shock of arrival, through the period of immersion in camp routine, to the point of release and subsequent liberation. While he found himself surprised at the levels of endurance afforded by the inmates, Frankl observes that, 'the thought of suicide was entertained by nearly everyone, if only for a brief time. It was born of the hopelessness of the situation.' As the new inmates became desensitised, they passed into the second stage of psychological reactions, characterised by apathy: 'a necessary mechanism of self-defence', as well as a consequence of hunger and lack of sleep. Frankl observed a 'cultural hibernation', except in politics (mostly rumours about the progress of the war) and religion, for which he offers his own experience of deepening personal spirituality. He concluded that the 'intensification of inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence.' Everything not connected with preservation of self and friends lost its value.

Out of these observations, Frankl draws the conclusion that the human being is emphatically not completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. Though his captors could do anything they wanted to him, they couldn't tell him what to think about it: 'the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision,' he writes. 'Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him.' It is this 'spiritual freedom' that makes life meaningful. Consequently, Frankl found himself pointing his fellow prisoner's toward future goals in a bid to give them inner strength through faith in the future. This was true, also, in the third phase of liberation, in which the oppressed could become the oppressors, justifying moral deformity, bitterness and disillusionment through their own experiences. Hence logotherapy, briefly expounded in the second part, which places the will to meaning as man's primary motivation. Since the existential vacuum is a commonplace of contemporary society, these principles and their resolution transfer themselves readily out of the concentration camp. The individual must provide his or her own meaning to life, but the logotherapist can lead them there: the three main avenues being through a task, through a relationship, or out of suffering. As such, Frankl's approach is concerned with far more than merely neurotic symptoms.

I was recommended Man's Search for Meaning by my friend Chris, whom I would describe as a philosopher of sociology. It has not influenced my thinking previously, but since I have found it so much in accordance with my own paradigm, that we should view the world in terms of responsibilities rather than rights, I am sure it will be something I greatly reference in the future. Existentialism is largely a consequence of the doubts of the late nineteenth century and consequently tends toward subjectivism and even relativism; however, in the postmodern present this can only add to its appeal. Those with more certain objective truths, and here I am thinking of both religious fundamentalism and scientific structuralism, may find Frankl's book superfluous. I think such attitudes ignore the last 200 years of philosophy and are increasingly outmoded. Frankl offers a paradigm shift here, from what we expect from life to what life expects from us. 'The world is in a bad state,' he asserts, 'but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.' This is not a new idea, it is implicit in the work of renaissance humanists, for example; but by positioning it at the centre of a quest for for the very thing that has been stripped from our Western, twenty-first century lives, namely meaning, Frankl has produced a work that has surely become all the more essential fifty years after first publication. Combined with the evocative setting of the concentration camps, readers will find Man's Search for Meaning compelling and, given both its brevity and the fact that occasional technical words are clearly defined and exemplified in the text, it makes for easy reading. Surely, therefore, one of the must read books of the twentieth century.

'Man's Search for Meaning'

Viktor Frankl

(2004)

147 pages

As a consequence of a philosophical post-structural movement largely emanating out of France, historians over the last thirty years or so have increasingly re-evaluated their discipline. It would be naïve to impose a teleology on historiography in which it moved from a simple empiricism, getting dirty in the archives, through an ultimately flawed attempt to apply principles of science, such as repeatability, and even mathematics to the subject, to the recent postmodern challenge to historians that they are advancing their own, subjective narratives as truth. The debate about removing the historians from their history is as old as the discipline. Never the less it is fair to say that the professionalisation of history and the 'linguistic turn' have encouraged an increased self-consciousness in those who pursue that ever elusive, objective past.

Jordanova is an eminent historian who, at the time of writing History in Practice, held a chair at the University of East Anglia and is now at Kings College, London. The stated aims of her book are simply to posit the issues in the discipline, put the field in a wider context and then to indicate how historians actually practise. Consequently, she begins by incorporating a broad survey of the infrastructures contributing to the study of history: including educational bodies, publishers, the available research materials themselves, and (later) disseminating institutions such as museums. Helpfully, Jordanova makes it clear that one cannot define history as simply a body of knowledge: its sources, methods, theories, and its objects and periods of study combine to form a rather incoherent mass, and part of the skill of the historian is in determining how to 'cut into the historical cake'. This leads into a survey of history's relationship with other disciplines and a discussion of the level of intellectual authority that the historical community can justifiably claim, particularly in the wake of postmodernism's deconstruction of causal explanations. After a deeper consideration of the power of periodisation, especially reification, Jordanova moves this discussion around to the teaching of history, both in the public forum and in pedagogy.

I found History and Practice an extremely thoughtful and insightful book, accessible and easy to read. It is not structured in the way of typical historiographical surveys, which move through the development of history as a discipline, from Ranke onwards. I thought it radiated a softer, more philosophical tone, particularly moving beyond the scholarly theories towards a holistic view of historical knowledge: publications, memorials, heritage centres and historical displays. I have long felt a strong sense that history's importance lay in the fact that it did not stand alone; that it was always the 'history of' something else. The context of any and all things is its history; not only as a past but also as an understanding of both its present and its trajectory. I therefore found a good deal of empathy for Jordanova's gentle leadings.

Almost inevitably, the direct challenge of postmodernism was the elephant in the room as I read this book and I half anticipated an attempt to construct a robust defence. Instead I found Jordanova more sensitive to the part played by the historian as narrator, helpfully discouraging a polarised view of objectivity and subjectivity, and provocatively suggesting a move from 'truth' to 'trust'. Objective truth, like comprehensiveness, is dismissed as a chimera: the historian operates a process of selection on the evidence, but Jordanova does not see this as a weakness. Eclecticism is desirable if the profession is to self-regulate, but this also requires a transparent, self-conscious community ready to embrace a range of approaches. More than anything, it is desirable because historians as a caste are uniquely positioned to protect 'the past' from abuse: effectively an ethical obligation. 'The public implications of historical practice are profound' she concludes. 'Most of us practise history not just because we love doing so but because we believe it matters to everyone precisely what accounts are given of the past'.

'History in Practice'

Ludmilla Jordanova

(2000)

207 pages