{"id":9079,"date":"2009-05-28T16:34:02","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T00:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=9079"},"modified":"2026-05-13T10:51:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:51:44","slug":"betrayals-the-unpredictability-of-human-relations-by-gabriella-turnaturi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=9079","title":{"rendered":"Betrayals: The Unpredictability of Human Relations by Gabriella Turnaturi"},"content":{"rendered":"

More<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are some of my favorite bits<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* What are we talking about when we speak of betrayal? Can we imagine a sociological definition of betrayal that would include all of its various modes, aspects, and forms? To betray whom, what,
\nand\u2014above all\u2014how? Who names and defines the betrayal? Who is betrayed, and who betrays? Does a betrayal necessarily have to be known, hence acknowledged, by both of the subjects for it to be called a betrayal\u2014for it to exist? How does the social definition of betrayal vary, and what is meant by the term in everyday usage? And, finally, how do the moral judgments and social sanctions applied to betrayal vary?<\/p>\n

* We betray ourselves, our families, our friends, our lovers, our country. We betray out of ambition, for vengeance, through inconstancy, to assert our autonomy, and for a hundred passions and a hundred reasons.
\nWe are used to thinking of betrayal as a self-evident event whose origins we foolishly believe we can reconstruct.<\/p>\n

* Betrayal may fascinate us precisely because it is so common; it forms a part of our everyday experience, yet it resists simplistic explanations. Both common and complex, betrayal can never be reduced to one cause, one motive, or one reason. With betrayal, we are faced with the greatest tragedy of human relations: the fact that the other is unknowable.<\/p>\n

* Every interaction arises and grows around sharing something\u2014even for a short time\u2014with an other: a project to be realized; a relationship to be constructed; a game, an adventure, an ideal, a fleeting pleasure, a secret, a conflict; an affiliation or sense of membership or belonging. In all of these forms of shared experience we act within a common framework; something unites us, if only for a moment, and creates a \u201cWe.\u201d The birth of a We brings with it the possibility of betrayal, separation, or rupture.<\/p>\n

In every form of being and of acting with one another there are obscure zones, secret areas, and margins of ambiguity without which relations and interactions would not survive, but which at the same time mean that betrayal, dramatic or banal, always lies in wait for us. The very fact that our knowledge of the other can never be certain and complete, and that every relationship, if it<\/p>\n

* Furthermore, if it is true that not only in every relationship but in every interaction parts of ourselves that we were unaware of come to light, we cannot even be sure that we will never betray. Betrayal, both as an act on our part and as an action we undergo, is always relational and always possible. When we enter into relations with others, a step that is necessary for the construction of our own identity, we put into play our desire to be with the other \u2014 but also our desire not to lose ourselves in the other. We want and we need to be with the other, but at the same time, to safeguard our individuality, we want and need to not be so completely with them. This alternation between being fully present in a relationship and not being fully present is where betrayal finds its niche. Role expectations are always tightly interwoven, marking every relationship with ambiguity, ambivalence, and uncertainty. (Pg. 4)<\/p>\n

* Betrayal is always an act, however: as such, it changes the course and the meaning of relations between persons, breaks ties and pacts, disappoints trust and expectations, and negates membership.
\nBetrayal is by its nature relational, because it presupposes a connection with the other, whether that other is a person, a group, an institution, one\u2019s homeland, or the state. Even self-betrayal does not take place in solitude, but results from relations and interactions with others.<\/p>\n

