The Truth Hurts: Psychoanalytic Speculations on Reconciliation.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 January 1998
• Author: Naidoo, Udesthra

If the perception of reality entails unpleasure, that perception--that is, the truth--must be sacrificed. (Sigmund Freud(1)) Since the arrival of white settlers in Australia in 1788, official historiography has been hegemonic. It tells a tale of terra nullius, of treaties and benevolent paternalism toward the indigenous inhabitants. Some dissenting voices challenged the official narratives. But these were few and far between and easily ignored. Over the last few decades, partly as a result of an official policy of reconciliation, things have changed somewhat. The claims of official history have been called into question. A number of activists and scholars have managed to dispel many of the myths and stereotypes that once held sway.(2) In so doing, they have unearthed and exposed the violence and brutality of the colonial past. These revelations have transcended the confines of cloistered academia, finding their way into the wider public arena as the subject of current affair's programs, talk shows and public debates.

Those of us with some sympathies toward the plight of Australia's indigenous population greeted these revelations with mixed feelings. If I may speak for a moment on behalf of this `imagined community', we were shocked to learn the full extent and intensity of the colonial violence that surpassed even what we had suspected. We were also relieved. The truth was at last out.(3) We believed that the truth would dispel the web of lies, myths and stereotypes that sustain racial antagonisms. We believed that the truth would lead to reconciliation, which we understood in fairly vague terms, as an era of racial harmony.

To an extent, we were right. Arguably, one could point to an increased awareness of social injustice, past and present. But it is impossible to ignore the existence of a wide array of other responses ranging from indifference and excuses right through to a rise in racism, in light of which our initial optimism was a little ill-founded, if not naive.

In this article, I draw on psychoanalytic theory in order to account for some of these counterintuitive developments. My analysis comprises three parts. Firstly, I provide a very brief sketch of subjectivity as it is conceived within psychoanalytic thought. Psychoanalysis affords us an understanding of the subject as a complex being, attached to and even constituted by, certain images and ideals. By means of this brief rendering I hope to show that the revelations of revisionist history carry a traumatic charge in so far as they challenge the way in which mainstream white society likes to see itself. Secondly, I introduce the psychoanalytic notion of defence to demonstrate the many and varied ways in which subjects can avoid the truth and the trauma it threatens. And finally, drawing selectively on some key defences, I argue that while an encounter with the truth can lead to reconciliation, it can, and often does, lead elsewhere.

My analysis deals only with a small facet of reconciliation, namely the range of responses to revisionist history. But to the extent that this field can be seen as a synecdoche of the process as a whole, this study suggests that reconciliation is a more complex, convoluted and potentially fraught process than we sometimes acknowledge.

The Subject of Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalytically speaking, the subject is divided--split between conscious and unconscious, meaning and being. Of course, we subjects do not experience ourselves as such. Rather, we see ourselves as whole and unique. In Lacanian terms, the ego is the agency responsible for these necessary illusions. It is that part of the psyche that provides the subject with a fictive sense of self identity.

For Lacan, the ego, and the identity it engenders, presents something of a paradox. It is, on the one hand, something which enables us to see ourselves as unique. And on the other, it is a distillate of otherness--nothing more nor less than the sum of its identifications. These identifications coalesce into an identity, an armour, that we (mis)take for the self.(4) The ego is the site and stake of these operations. These identifications can be with things, people, ideas and, indeed, ideals. In the modern era, the nation provides a particularly powerful point of identification. Subjects identify with the nation in and through its self-narrations. In so far as subjects are interpellated by nationalist ideology, self and nation are intimately linked if not indissociable.

The revelation of truth associated with reconciliation must be seen in this context. Revisionist histories call into question established national narratives. And in so doing, they challenge the very way in which we see ourselves. By rendering the familiar unfamiliar, in terms of both time and place, these counter-histories threaten the subject with the extreme `horror and dread' that Freud theorises in terms of the uncanny.(5)

The subject of psychoanalysis tries to avoid trauma. The truth, to the extent that it can cause trauma, is entirely unexceptional in this regard. The defences are the primary means by which the subject guards against threatening stimuli. Freud discovered several defences. Other psychoanalysts have added to the list and today a quite astonishing array of operations can be seen as mechanisms of defence--testimony to the extraordinary complexity of the human psyche.

In the analysis that follows I have recourse to just some of this multiplicity. This sample is not drawn at random. The defences selected are, I submit, indispensable for an understanding of the social and political reactions to reconciliation. For each defence, I provide a brief account of its theoretical origin and its psychological operation. I then try to translate the defence into the mise en scene of reconciliation. And lastly, where possible, I ground these operations in appropriate examples.

Prime Minister John Horward and his government feature in the examples that follow. When I began work on this piece I did not actually intend to bestow this dubious honour upon him. But in the course of my researches, it became apparent that the defensive processes I had in mind were writ large in the words and actions of Howard and his government in their approach to the issue of reconciliation.

I should point out that the examples offered are only suggestive. This study does not attempt a detailed analysis or `thick description' of the debate around reconciliation. Nor do I aim to vilify certain individuals or pathologize certain practices. Certainly, some of the defence mechanisms I deploy are more basic than others. But these mental operations are all nonetheless a part of everyday `normal' psychical life. Rather, my primary intention in writing this piece is to engage the reader in a process of introspection. It is hoped that the reader will see something of him or her self in the scenarios that follow and that this recognition will lead in turn to a more considered and critical self-reflection. I also hope that this self-awareness, or rather this awareness of the other within, will lead to a more productive and profound engagement with others without.

There are, of course, no guarantees that this introspective process will unfold in this fashion. There is in fact some evidence to the contrary. In White Racism, Joel Kovel recounts the case of a white male from the American South who, at the beginning of his analysis, espoused liberal views. According to Kovel, under the emotional pressure of the self-realisation required by psychoanalysis, the man moved from a non-racist stance to a right-wing and racist position. He eventually became a member of the local White Citizens Council.(6) Introspection, then, is a fraught process. This essay, like the reconciliation project, proceeds on the premise that the risks associated with introspection are worth taking.

Before I move on to the defences, a few caveats and qualifications are in order. These concern the scope of this study. My analysis assumes a generic subject who identifies with an idealised version of Australia's past and is completely ignorant of past injustice. I also assume that this subject has no psychic relation to Aboriginality. This generic subject is, of course, an abstraction. And the arguments built on the basis of this abstraction are therefore to some extent simplifications. The present study is not invalidated on this account. But I think it does need to be taken as groundwork, a partial and preliminary mapping of a complex psycho-social formation.

A more thorough study of the responses to reconciliation will need to acknowledge the fact that most people, including those passionately attached to an idealised Australia, have some presentiment, albeit unacknowledged, of the truth of Australia's history.(7) Such a study could draw on Slavoj Zizek's...