#1302 Benjamin Saltzman - Turning Away: The Poetics of an Ancient Gesture

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lops, and today I'm joined by Dr. Benjamin Saltzman. He's professor of English language and literature at the University of Chicago, and today we're going to talk about his book Turning Away the Poetics of an Ancient Gesture. So Dr. Saltzman, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to everyone.

00:23 Benjamin Saltzman: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

00:26 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so turning away, I mean, first of all, what is it to turn away? What is it to avert our gaze from something?

00:39 Benjamin Saltzman: Well, Ricardo, it's a lot of different things and one of the. One of the, the, the ways that this book opens up into itself is by exploring the different ways in which we turn away and the different ways that artists have represented, um, variations on this gesture, covering one's eyes, averting one's gaze, turning one's back, um, looking away in a lot of different, uh, across a lot of different varieties. And And that's, that's how the book was written and it's how I think the experience of reading it, um, comes through, where you encounter one variety of this gesture after another and with each new instance, you begin to realize. First of all, how frequently it appears in our world and and in our aesthetic encounters, but also how many different kinds of meaning this gesture carries, right? Sometimes it signifies grief, sometimes it signifies shame, sometimes it signifies, uh, remorse or internal struggles of all kinds or disgust, um. Or embarrassment, uh, it signifies a lot of different things and I'm sure we'll talk about, um, we'll talk, we'll get a chance to talk about them today. But, um, just to start, I think that's the, that's the kind of premise of the book and one of the things that, um, I hope readers will take away from it is, is a kind of realization and an ability to notice this gesture in the world around us.

02:10 Ricardo Lopes: But I mean these different kinds of situations or different kinds of manifestations of turning away that I'm going to ask you about in a bit. I mean, do you see that they vary culturally, I mean in terms of the gesture itself or in terms of how we use our Hands to cover our eyes or just turn our gaze away or perhaps even move our bodies away or something like that. Uh, I, I mean, does it vary cross culturally or do you see that, for example, uh, in Western culture, because I would imagine that is the one you're focusing the most on here. That over time perhaps the gesture acquired different meanings and even, I mean, because we're going to talk about artistic depictions of turning away throughout our conversation, do you think that perhaps some of those meanings are just we in our more modern times, sometimes perhaps if inadvertently trying to impose an interpretation in terms of the emotions and what the meaning of the gesture when applied to perhaps ancient depictions of it. I mean, what, what, what ideas do you have about all of that?

03:39 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, so this is, this is your, your question gets at the heart of, you know, what is it about this particular gesture, right? When, when someone covers their, their face or cover that covers their eyes, um, removes their face from the vision of others, what is it about that gesture that, that differs from other gestures? Um, AND how does it differ across cultural context? How does it differ across, you know, different works of art or Different, um, references of poetry. How does it differ between antiquity, um, and the present day? And that's something that I'm very interested in is the way that this gesture resonates and changes over time. Um, THE way that our encounters with this gesture today, uh, are energized by the historical past in which this gesture has, has developed a wide variety of meanings. So I'll I'll kind of answer your question theoretically, and then I'll um maybe use it as a way to dive into the structure of the book and kind of share one story. Um, SO, theoretically, one of the interesting things about this gesture is that it, it ranges on a spectrum between The instinctive and the performative, right? So it's, it's both, um, a way in which we respond to something, uh, you know, presented before us that we find disgusting or unappealing, and we, we kind of can't control how we respond in those moments. We turn away, we cover our eyes, we, we can't bear to look. But it's also a gesture that is, uh, and can be performative, right? We can perform the act of covering our eyes before others as a way to, you know, hyper-aware of our, uh, sociality and our, our relation to others, there being an audience, for instance, for this gesture. Um, AND that's quite unusual, the way in which it, it can move between those two things and the difficulty of Determining that from the outside, right? The difficulty of ascertaining whether someone is covering their eyes as a performance or as a kind of instinctive response to something disgusting or unappealing or troubling or disturbing. So, the way, uh, I mean, the best way to, to, uh, begin to think about the, the burden that it places on the interpreter, the one who beholds this gesture, right, who encounters it in the world or in a work of art, um, occurs in, in the first chapter of the book. And so I'll, I'll just say that the book is structured. Around 5 chapters and each chapter begins with a particular ancient or medieval or archaic scene in which a figure covers their face or turns away. Um, AND then it follows this scene as it refracts around a kind of concept, and we'll talk about some of those concepts, um, but also across time. And as each chapter in the book progresses, each chapter becomes progressively more wide ranging. And so, whereas the, the kind of the, the, the second chapter, for instance, after the introduction is very tightly focused on a, on a particular scene, and it's kind of constantly turning back to that scene, by the time you get to the end of the book, we're, we're rang. Really, really widely and in unexpected ways, but you can see how the, the aesthetic and effective energy of this gesture kind of travels through, through time. So I'll, I'll just start with the first chapter as an example, which is it takes as its ancient scene, this famous painting by Timanthe, and the original painting doesn't survive. It's a depiction of um Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia. And um the original painting doesn't survive. A copy of it or something, you know, a work thought to be similar to the original does survive from Pompeii and is currently held in in the Naples Archaeological Museum. Um, BUT the reason this painting, in spite of not surviving, the reason it's so famous is because Um, ancient rhetoricicians like Quin Quintillian, Cicero, Pliny the Elder, they all wrote about it and they wrote about the artist's decision to cover Agamemnon's face, to cover the father's face. Um, WHY, why did the painter need to cover his face in that moment in which he's sacrificing his own daughter? And the explanation they gave, um, was that. The paintbrush would have been inadequate to the task of representing such an extreme state of emotional intensity, right? The father's grief, the loss, the anticipation of loss, the, um, the kind of wavering uncertainty, right? It's not an easy decision. He doesn't, uh, sort of commit to it wholeheartedly. He goes back and forth and tries to stop the sacrifice, but then eventually is forced to, uh, to go through with it. And so, um, Why, why cover the face? Because there's no way the artist could have represented such an extreme state of emotion. So right from the start, we see how this gesture in which a figure is covering their face, um, gets at the very limits of artistic representation, right? Um, IT runs up against the most extreme forms of emotional intensity. Um, AND to get back to the heart of your question, it puts The reason it's so effective is because it puts the burden on the viewer, the viewer of the work of art, to imagine what that person is going through, to imagine what Agamemnon is feeling, and, uh, makes the effect all the more effective. Um, AND so, uh, so yeah, so that, that I think is a One way, right, in which this gesture, uh, kind of sparks the imagination, right? PROVOKES the imagination.

