To look for lessons about haunting when there are...

24th February 2012

Quote reblogged from .heksenhaus. with 12 notes

To look for lessons about haunting when there are thousands of
ghosts; when entire societies become haunted by terrible deeds that are
systematically occurring and are simultaneously denied by every public
organ of governance and communication; when the whole purpose of
the verbal denial is to ensure that everyone knows just enough to scare
normalization into a state of nervous exhaustion; when there are guileless ghosts and malevolent ghosts living in tight quarters; when the
whole situation cries out for clearly distinguishing between truth and
lies, between what is known and what is unknown, between the real
and the unthinkable and yet that is what is precisely impossible; when
people you know or love are there one minute and gone the next; when
familiar words and things transmute into the most sinister of weapons
and meanings; when an ordinary building you pass every day harbors
the facade separating the scream of its terroristic activities from the
hushed talk of fearful conversations; when the whole of life has become
so enmeshed in the traffic of the dead and the living dead…

— avery f. gordon, from ‘ghostly matters: haunting and the sociological imagination.’ (via heksenhaus)

there are people who