Thursday, October 23, 2014

An Ap(ple)athy a Day will Make the Doctor Okay

Frankl observed that the second emotional phase of the concentration camp inmates was apathy. It was the only they could survive the terrible abuses going on in the camps. He describes how, "Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one's own life and that of the other fellow" (47).  They had to put all of their effort into staying alive that they had no time to feel the pain. Being surrounded by so much death and destruction, the inmates developed an indifference pretty quickly.

Similar to Frankl, Lear quickly experienced apathy after the betrayal of his daughters. In fact, he went a bit mad. In the beginning, when Lear was thrust into the storm he was bothered by the storm. However, he soon forgot to feel all physical pain and could just focus on the betrayal. He developed an indifference to the howling storm beating down on him, and kind of emotionally shut down. Frankl described his despair in the camp,"it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children) it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all" (42). Just like Frankl, Lear is preoccupied with the injustice done onto him by his daughters, and thus feels no physical pain. He has discovered that the world is unfair and that he can do nothing about it, so he adopts apathy in the form of mild insanity.

The question is, is this form of apathy healthy for the mind? Frankl says that it was a defense- mechanism for the inmates to survive. While I don't doubt that it was absolutely necessary for them, I have to wonder the long-term effects of such emotional hardness. Obviously any survivor of the holocaust would be terribly scarred, but in applying this emotional response to people today it is important to evaluate the consequences. I believe once apathetic, it is hard to regain the passion and emotions one once held. Lear only had a few moments of clarity after he went "mad." He was sane when he was reunited with Cordelia, but once he allowed himself to feel happy, she was torn from him and he went mad again. Therefore, I must conclude that while apathy was perhaps necessary to save the lives of the Frankl and his fellow inmates, it  does not lead to prolonged psychological health, and thus is not a healthy way of coping with stress.

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