10:00 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. But I mean, when it comes to artistic depictions, wouldn't you agree, I mean, if you don't, uh, it's fine, but wouldn't you agree that there's always at least an element of uncertainty when it comes to, uh, the way we interpret what the artist was trying to convey, I mean, not only emotionally, but perhaps even in terms of the meaning of the gesture in, in that particular context and so on.

10:29 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, in fact, you know, later, later critics, 17th, 18th century critics often said, you know what, like those ancient rhetoricicians were wrong. This artist was just a really bad, really bad painter, right? If he had any skill, he could represent the emotion. So, so yes, there's, it's open to debate, but, but also, um, You know, crucially to your point, and, and another aspect of your original question was about cultural specificity or the specificity of the gesture, right? Does this gesture covering the face, turning away, does it carry specific meaning in a specific cultural context, um, or does it sort of, uh, Does the variety of the gesture, does its meaning from one context carry over into another and influence, say, how we interpret it in a work of art uh in a, in a totally different context, if we've say previously encountered it in, um, in one cultural context, right? And that's one thing that I'm interested in is the overlap and the way that there's a kind of fuzziness around it, but I'm also very interested in The cultural specificity of the gesture and the contextual specificity of the gesture. So there's kind of two things going on, right? One is that I'm pushing against a particular way of a very influential and very important way, one in which my book is heavily indebted and which has been the basis for important moves in the wider field of, of the history of ideas and the history of Uh, of, uh, of emotions, really, um, is that we tend to study the history of emotions through a particular emotion, right? So we tend to say, I'm, I'm interested in studying the history of shame, and then, um, I would study the history of shame and I would look back, um, into the period that I'm studying and I might encounter a gesture like the one that that I'm describing and, and say, look, there's an Example of shame because that's what I'm interested in. And this is an oversim simplification, right? Because again, I'm kind of working from a lot of these important studies. But what I noticed is that there's also a way in which that predetermines how you interpret this particular gesture and the ambiguity of this gesture is such that Um, it can also represent grief or pity or, um, these different negative affects, even positive effects as well, which we can maybe talk about. But, um, but when you start from the gesture, you kind of Really begin to notice its ambiguity. Um, AND that's, that's not to say, crucially, that it isn't that it doesn't carry specific cultural or specific historical, um, meaning. And I'll give just an example of that, which, um, was a kind of discovery or realization that I made fairly late in the project, right? It was maybe, um, yeah, sort of a year or two before it was done. And I had been working on the, the 4th chapter is about the crucifixion of Christ, and it takes images of the crucifixion and, and, um, notices all the different ways in which figures around the crucifixion cover their, cover their faces. Um, AND this goes back to, for instance, um, At the moment of the crucifixion, there's believed to be an eclipse or a sort of sudden darkness covering the earth. And the way that medieval artists often represented this darkness was by depicting personified figures above Christ, two personified figures above Christ representing the sun and the moon, and those figures were covering their faces. So that indicates a kind of, oh, it's dark. The atmosphere is dark. How? Because these figures are covering their faces. Um, AND that gesture gets reproduced then below with, for instance, Mary beside Christ covering her face in grief, um, or John covering his face less frequently, but occasionally covering his face. The, the frescoes in the convent of San Marco in Florence by Franica are fantastic represent instances of this where, um, there's so many figures. Um, BESIDE these, these brilliant images of, of Christ's crucifixion with, with the, the kind of metallic sparkling blood catching your attention, and there are figures beside Christ who are covering their faces quite deliberately, um, and so that chapter kind of runs with that idea and then, and then sees how, for instance. Um, Marc Chagall in the 20th century, the, the, uh, Russian painter Marc Chagall, who had a famous series of paintings based, uh, uh, crucifixion paintings in which he represented Christ as a Jewish figure, um, being persecuted, and these were produced, most, most of them were produced in 1938, um. So the, the kind of urgency of the moment was, was demanding this kind of, this kind of provocative work in which the, uh, in which Christ is represented as a, as a Jew. And what I noticed is that in a lot of these paintings, there are figures beside Christ who are covering their face, including one self-portrait that uh Chagall paints in which he himself is painting, um, uh, a, a. You know, a canvas featuring the crucifixion of Christ and the painter is turning away from Christ and covering his face. And what I, what I noticed was that they're often, these figures are often using their right hand. Um, AND that carries specific significance, um, for, uh, in a Jewish context because that's the hand that Jews use to cover their eyes when they're saying the Shama, the prayer, um, recited twice daily, um, but also in moments before a loved one passes. And so it's that kind of realization that, oh, in this, in this work of art. The right hand covering the face is very, very specific and, and significant in and of itself. So I hope that gives a sense of how like there's a kind of ambiguity around the gesture that it can mean a lot of different things. It can mean, you know, Mary's grief or John's grief, but also a kind of spiritual blindness because Christ is uh human but divine and, and therefore, you know, can we see Him? Can we not? How do you, how does an artist represent it, right? So it, it can mean all these different things, but then also it can. Carry a very, very specific meaning. Um, AND the, the shama, the right hand, um, in Chagall's paintings is a perfect example of that.

