Being There

I heard part of a radio interview with a man who wrote a book about the Inquisitions.  For background, the Inquisitions occurred generally in the medieval or middle ages, from around 1200 to 1500.  The Inquisitions employed various means of persuasion and/or torture to get people to admit to heresy against Catholicism.  The author of the book said that one of his greatest tools in doing his research was the records kept of the actual "interviews" with those being persuaded (re: tortured).  He said the victim's voices spoke to him through the ages.  I was okay with the author up to that point, but then he spoke contemptuously about the "secretaries" who sat in the corners, without emotion, taking down what was being said.  He said they were like accountants, working without emotion.

Do the "secretaries" in the corner remind you of anyone? First of all, they were probably scribes, considered to be a highly skilled profession.  Maybe some of us are even descended from scribes.  My second problem with his remark is that he assumes they were without emotion.  Were they?  Or were they just compartmentalizing their emotion while working so that they could actually do the very important job of keeping a record?  And finally, if these scribes hadn't been present, hadn't done their job without emotion, the author would not have these records to help him hear the voices through the ages.

How do you handle emotions while taking down the record?  We've probably all heard some brutal stuff.  When I worked in the DA's Office I saw some graphic photos.  I have to admit, it really didn't bother me.  Maybe it's because it was photos, maybe it's because I didn't know the people, maybe there's something wrong with me.  Or maybe I'm exactly suited to doing the job of Being There, writing the spoken word and not getting distracted by my own feelings.  I don't know.

I do know that if you're going to do this job you have to be comfortable with yourself as simply a neutral element in the room.  You should not inject yourself into the proceedings unless it has to do with keeping the record (can you spell that please?).  This takes a lot of self-discipline.  But without this discipline imagine what kind of record we would have of the Inquisitions if one of the scribes stood up and said "Stop using the rack on that man, can't you see he's told you all he knows!"  I would imagine the scribe would be the next for the rack and then what kind of record would we have.

Court reporters are masters of self-discipline.  We practice our writing, we bite our tongues, we sit still for hours on end without saying a word, we have to pee, we get thirsty, we sneeze, all while everyone around us keeps talking and we keep writing it all down...just the words, no emotion for the benefit of the record and those who rely on the record, in the near future, or hundreds of years in the future.

Long Live The Scribes Who Sit In The Corner!