| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11401/78286 | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree. | en_US |
| dc.format | Monograph | |
| dc.format.medium | Electronic Resource | en_US |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.type | Dissertation | |
| dcterms.abstract | This dissertation explores key concepts in the thought of Aristotle, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt in order to explain why some victims of violent assault cling to their assailants rather than flee from them. Many psychologists use the term Stockholm Syndrome to explain this surprising phenomenon. They argue that physical assault ultimately causes the victim to revert an infantile, dependent state that in turn makes her cling to whomever is in her immediate vicinity. However, I make the case that this approach fails to recognize the phenomenological root of the problem. What many scientific researchers overlook is the fact that victims who fall prey to Stockholm Syndrome are also assaulted at an ontological level. I argue that these victims do not suffer from purely from ailments derived from traumatic physical and psychological effects of violent assault. Instead, their suffering and paradoxical reaction to their captors are rooted in an intentionally produced ontological impairment that I call “existential captivation.” In cases of existential captivation, a captor uses calculated techniques to alter the captive’s existence-structure such that she becomes truly dependent on her captivator for survival. Using Aristotle’s concept of habit (hexis), I show that the captor’s techniques actively subvert the captive’s cultivated capacities – those that allow her to relate to the surrounding world in personal ways – and recalibrates them in ways that guarantee she always look to him for guidance in the smallest of actions. I then turn to Heidegger’s analysis of Being-in-the-world to demonstrate that the captor secures his position of authority over the captive by constantly reminding her about the possibility of her own death thus engendering a chronic state of anxiety (Angst) in her. Finally, I use Schmitt’s concept of sovereignty to suggest that a captor who breaks a captive’s self-identity and remakes it in an image of his own design is not merely guilty of felony assault and kidnapping; instead, his crime creates a new legal order that demands she renounce her existential freedom and submit to servitude. Furthermore. the haunting crime of existential captivation is not limited to the small number of people taken hostage in the United States each year. A widespread form of domestic abuse known as “coercive control” also falls into this category. This is deeply disturbing because coercive control takes place in a vast number of American households. My work therefore demonstrates that it is not only possible to produce a willing slave but that this conversion actually takes place at an alarming rate in the U.S. | |
| dcterms.available | 2018-06-21T13:38:53Z | |
| dcterms.contributor | Casey, Edward S. | en_US |
| dcterms.contributor | Rawlinson, Mary C. | en_US |
| dcterms.contributor | Miller, Clyde Lee | en_US |
| dcterms.contributor | Brogan, Walter | en_US |
| dcterms.creator | Sims, Jessica Ryan | |
| dcterms.dateAccepted | 2018-06-21T13:38:53Z | |
| dcterms.dateSubmitted | 2018-06-21T13:38:53Z | |
| dcterms.description | Department of Philosophy | en_US |
| dcterms.extent | 174 pg. | en_US |
| dcterms.format | Application/PDF | en_US |
| dcterms.format | Monograph | |
| dcterms.identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/11401/78286 | |
| dcterms.issued | 2017-12-01 | |
| dcterms.language | en_US | |
| dcterms.provenance | Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-21T13:38:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1
Sims_grad.sunysb_0771E_13597.pdf: 682534 bytes, checksum: 77fffebba2256ed4fb7f99a141a687fd (MD5)
Previous issue date: 12 | en |
| dcterms.subject | Philosophy | |
| dcterms.subject | Addiction | |
| dcterms.subject | Domestic Violence | |
| dcterms.subject | Political science | |
| dcterms.subject | Existentialism | |
| dcterms.subject | Women's studies | |
| dcterms.subject | Ontology | |
| dcterms.subject | Politics | |
| dcterms.subject | Trauma | |
| dcterms.title | Existential Captivation: On the (Im)Possibility of a Life Lived in Terror | |
| dcterms.type | Dissertation | |