17:18 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yeah, and that I guess is an example that really points to what I was alluding to before when it comes to the cultural context where a particular turning away kind of uh gesture is expressed, right, because in that case, since it's Jewish, Jewish people doing it with their right. And it has that particular kind of meaning, but if it was just me using my right hand to cover my face, it's just because I'm right-handed. I mean, it wouldn't have any, the, the being the right hand itself in my case, wouldn't have a particular meaning. It was just because I, it's my dominant hand and I tend to use it to.

17:59 Benjamin Saltzman: Right. And that's, and that gets back to that, the, the fact that this gesture is, you know, sometimes it's instinctive, right? It's your right hand that comes up to your face because that's the hand you use. Other times it's more performative. It's your right hand because that is the hand that you've practiced using while saying the shama. And I actually, I was giving a, um, like a bookstore event a while ago and, and I will sometimes invite. Uh, MY audience to cover their face, just to feel, uh, and I, I might do the same to your, your audience listening at home, right? Like, take a moment and, and put your hand over your face, touch your face, cover your eyes, close your eyes, turn your head, uh, see how it feels. Um, NOTICE, notice what that feels like. And I did this in in an event and then afterwards was talking to, um, one of the, the audience members who was, um, you know, formerly a kind of Orthodox Jew practicing regularly, and she said that she noticed. That she instinctively put her right hand to her face and while I was talking, she kind of was reflecting on the fact that, oh my gosh, here I am, you know, saying the shama, um, just habitually. Um, SO there's, again, there's even, even in those what could be deemed a kind of performative mode of the gesture where you're deliberately say, using your right hand because it holds cultural significance and it carries meaning that you're trying to activate. Uh, IT can also be habituated. It can also be instinct instinctive in a way, or, or not quite instinctive, but habituated at least.

19:42 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, even though now that I'm thinking about it, maybe if I wanted to turn away from something that was more on my left periphery, I would probably use my left hand. So you know, I don't know, I would have to be exposed to different kinds of situations and, and really be conscious about it

20:03 Benjamin Saltzman: to, and that's the thing is that we're often, we're often not conscious about it, and this is, this is the This was the experience of writing the book, and I, you know, I think. Um, YOU begin to, once you are alerted to the prevalence of this gesture and the meaning that it can carry. You begin to see it everywhere and you begin to notice yourself, um, you begin to notice yourself doing it in different ways and you begin to think about the differences between the ways that you do it, your left hand, your right hand, or, or, you know, in a mode of embarrassment or in a mode of disgust or, um, whatever, but, but you begin to become hyper-aware of how this gesture plays out in our, in our lives and the variety of ways that it does.

20:54 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so then let's talk about the here the varieties that we can find when it comes to this kind of gesture and what it can express. So what different kinds of situations have you found lead us to turn away from something or someone?

21:18 Benjamin Saltzman: Where to start? Where to start. Um, I think one of the. I'll start with that. I,

21:29 Ricardo Lopes: I, I mean maybe we can only cover some of the main ones, of course, because the variety I would imagine would be very, very large,

