Radical Indecision

The signature of the disaster: Witness‐ness in death camp and tsunami survivor testimony

“…Yet the emphasis in these testimonies on acts of decisiveness gives pause for thought, because while the identification of a single decision may function as an effective narrative device, the informational contents relayed therein tend toward passivity and arbitrariness rather than the calculation and determination of actions according to a desired outcome that would amount to a decision . This inconsistency opens onto broader debates about the very (im)possibility of a "decision," given that any decision requires a degree of undecidability, incalculability, and indetermination without which the outcome would be programmed in advance rather than decided (Derrida, 1988; Hill, 2010). It is only with the benefit of hindsight that the accomplished fate is retrospectively recast as a fait accompli .…”

“…Indecision, in other words, is both the condition and the limit of any decision whatsoever. (Hill, 2010, p. 334, original emphasis)…”