Learning to Live with the Killing Fields: Ethics, Politics, Relationality

• Main Author: Lincoln Dam
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Genealogy
• Subjects: ethical-political responsibility; relationality; Yin-Yang; the other; the face; philosophy
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/5/2/33

The Killing Fields call into question my very being. How are we to live in and with the aftermath of an estimated 1.7 million people perishing? How are we, the survivors of this calamity, to discern our family (hi)stories and ourselves in the face of these irreparable genealogical fractures? This paper begins with stories—co-constructed with my father—about the Killing Fields, a genocide orchestrated by the Khmer Rouge and from which humanity appears to suffer a collective amnesia. The latter half of this paper turns to my engagements with ethical-political philosophy as a means to comprehend and make meaning of the atrocities described by my father. Drawing principally on the Yin-Yang philosophy and Thai considerations of the face, I respond to keystone Khmer Rouge ideas and strategies that “justified” the murder of over one million people. Philosophy teaches me to learn from and how to live with the Killing Fields. It offers me routes to make sense of my roots in the absence of treasure troves that would typically inform the writing of genealogies and family (hi)stories. This paper gives testimony to a tragedy of the past that is inscribed in the present and in the yearning for a better tomorrow.