21:37 Benjamin Saltzman: so yeah. Well, I'll start with the, the kind of a surprise maybe, um, which is just the, that. The most surprising. Um, LET'S say the most surprising meaning that I found in, in this gesture in writing this book. Was that, you know, we tend to think of turning away or looking away as a mode of um inattention of we, we associate it with indifference, with um disconnectedness or distance. Right, if I'm turning away, I'm trying to produce distance between me and the thing that I'm turning away from. But the most surprising thing that I found is that often in these works of art, I can talk about some of them, um. Poets, philosophers, they often call this gesture up. In moments of profound engagement, in moments that that uh a figure or a person is grappling with the most difficult aspects of our world, um, and is struggling with their own relation to those, those, those things. And so. Um, YOU know, I mentioned the, the Frangelio frescoes in the convent of San Marco, for instance, alongside the crucifixion of Christ. What, you know, the figures who are covering their faces in those frescoes are not covering them because they're being inattentive to the scene. No, on the contrary, those are some of the most, those are the figures that when you, when you encounter them on the wall, you, you kind of recognize that they are deeply engaged. Deeply proximate to the pain of that moment. Um, AND how does an artist represent that with, you know, other than with this gesture, and, and it made me realize that, you know, sometimes kind of a wide-eyed, you know, constant, constant mode of attention is not in fact the most, uh, meaningful way to pay attention that sometimes we need to process the world around us by taking a moment to, to. Uh, TO turn away in order to pay better attention, um, in order to reflect, in order to act, and just as an example of that, it, it is, uh, uh, there's a famous painting by, um, Francisco Goya, the 3rd of May. Um, YOU, you know this painting. I'm, I'm sure it features, um. Uh, A figure who's about to be executed, his arms, he's wearing a white shirt. His arms are outstretched. Um, IT'S a very kind of crucifixion-like scene, and the, uh, the soldiers are lined up with their backs to the viewer of the painting and their rifles pointed at the, at the victim. And then around the victim who is about to be executed are several other figures, compatriots who are um. Looking in various directions, but some of them, 2, I think, maybe 3, are, are covering their, covering their eyes. Uh, AND I really think that those, you know, if those figures weren't there, you wouldn't feel the same degree of intensity. You wouldn't feel the same degree of weight. Um, AND it's those figures who, who can't bear to look in that moment, whether because of fear or terror or, um, or sort of anticipatory grief or distress or whatever, um, it's the fact that they're covering their eyes that provokes us as we look ourselves at this painting to feel its weight because they are there and cannot bear to look. So, yeah, I hope that, I hope that gives a sense of um some of the variety, but I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure there are others. What, what came to mind to you? Yeah,

25:32 Ricardo Lopes: I mean, I mean, I, I was thinking, uh, also not so much about the situation itself, but more about the variety in terms of the ways or how we gesture to other people that we are turning away. I mean that it can be just covering our eyes or covering part of our eyes or covering our face or, for example, I don't know, turning. Our entire body another direction or for example, or I guess that also when we're trying to signal to other people to keep themselves away because we don't want them near us, we just extend our arm like this with the palm facing them or something like that

26:19 Benjamin Saltzman: right or even a or even a very subtle, you know, a very almost unnoticeable except to ourselves. Way of, of averting our, our eye, right, averting our gaze and, and. Yeah, there, I mean, there's a huge range, and there's an implicit in one of your examples. Is a way of a way in which we sometimes cover our eyes while still trying to look. Right? We, we are in, in a sense performing this gesture because we don't want other people to see us looking, but we still want to look, um, right, we do this when we Maybe drive down the road and and pass an accident and we know that or we think that we shouldn't be looking but we want to look and so we kind of waver back and back and forth, um,

27:13 Ricardo Lopes: even though when it comes to that particular situation, sometimes people are very shameless about it and they just look reckless.

27:22 Benjamin Saltzman: Exactly, yeah, and then themselves get into into an accident. Um, BECAUSE they weren't looking where they should have been looking or whatever, I

27:30 Ricardo Lopes: was, I was also thinking that perhaps, and this of course is getting more into the effective or emotional aspect of it, and we can talk more about it in a bit, but for example, uh, many times when there's a homeless person, a beggar on the street, and people just want to pass by them. I mean, without, of course they notice them, but they are trying to signal to other people that they are not really noticing them, so they just look another direction. They avert their gaze. I mean, it's, it's sort of, it's as if people are saying that, OK, if I look directly at the beggar, then I mean, since there are Other people around, I am expected to do something to give them money, to give them a coin or a bill or something like that. But if we just avert our gaze, it's as if we are also suppressing or avoiding our shame or guilt, right, because, because if we're just not looking there, then I don't need, I don't need to do anything.

28:47 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, and I, I mean, this is, you're, you're right, having never myself been unhoused, right, I can only imagine the, the difficulty of, of, um, of life under, under those conditions and And yet it's something that I think many of us face when we, when we walk down the street, we encounter that maybe that realization, um, maybe we Prefer not to encounter it and try to avoid thinking about it, but, um, I guess I'm, I'm interested in, in what that What that feels like when we, when we do decide to avert our gaze or habitually decide habituate habituatedly avert our gaze in those moments. Um, AND the, the different Reasons we might give to ourselves for doing so, as you, as you just elucidated, right? Is it because I'm feeling shame? Is it because I want to be respectful of, uh, of this person I'm encountering? And yet, so much, um, uh, sort of advocacy around the unhoused. Has to do with visibility and the feeling by contrast of the invisibility that the unhoused often, often feel. Um, MY, my, I had an uncle who, uh, recently passed away who lived in, in Arkansas and, and, um. Gave his, I mean, he was such a, a warm-hearted person. Um, HE would always, he, he was obsessed with like the essential oils and, and the color blue. Like you need to wear the color blue because if you're not, you're, you're gonna, you know, it'll mess with your, your brain chemicals in negative ways. But anyways, but he was, he was, he gave his life to, to caring for the unhoused and essentially sort of welcomed. He, he, um, built communities and he welcomed them into his own home and, and, um, and it really became a kind of full commitment. Um, AND it made me wonder, you know, in, in your question, like, what does it mean to fully commit to, to caring for, for the unhoused, um, and maybe that's also part of why. We Avert our avert our eyes because we can't commit to, to that kind of wholehearted care or, or whatever. But there's, but there's also people who, who don't, uh, do that.

31:20 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yeah, and I, yeah, I guess that when it comes to homeless people, they must experience a lot of turning away from other people because that, that sentiment of being or feeling invisible in society is something that they express quite a lot. And for example, I remember reading a book about Diogenes, the cynic, and while he was homeless inside these vases. In Athens, he would, uh, I mean, he would beg his statues to train himself to be turned down by by other people when he begged for money because, I mean, it's really hard psychologically to, uh, I mean, have that kind of need and constantly being ignored by other people.

