Faludi Violent Effects of Disassociation

FALUDI

Violent Effects of Disassociation

In Martha Stout's essay "When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning it Was Friday," the author details the phenomenon known as disassociation. Disassociation is a way in which the human brain reacts to certain traumatic events by "removing" itself from them in a figurative sense. Therefore, people who disassociate are able to get through disaster and terrible occurrences by mentally or psychically distancing themselves from the event. The problem is, disassociation definitely causes havoc with one's memory, since people who disassociate frequently at some point of their lives are likely to lose the ability to remain mentally aware in other aspects of their lives -- largely because they are so used to the dissociative process and engaging in it. Susan Faludi's essay "The Naked Citadel" primarily details the desultory sense of reality that is part of the fabled "Fourth-Class System" that takes place at a paramilitary academy. The author is investigating this subculture (which is decidedly counterculture if ever a counterculture existed) in the context of legal proceedings for a female student to gain entrance into this postsecondary learning institution. By doing so, she uncovers a plethora of violent and confirmedly misogynistic actions that are committed by a student body population, and widely permitted by an approving or disinterested administration that is decidedly at variance with what is allowed to take place in reality outside of the school's walls and its fourth-class system. Since in many instances, cadets who are committing these actions that would be adjudged derelict outside of the school's environs, have actually been trained in this line of thinking and acting by either school officials or the examples of older students, it seems quite possible that there is a dissociative process that is responsible for such frequently occurring behavior.

Disassociation is a mind state that is not a common or typically found sort of mentality. It takes place due to some external, usually traumatic event, and causes people to psychologically perceive things differently. Thus, their actions follow suit and they find themselves engaged in behavior that is at variance with their typical behavior. For example, the dissociative process can cause people who are brilliant and highly proficient at tasks that would cause the average person considerable difficulty -- such as engaging in film work which Julia, one of the primary case studies in Stout's article, does -- to be rendered virtually inept about mundane, easily accomplished tasks. Despite having a keen memory, being talented, and possessing an extraordinary intelligence, Julia's frequent dissociative lapses cause her to be unable to answer simple questions about her own life, which the following quotation demonstrates. "Julia's knowledge of her own life, both past and present, had assumed the airy structure of Swiss cheese, with some solid substance that she and her gifted intellect could use, but riddled with unexplainable gaps and hollows" (Stout, 393). The gaps and hollows were induced by the periods of disassociation, which was not the normal state of mind that Julia was born with. Similarly, all of the graphic, wanton violence committed in the name of 'hazing' by the myriads of cadets at the Citadel was also due to a foreign state of mind that is actually quite similar to disassociation -- that of the mob or group mentality, which is underscored by the following quotation from Faludi's article. "But the group mentality that pervades the Citadel assures that any desire on the part of a cadet to speak out about the mounting violence will be squelched by the threat of ostracism and shame. While group rules typifies many institutions, military and civilian, that place a premium on conformity, the power and the authoritativeness of the peer group at the Citadel is exceptional because the college gives a handful of older students leave to "govern" the other students as they see fit" (Faludi, 86-87). This quotation certainly elucidates the situation at the Citadel as being largely congruent with that of disassociation due to the psychological processes there. A 'group mentality" reigns, one which is foreign to students before they enter the school and become part of the group. The "group rules" of this sort of foreign mentality allows for and encourages violent hazing against underclassmen, and psychologically speaking, is a foreign mindset that is similar to that of disassociation. The actions of this mind state, whether it is a brilliant woman not knowing where she purchased jewelry from, or an average student being incited to violence, are aberrations of the typical human mind state.

Another characteristic of disassociation that is manifest throughout the numerous examples presented by Faludi in "The Naked Citadel" is that its effects are oftentimes negative, if not outright deleterious. In analyzing the dissociative type of behavior that is prevalent at the Citadel, it becomes necessary to look at the effects of the horrific violence that are placed upon students. When a new administrator was brought in to take charge of the college at one point, he was able to witness the negative ramifications of the disassociation-induced actions by reading letters of former and current students and their parents, as the following quotation implies. "From the top down, what was written on the papers I took out of the desk drawers -- and conversations with some of the authors -- was enough to break anybody's heart. Among them was a letter from an infuriated father who wanted to known what had happened to his son "to change him from a level headed, optimistic aggressive individual to a fatigued, irrational, confused and bitter one" (Faludio, 89). The fatigue, confusion and bitterness alluded to in this quotation is reminiscent of a patient of Stout's known as Seth in "When I Woke Up Tuesday it Was Friday." In consultation with Stout at one point, Seth breaks down in tears as he reflects upon the exacting effects of disassociation, which the following quotation demonstrates. "A single tear skimmed down Seth's cheek. He wiped it quickly with the back of his hand, and said, "I'm sorry, it's just that, well, when I think about it, I realize that, really, I've missed most of my own life" (Stout, 397). Seth's crying implies a bitterness and a confusion about the irrational mind frame that he has endured as a victim of disassociation. The victims of disassociation in "The Naked Citadel" are those who are attacked in the name of hazing by individuals who have adopted the unnatural group mentality, such as the student who is described by his father in many of the same terms that Seth can be descried with. The fact that the effects of both victims, Seth and the unnamed student, are so pronounced and drastic, certainly implies that there is a marked similarity in their causes -- primarily disassociation.

However, it is interesting to note that the effects of disassociation are not merely experienced by the victims of violence at the Citadel. One of the primary repercussions of us mind disassociating is that we lose, no matter how temporarily or permanently the case may be, a part of ourselves that was innately ours. To that end it must be considered that the Citadel is a paramilitary educational institution. The training that the young men receive there is militaristic in nature, and is largely responsible for the implementation of the fourth-class system. As a matter of fact, Faludi's initial description of the fourth-class system is remarkably similar to that of the principle effect of disassociation, which may be evinced in the following quotation. "This "system" is a nine-month regimen of small and large indignities intended to "strip" each young man of his original identity and remold him into the "Whole Man": a vaguely defined ideal, half Christian soldier, half Dale Carnegie junior executive. As a knob explained it to me, "We're all suffering together" (Faludi, 80). Several facets of this description may be found that are similar to that of disassociation. One of the most important of these is the loss of one's original identity, which is caused by a stripping away of this sense of self at the hand of "indignities." These indignities are euphemisms for the violent trauma that newly initiated fourth class system cadets must endure, which is not so dissimilar to the issuances of abuse endured by people whose minds disassociate in order to cope with such pain, which the following quotation from Stout's original definition of this phenomenon largely suggests. "The person who suffers from a severe trauma disorder must decide between surviving in a barely sublethal misery of numbness and frustration, and taking a chance that may well bring her a better life, but that feels like stupidly issuing an open invitation to the unspeakable horror that waits to consume her alive" (Stout, 382). This quotation illustrates another similarity between the dissociative process and that which takes place as part of the fourth-class system at the Citadel -- suffering is a key component of both. Whether we refer to this suffering as a thinly veiled-euphemism with the term indignity, or whether it is the suffering of a "severe trauma disorder" that is certainly serious in nature, the amount of suffering endured by cadets at the Citadel is synonymous with that required of those who disassociate. What is key about both of these quotations is the loss of identity that is endemic to both of them. The cadets who have survived the fourth-class system and who inflict ritualistic violence in the form of hazing on others have lost something of their true "selves," something that was stripped away to lead them to believe that they could rightfully engage in this sort of behavior to inflict pain upon others. Therefore, the cadets who are guilty of said violence are perpetuating it because they have lost their own identities through disassociation -- in much the same way that Seth lost most of the moments of his life to this same phenomenon.