ABSTRACT
The phrase “suffering in theory” carries, of course, its own irony. To speak of suffering, as theory tends to do, in the abstract and from a comfortable place in the groves of academe, is in many respects both ethically dubious and rhetorically risky. Not only do pontifications on such a topic seem frivolous in comparison with their subject matter, they also run the risk of diverting attention from more direct interventions and from the difficulties of those who put themselves in far more danger in the attempt to bear witness to pain. Beneath these lofty considerations, moreover, there lie deeper and more uneasy, if rather more subacute problems. For those who speak of suffering, even at a distance, also run the risk of experiencing something of the painful affect to which they intend merely to allude. Suffering is in some respects highly contagious, and it can at times be caught, so to speak, simply by entering its sphere. No matter how well they seem to be protected, those who speak of suffering “in theory” often approach a point where distinctions between analytic observer and victim break down, and where they, too, are exposed to discomfiture if not distress.