32:18 Benjamin Saltzman: And I, and I think An important distinction just to kind of take the picture out a little bit broader to a wider range of circumstances, but I think there's a really important distinction between something like indifference. And um, And the different ways in which we, we look away, um, and the, the reason I want to make that distinction is because the two often get conflated, right? We often say here, yeah, we often hear and say things like, don't look away from this atrocity, from this corruption, from, um, The, the suffering on the street or the suffering abroad, don't look away. And what we mean by that is, don't be indifferent. Right? Don't be indifferent to it and maybe even to take it a step further, do something about it. Um, AS, as hard as that is to, to conceive, what, what should I do, right? Is a question that we then kind of naturally face. And, and I, and I kind of want to disambiguate those, those two things because. In the in when we find ourselves. Actively turning away or looking away, um, two things happen. One, Is that we. Don't get rid of the, we don't sort of avoid the, the sight of the thing that we're turning away from, right? The act of turning away happens too late. We've already seen it, right? Um, AND, or, or at the very least, we've anticipated it, right? Oh, I'm going to see something that I don't want to see, so I'm going to turn away. But now I'm thinking about it. Um, AND as a result, what I began to notice is that when we turn away, it actually signals, oftentimes signals to us that the thing that we're turning away from. It is significant. It warrants our reflection. It warrants our action. It warrants our intervention, perhaps, but that impulse, that human impulse to be repulsed by, um, a, a horrific sight, that's, that's a crucial signal that we, I don't think it makes sense to try and avoid. Um, BUT instead we should pay attention to, we should notice when we find ourselves turning away and then ask ourselves why, why am I turning away? And that's kind of what I've found in my, in my own experience is just that when I have turned away, when I have been repulsed by something to the point where I think I can't, I can't look at this anymore. I don't forget it. I mean that it, it becomes lodged in my mind along with my own inability to look my own act of turning away. And, um, and I think that's in, in many ways, that's the opposite of indifference. That's the opposite of I don't care. I like, I find myself still dwelling on those moments, um. And in in this era in which we encounter suffering so readily on our phones on a daily basis, minute to minute, one thing after the next. Indifference seems to be um. Very much sort of we're, we're kind of on the brink or already over the point in which indifference is, is becoming more and more of a problem and more and more prevalent. Um, AND so I, I wonder, you know, what does it mean to, to actually lean into those feelings when you, when you find yourself completely, uh, facing the unbearable, right? To actually recognize it as unbearable and Uh, and take a moment to, to reflect on it and maybe think about what kind of action, uh, might, uh, be sort of, what kind of action you might take in response. I, right? But, um,

36:13 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, do you think, yeah, uh, do you think that, uh, then because you were mentioning repulsion, do you think that sometimes turning away can be a gesture that is a behavioral response to the emotion of disgust, of feeling disgusted by something?

36:31 Benjamin Saltzman: I think so, yeah, abso absolutely. That is one of the, the sort of distance creating ways that we, that we respond to something that, um, That produces disgust in us. But you know, earlier you asked about, you know, you've asked about varieties, right? And um. One of the things that I think has happened is that the. Rhetoric of looking away, um, as is typical of the way that rhetoric works, right? It, it has become metaphorized. It's become a metaphor for indifference, but it's also taken on these different forms. So for instance, scrolling on our phones, right? Is that paying attention, right? It can feel in some ways it can feel like, oh, I need to be paying attention to the, to the affairs of the world and, and this is one way in which I do it. And so I scroll on my phone through a news feed or through social media and encounter kind of news about the world and, and, hey, I'm paying attention. Um. That seems anathema to human flourishing and in fact, doom scrolling or scrolling past, right, is just a kind of extension of looking away. It's another form of looking away, or at least we, I think we tend to think about it in those terms. Um, AND so that I hope gives the sense of the way that You know, yes, we have a very specific literal, um, form of this gesture in which, you know, a figure on this in a work of art, um, covers their eyes with their hands. Great. But it also takes on kind of metaphorical meanings and can take on different shapes and forms up to the point of, say, scrolling past an image on your phone. Um.

38:20 Ricardo Lopes: And do you think that it can also be a gesture to express rejection? I mean, rejection, rejecting someone, I mean, for depending on the context, it can, it can be different forms of rejection, but basically just signaling to the other person that, uh, yeah, I'm not going along with what you asked me to do or I don't care about you anymore or something like that.

38:48 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah. Yeah, it can, it can mean that too. It can, it can also signify respect, right? So and that's, again, that's the kind of complexity of this way of relation is that it, depending on the context, right, it can, it can be a mode of rejection, of distancing of, you know, to go back to disgust, disgust, but it can also be a mode of Respect or remorse, right? Even a sort of regret an introspection, a kind of realization of one's own, uh, self or one's own wrongs or one's own relation to others. So it, um, you know, why someone is turning away, is it turning away in order to turn inward or is it turning away because of, uh, as a way to reject someone else. Um, AND, and from the outside, it's very hard to tell.

