hermeneutics

trauma

is nothing but the making explicit of the fact that man is that being for whom there can first be a world.

is nothing but the making explicit of the fundamental concern of man, insofar as man is that being for whom there can first be a world and beings within the world' ((Seeburger 1975 : 214 or 215)

is unable to be held in memory: Not because it is so easy to forget, but because it was never put in memory in the first place. It will not let itself be forgotten but instead repeats in one form or another the only way of forgetting is to forgive.

As Jean-Louis Chretien notes in The Unforgettable and the Unhoped For (Fordham University Press, 2002), it is only what can never be remembered that is truly unforgettable. . .. . Trauma cannot be held in memory, not because it is so easy to forget, but because it can never be put there, in memory, in the first place, such that it ever could be forgotten. It will not let itself be forgotten. Instead, the harder we try to forget it, the more compulsively it just keeps on repeating itself over and over and over again in one form or another, as Freud saw and called to our explicit attention a century ago, and as many (including myself) have repeated over and over again after him since then.

Francis SeeburgerThinkers

Francis Seeburger