[-empyre-] Before the Law / control and cutting, stripped naked

[Maria Damon]

pain, n.
late 13c., "punishment," especially for a crime; also "condition one 
feels when hurt, opposite of pleasure," from O.Fr. peine "difficulty, 
woe, suffering, punishment, Hell's torments" (11c.), from L. poena 
"punishment, penalty, retribution, indemnification" (in Late Latin also 
"torment, hardship, suffering"), from Gk. poine "retribution, penalty, 
quit-money for spilled blood," from PIE *kwei- "to pay, atone, 
compensate" (see penal 
<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=penal&allowed_in_frame=0>). 
The earliest sense in English survives in phrase on pain of death.
"Pain" seems to be related thus to "pay," and remorse, or its display, 
is intimately related to concepts of justice and retribution. Public 
displays of screaming penitence under torture, in pre-Enlightenment 
Europe, and current media coverage of trials in which the faces and 
demeanor of the defendants are scrutinized for signs of remorse...which 
are weighed in consideration of a just penalty... this idea of paying 
with emotion, how does it tie in with empathy?

On 10/27/12 4:45 PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
>
>
> There's also the other Goffman book, Stigma, which is relevant and 
> excellent.
>
> I remember one oddity during the Vietnam war - there was an oddly 
> apolitical stance, I think, among performance artists in the US; one 
> could watch an Acconci piece, for example, and read political action 
> into it, but it wasn't overt; what I remember in conversation with him 
> was mostly discussions about art which was emerging out of modernism, 
> but was still bound by a rather linear idea of success, style, and 
> progress.
>
> - Alan
>
> ==
> blog: http://nikuko.blogspot.com/ (main blog)
> email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
> web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 347-383-8552
> music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
> current text http://www.alansondheim.org/rq.txt
> ==
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