39:41 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that it can also manifest a reaction to fear or to avoid something that we expect to provoke fear in us, because actually, I mean, averting our gaze is also something that people can do in a very basic context of, for example, what Watching a horror movie, I mean, we, we know that the, the, the sin that will provoke fear is coming, and some people, I mean, particularly the ones who don't like horror movies particularly, many times just close their eyes or avert their case or something.

40:18 Benjamin Saltzman: Well, there's a great, yeah, yeah, there, I mean, there are, there are a lot of people who don't, uh, who sort of can't watch horror and therefore say like know and know this about themselves, right? Um, WHICH is also very interesting, right, that you kind of know your own limits or you've maybe had some trauma in your past that that alerts you to the fact. I mean, this is why we have the sort of content warnings at the at the beginning of TV shows and stuff, right? Because, um, Many of us know what our triggers are and, and want to protect ourselves from, from those, uh, kinds of experiences. But even there's a, um, this great moment in, uh, In Hitchcock, just to talk about horror for a second, in Hitchcock's Psycho, um, you know, there's the, the famous shower scene, right, which we've all seen, even if you haven't, you know, watched Psycho, um, but immediately after that shower scene, um, Norman Bates comes. Down from the house and uh runs into the, the motel room. And this is the scene in which he then cleans up the mess and he runs into the bathroom. Sees what he sees, um, and keep in mind that this, this scene is, is in a very Hitchcockian way it's, it has primed us to notice the different kind of modes of visuality at play, right? So, um. The, the, the previously the, the blood is circling the drain, the drain then fades into, uh, and, and, uh, transitions into a shot of, um, uh, of the sort of the eye, right? And, um, and so we're, we're made to pay attention to sight in this moment. And Norman Bates then walks into the, the runs into the bathroom and immediately gasps, pulls back, turns his back to the wall and covers, brings his hand to his mouth in in shock and awe. Oh my gosh, right? What have I just seen? And it's, it's a kind of perplexing moment, a surprising moment, but it also feels like a very natural response to the sight of the, the sort of scene of a murder. Um, AND I think that's characteristic of horror is that it's meant to make you want to look, to make you want to look carefully. You're intrigued, you're drawn in, um, but also to kind of provoke the, the. Precisely the feeling of, of horror, right?

43:02 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, but, but even the the the scene, the shower scene itself, it's interesting because I mean it could be argued that it's in itself, it contains an element of turning away because I mean we know of course what happened, but we don't see it happening, it's just implied by seeing the blood running down the bathtub

43:24 Benjamin Saltzman: and but Marianne Crane has seen. What has happened, you know, Marion Crane has seen the, the, the murderer, um, up close, and, and that's why, you know, that, that. Transition from the, the drain to her eye, it, it, it reminds us, oh, she's seen something and, and, um, yeah, I mean, I could go on and on about this. It's a really fascinating scene, but it, it does, I think Hitchcock there is playing with our desire to look and our desire to turn away and the kind of ambivalence between those two. In fact, there's again, like kind of classic Hitchcock, there's two, Drawings of birds on the wall. There's two kind of framed, uh, drawings of birds, um, which, uh, Bates knocks down one of them and then at the end of the scene, he, he kind of notices it on the ground and he picks it up and rehangs it and you realize that one of the birds is facing towards the bathroom and the other is facing away, right? So it's, again, that's like Hitchcock is aware of, of the way in which horror drives us to look, but also to look away.

44:34 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, but, but for example, you can contrast it with that initial scene in Halloween where Michael Myers as a child stabs his own sister because we see the stabbing there, but we don't see the stabbing in Psycho, so it, I mean it's, it's so, so there, it's not, there's not an element of turning away unless of course you close your eyes while the movie is playing or something like that, so. You know,

45:06 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's, that's another question is like, what gets, what gets shown to us, you know, again, to kind of take a step back from the particular to a more theoretical question, which is to say, you know, sometimes we have a lot of agency over what we turn away from or what we look at, what we choose to look at. Um, BUT other times, We're, we're either. Sort of Uh, we're rather sort of given things to look at that we have no, no, very little control over. Maybe we can turn away, but it's too late, um, or the things that we encounter have been kind of predetermined for us or certain things are not shown to us, um, and, you know, this is becoming a much more complicated and in some ways interesting question with the power of algorithms, um. And, uh, you know, determining what, what it is that we see on our social media feed and the order in which we see it and um and how that's designed to basically retain our retain our attention. Um.

46:12 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so I mean, let, let me ask you about certain particular depictions of turning away. I mean some of them more written by philosophers or explored by philosophers and theologians and others, more artistic depictions of it, so. Uh, YOU, you, because in the book you explore, for example, Saint Augustine's confession. So where can we find, where can we find this gesture of exploration of the gesture of turning away in that particular work?

