Djina Wilk
Position Paper
Wolfgang Schivelbusch:
The Railway Journey- The
Industrialization of Time in the 19th Century (Page 113-170)
In this
part of the book Schivelbusch deals with the negative
effects of railroad travels and accidents. He divides these effects in two
parts: a physcical and a psycical
one.
In terms of
the former effect, in the beginning of the industrial travels one talks about
the mechanical shocks, which both passenger and railroad workers received from
the vibrations from the machinery. There was a major discussion on the health
of the railroad workers, where the term “maladie des mechaniciens” ( engineersÂ’ malady)
played an important role.
On the
other hand, there was a psycical stress in terms of
fear and anxiety when it comes to risk of being a part of an accident. Further
more, during the 19th century medical professionals found it difficult to
diagnose a personÂ’s symptoms after he/she had experienced an
railroad accident. From initially being a pathological explanation (“railway spine”), a new way of
looking upon this problem emerged: the psychopathological one (“traumatic
neurosis”). The latter term acknowledges the negative effects of the railroad accident to the psyche
and the sensory functions. The shocks experienced were psychological.
This can be
seen in connection to FreudÂ’s concept of trauma. Freud makes an
comparison between victims from railroad accidents and the ones from the First
World War. “In both cases the victims are psychically traumatized by a sudden
and violent release of energy without being demonstrably damaged in the physical sense.” (page 148) Great amounts of energy break down the so called “stimulus
shield”. The stimulus shield is based on readiness and unreadiness
respectively. For Freud the lack of readiness is the source to traumatic
neurosis: it is the “sudden, violent, and unexpected accident experience that
the psyche finds itself unable to deal with”. (page
164) The stimuli, that the railroad passenger received from the outside, like
speed and panoramic views,Â
got into the skin layer of consciousness and changed it. Once the
consciousness was modified in the new way, it could no longer be further
modified. This created skin layer is called the stimulus shield. It has the
ability to shut out exterior stimuli and therefore can be seen as a defense
mechanism against shocks. However, when the exterior impressions are too strong
and break through this stimuli shield, one experiences a traumatic neurosis.
Further
more, FreudÂ’s theory and terms are well applicable to the psychic process of
civilization. The formation of the stimuli shield is a civilizing process. Here
one can think of interiorization of technologically
caused stimuli or interiorization of social rules.
Both matters modifies the individual in order to fit
in these “systems”.
In terms of
the class discussion, is the civilized person, for example the flaneur, shaped to fit into the systems? When it comes to
the technologically stimuli, yes, but what about the social rules? The flaneur seems to act as he wants to, as an individual,
walks slowly through the crowd, observing them and is not really one of them,
the people in the crowd. In this sense one cannot say that the stimuli shield
is the psychic process of civilization, or can one do that? Further more, why
is urban people, who is supposed to have a more
developed stimuli shield, still suffering from stress, which can be seen as a
large amount of exterior stimuli? Is the stimuli shield not strong enough,
still not strong enough after experiencing people and happenings during a
longer time in the city?