Poiesis A Journal of the Arts & Communication Volume 19, 2022

Encountering the Other

As I am writing, the war in Ukraine rages on. We don't know what will happen next, whether there will be some sort of cease-fire (I won't say

"peace") or an escalation with even more horrendous results. Whatever happens, I am still left with the question that the theme of this journal poses: What does it mean to encounter the other? In Ukraine, it means murder, violence without limit. Nor of course is this an isolated incident. Human history is marked by war and genocide. It sometimes seems as if our primary mode of encountering others is to kill them.

Of course, I'm not referring to us. We are the peaceful ones. We wouldn't hurt a fly. Are we in fact implicated? Are we part of a violent murderous species? Are we somehow responsible? I know that I have had murderous impulses towards others, as well as loving ones. What a paradoxical creature the human being is! At once generous and self-sacrificing, and at the same time violent and murderous. Usually we divide them up: we love our own and hate the others. And yet we also are violent towards our own people, towards our neighbors, our families, towards ourselves even. And our love can extend beyond ourselves to those who are most different from ourselves.

I cannot solve the riddle of humanity. What I can do is ask, what is the nature of our work together? Is therapy non-violent? Is art? And what about the fundamental concept of expressive arts, poiesis? Does our work in all its dimensions (therapeutic, social change-oriented, ecological) base itself on non-violence? And if so, how can we find our way when we acknowledge our own murderous impulses and those of our species?