46:54 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, so I, so I mentioned earlier that each chapter starts with an archaic scene. Um, AND the chapter that begins with a scene from St. Augustine's confessions, um, it's a chapter about sensation, right? The question behind it is, you know, what is it about sight that is capable of being turned away that the other senses are. Uh, NOT, not as sort of capable of, of shutting down. It's, it's much harder to shut down our hearing, for instance. So what is the difference between sight and hearing? Um, AND to provoke this question. I raised this moment in, in Augustine's confessions where he is writing about his friend Alypius, who has had this problem. He's addicted to going to the gladiator games, the circus, the insanity of the circus. And, um, he, uh, eventually gives up this addiction, and Augustine is quite proud of, of this development. And he gives it up until one day, uh, after lunch, he's walking with his friends in Rome and they, they come across the amphitheater. And they all want to go in and they, they drag him in. And he says, you can, you can drag me in, you can force me in, but you can't make me look. I'm going to keep my eyes shut. And he succeeds at keeping his eyes shut until a particularly gruesome moment causes the crowd to erupt. And when the crowd erupts, the sound enters Alypius's ears, and it provokes his curiosity, and it, and it opens, and he opens his eyes, and he gulps up the gore, and he just, you know, uh, soaks it all up. And Augustine writes, you know, if only he could shut his ears as well. So there's something about, there's something about, um, sound that is, that is, uh, that sort of permeates, um, our senses, um, that, uh, is not as susceptible to, to being shut down or or closed off. And Augustine recognized this, and he also had, and it kind of, and it and it fits in in a very complicated way to his theories of sensation. So he had various theories about the different ways in which the soul governs our senses. And so for instance, sight was thought to be a very active sense, so was hearing. Um, SIGHT was believed to be powered by rays that sort of exit the eyes and then, uh, rebound from the object that we're seeing and, and give us information about what it is that we're seeing. And in that sense, that it's, it's governed or thought to be governed by the intent of the soul, the intention of the soul. Hearing was much more complicated because it's obviously generated by sort of vibrations in the world around us. And so what is the role of the soul in encountering sound? Do we actually control what sounds we hear? And that's kind of for us and that's the problem. That's the problem with like song, right, is that it can infiltrate our senses. And we, you know, this comes back to the last thing that we're discussing, like, we actually have very, we have little control over that, right? It, it has a tendency to Um, to, to, to permeate us and, and influence us. So, um, so yeah, and then it becomes. Interesting, um, this, this story of Alypius, because Olivia shows up again in the final, the kind of climactic moment in the confessions where Augustine is undergoing his conversion, and conversion is an interesting word because it, it means to turn with or to turn towards, as opposed to, for instance, aversion, uh, to turn away. Aversion is to turn away, conversion is to turn with or to turn towards, in this case, to turn towards God, um, and In that moment of conversion, Alypius is there with, um, with Augustine, and, um, there's a, there's, there's a lot going on, but um there's a a famous representation of this moment by, again, the painter Fra Angelico. Where Augustine is in his Milanese garden undergoing this moment of conversion and how does Fra Angelico represent him, but with his hands, his head in his hands, um, and again, that gesture, it just points in so many different directions at this moment. He's on the one hand, he's weeping under this fig tree. Right. On the other hand, he's in a state of, uh, uh, of sort of spiritual darkness, a state of ambivalence, a state of confusion, a state of wavering, a state of sensory disorientation, uh, a moment in which he's trying to turn, turn off his outer senses and turn inward towards his inner senses. And so, Um, just the, the speed with which I, I kind of surveyed those different meanings gives you a sense of how, you know, this one gesture in this one work of art can point to so many different details in Augustine's own narrative of that moment of conversion, um, which entails, um, entails all of these different kinds of, of relation. And in that painting, Alypius is painted in the background, kind of looking away from Augustine. He's shielding his, his eye with his eyes with his hand.

52:40 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. How about the case of, uh, Michelangelo's fall and expulsion of Adam and Eve from the, the Garden for the Garden of Eden? I mean, what kind of depiction of, uh, turning away can, uh, do we find there?

52:59 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, so, so the last chapter of the book. I'll just, let me, I'll I'll like bring us there by, you know, the first chapter starts with Timanthes' sacrifice of Iphigenia. The second chapter, um, looks at this moment in Plato's Republic where Socrates just tells the story of Leontius who encounters a pile of corpses next to the executioner and and turns away and then covers his face as he struggles with himself and then gives in. And condemns his own eyes. Take your fill of that beautiful sight, he says. Um, SO it's a kind of ambivalent relation to these, to these corpses. And then the third chapter is about sensation and Saint Augustine, which I was just talking about. The 4th chapter is about starts with the kind of crucifixion, and it's about the way that this gesture represents darkness. I've talked a little bit about that. And then the final chapter starts with Adam and Eve and the representations of Adam and Eve. And in many ways this is where the project as a whole first started. I, I was looking at a medieval manuscript, um, containing a poetic translation of the Book of Genesis, heavily illustrated, and I noticed that in these illustrations, Adam and Eve are represented not only covering their genitals, but also covering their eyes. Um, AND to harken back to an earlier point in our conversation, covering their eyes in a kind of partial way. Their fingers are, are widespread such that they're Uh, they're, they're kind of clearly able to see through their hands. Um, AND it made me wonder, you know, why, right? Why are they covering their eyes when we're so used to seeing them at the moment of the fall, having eaten the, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of knowledge of good and evil. Why, why cover their eyes when they are usually covering their genitals, right? And, and that's what kind of set this project in motion. And we often see this gesture, most, most typically where we see it is, is not in moments of the fall, but in the moments just after, um, in the expulsion, in the expulsion from paradise and the representation of that, uh, that moment of displacement. And um there's a famous fresco by Masaccio in in Florence where Adam and Eve are being expelled from paradise and Adam has his hand in or his face in his hand. Um, AND in the, the Sistine Chapel, the Michelangelo, um, that you, um, Ricardo were just referring to, uh, it's a little bit different. They're not, they're not quite covering their faces in that, in that moment. Um, THE reason it, it begins to, I begin thinking about that in the book is because there's another, um, on the, on the back, on the sort of back wall of the Sistine Chapel, there's the condemned, the figure of the condemned man who's kind of covering half of his face in, um, this. Really kind of painful state of um of depredation. Uh, BUT. It's this scene of Adam and Eve being expelled from paradise that's on the on the ceiling. It's one of the central panels on the ceiling. And um. And Eve is looking back, right? She's looking back towards paradise in this, in this moment. And The one of the kind of themes for this final chapter is the way that. Turning away can sometimes entail a looking back again, a kind of remorse, regret, a sort of backward lookingness, retroversion, for instance. And here we see, uh, Eve looking back as they're being expelled, as they're being turned away from paradise. And when I was standing in the Sistine Chapel thinking about this, I, I realized that, and this is why it's so amazing to, to stand before these great works of, of art because they, This kind of experience makes you realize things that you wouldn't encounter, um, in the comfort of your home, uh, before your laptop. But I, I was standing there looking up at, um, at this panel, and it made, you know, my neck started hurting. Right? And, and you realize that there's no way to look at this panel, um, where Eve's neck is contorted backwards in what looks to be a very painful position. There's no way for us to look at this panel without also contorting our necks into quite a painful position. And we can't look at it very long, um, even if you stand in the sort of further furthest corner of the, of the, uh, chapel. And, um, and that's, that's quite remarkable how these works kind of call on, it's a great example of the way that um When you stand before a work of art, it, it. Can provoke you to reflect on your own position as a viewer, um, and what that feels like and the feelings that it arouses in you.

58:06 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so, OK, so do you, do you think that perhaps the gesture of turning away can be something that is induced by works of art and that it would be something that at least some artists try to induce on purpose or not?

58:32 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, I think it, I mean, especially in a visual. A work of visual art. I think it does provoke us to reflect on our own, even unconsciously. I mean, I think we often don't notice those figures who are turning away within a work of art, um, but their presence there, um, does a lot of work. Um, BUT, but is, but is that the end? I'm not sure. I mean, I, I think one of the amazing things about Writing this book and then being in conversation with so many people has been the way that people have responded by coming to me or writing to me or um uh uh emailing me and saying, writing old fashioned letters, in some cases, typewritten letters saying, Have you thought about this instance of this gesture in this other work of art and um. On the one hand, that's, that's how this book was written, right? It was written through, I didn't mention this earlier, but it was written through conversations with friends and colleagues, um, and, uh, who, who would sort of, I tell them about what I was writing about and they say, what about this example? And then I'd run with that and I'd, I'd, um, see where, where it would take me. And that's continued even after the book has, you know, been sealed between two covers, um, and that to me is really exciting. So I, I would actually invite your, your listeners to, you know, reach out to me if, if you encounter. This gesture somewhere in the world or in a work of art or um in your life.

1:00:06 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, sure. So let me just ask you one last question. So I mean, how do you think we should approach this kind of behavior and gestures of turning away? I mean, do you think that we should just, I mean, the way we should approach them is just the way we did here today. I mean, just exploring different instances where people turn away different depictions of it and trying to understand. The contexts, the situations where people do that and the emotions that it could express or that people might be feeling when they do that, or do you think that we should condemn these gestures in some way?

1:00:55 Benjamin Saltzman: Yeah, it's no surprise after this conversation that I think it's, it's probably counterproductive to condemn these gestures, even though they feel. Like they're worthy of contempt, um, and that they are modes of moral failure, but I think they're far more complex and they get to the, the heart of what it means to be human, even if that heart might be ugly, um, at times. And, um, so I think. I guess one answer, and, and I don't think it's the final answer, but I, I think one answer is to begin to notice and, and pay attention to this gesture in, in all of its complexity, um, and to notice. In other words, rather than avoiding it or outright condemning it, um. To, to kind of recognize it's, it's range of, of meaning, um, and recognize its capacity to, to shape how we relate to others and how we, um, inhabit the world and, and hopefully make it a better place.

1:02:07 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and I mean, I guess just to comment that I guess that in at least in certain instances our ability or our wanting to turn away can actually manifest. Some of our humanity in the sense that, OK, so that what I'm turning away from is so painful or so difficult to watch or to contend with that I mean, I wouldn't be able to bear it because I was also thinking that for example nowadays, since, as you said earlier, we are exposed so much and so continuously on social media and the internet more generally to Painful and violent things, maybe we can, there's a risk that we can get to a point where we are so desensitized that we no longer turn away, but it's not because we are acknowledging that we have to do something about that, but it's just that we don't care about it anymore. Yeah,

1:03:11 Benjamin Saltzman: looking, exactly looking without caring. Is not the, the path forward, I think.

1:03:19 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, OK, great, so the book is again turning away the poetics of an ancient gesture, and of course I will be leaving a link to it in the description of the interview, and Dr. Saltzman, uh, apart from the book, are there any places on the internet where people can find you and your work?

1:03:39 Benjamin Saltzman: Um, ON the internet, I guess I, I'd, I'd rather, I'd rather people spend time in a, in a museum. Um, BUT, uh, but no, it's been a real pleasure to, to be in conversation with you, Ricardo. Yeah.

1:03:54 Ricardo Lopes: No, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

1:03:59 Benjamin Saltzman: All right. Take care. Thanks for having me.

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