All the possible forms of betrayal involve a redefinition of relations in that they produce a double displacement. The person who betrays shifts from one role to another, and as he does so he changes the space he had occupied, forcing out the person betrayed, who changes space and role as well. Betrayal upsets the geography of the positions that subjects assume within a relationship, producing shifts that are not only emotional but that affect identities as well, thus leading to a redrawing of maps.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The boook’s strongest move is the refusal to treat betrayal as a property of disturbed personalities. Pulling betrayal out of the psychiatric register and into the structure of social interactions is real intellectual work. Most writers stumble at exactly this point. They want to explain betrayal by something inside the betrayer (envy, weakness, evil) rather than by the structure of the relationship and the conditions of the moment. Turnaturi refuses that move. She locates betrayal in the asymmetric rearrangement of role content under conditions of prior trust and disclosure. That is the frame that gave us leverage on Cofnas and Wax. It works because it is correct.
\nThe Razumov axiom is the book’s central tool. “There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.” Conrad, via Turnaturi, supplies the filter. No bond, no betrayal. Cofnas had no bond with Cambridge as a unified actor, so his betrayal language collapses under the test. Wax had a real bond with Penn across thirty years, so her claim survives the same test. The axiom is doing analytic work in both cases. That alone earns the book a place on a working shelf.
\nThe asymmetry insight is the second strong move. Betrayer and betrayed perceive time, the act, and its meaning differently. The time-asymmetry passage, where the betrayer compresses time and the betrayed expands it, is sharp and rare in the social-theory literature. Most writers treat betrayal as a single event experienced symmetrically. Turnaturi makes you see it as two events running on different clocks. That is hard to get to without her.
\nThe historical sweep is partially correct and partially impressionistic. The claim that betrayal shifted from public and societal (treason against the sovereign) to private and individual (adultery, broken trust) tracks something real about the rise of the modern state and the privatization of moral life. The Pollard versus Rosenberg contrast is well chosen. The Machiavelli passage on betrayal as resource is well chosen. But the broader argument is asserted more than demonstrated. Other readings are available. Betrayal has always had both societal and individual modes; what changed is the institutional response more than the structure of the act. She does not engage seriously with alternative framings.
\nSeveral weaknesses are real and you should not skip them.
\nThe book uses literary examples where sociological argument should be. Conrad, Shakespeare, Calvino, Pinter, Auster, Schnitzler. The examples illustrate well, but they sometimes substitute for analysis. When she wants to show how plural affiliations produce betrayal in modern life, she gives us Calvino’s “Solidarity” story rather than empirical material on how multi-membership generates loyalty conflicts. The story works as illustration. It does not work as evidence.
\nThe Internet chapter has aged. AOL screen names, chat groups, the Tim McVeigh outing case from 1998. The structural insight about plural affiliations holds. The examples feel from another era. A reader in 2026 wants the same frame applied to the platform-mediated coalition fights that now dominate intellectual life. She did not have those examples in 1999, but the frame extends cleanly.
\nShe underplays self-deception. She mentions Iago and how false betrayal can be manufactured. She notes that the betrayed often collaborates in the betrayal. But the deeper Trivers point, that we deceive ourselves about our own coalition positions and our own role in producing the rupture, gets less attention than it should. The Pinsof frame on moral vocabularies as coalition technology is a natural complement she does not reach for. The underlying point about coalitional motives behind moralized language is older than Pinsof, and she could have engaged it.
\nThe book does not cleanly distinguish felt betrayal from structural betrayal. When I say betrayal is often a hyperbolic reaction to others having different priorities from what we expected, I am pointing at the asymmetry between the felt experience and the structure. Turnaturi has tools for the structure. She is weaker on the felt experience as inflation. Othello feels betrayed but is not structurally betrayed. Turnaturi recognizes this case but does not develop a systematic frame for separating felt from structural betrayal. The reader has to supply that.<\/p>\n

From Amazon<\/a>: <\/p>\n

From Iago to Fredo, Judas to General Hospital, acts of betrayal fascinate us. Eventually we all encounter this universal experience of human interaction, but despite its ubiquity, being betrayed can turn our lives upside down and leave us feeling suddenly frail and alone. Betrayal only arises out of sharing something of yourself with another, and its impact speaks to the great tragedy of human relations: at bottom, other people are unknowable.<\/p>\n

While most attempts to study betrayal only consider its moral or psychological dimensions, Gabriella Turnaturi here examines betrayal as an act embedded in social relationships whose meanings change over time. For example, adultery is one of the most recognizable forms of betrayal, but a wide gulf exists between its role in Madame Bovary and in The Ice Storm. Therefore, Turnaturi contends, in order to examine the many meanings of betrayal we need to understand its context in a specific time and place. Born from the unpredictable possibilities of human interaction, betrayal emerges as a sociological event in this thought-provoking meditation on the stab in the back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Review<\/a>: <\/p>\n

A brief, tidy book, Betrayals is a welcome glimpse into a largely neglected area of social relations. A satisfactory explication emerges and the only major concern is brevity. Turnaturi\u2019s use of exemplars and examples drawn from history and fiction, from Homer to Updike, makes Betrayals accessible, readable, and interesting for scholars, students, and perhaps general readers. Betrayal is traditionally viewed as a symptom of a disturbed personality or a malicious choice (p. 26). Turnaturi offers a nuanced view, focused on underlying threats to value emphasis, cohesion, and, most important, social relations, present and future. She confirms that betrayal is a definitive social act. Turnaturi explains why and how betrayal is an asymmetrical re-arrangement of role content, started by one when others are perhaps un-aware. Betrayal disrupts personal or societal relations. The gravity of the breach \u2014 the betrayal \u2014 means the relational disruption is almost surely permanent. When trust breaks, suggests Turnaturi, the betrayed seek new arrangements and new relations as they embrace heightened wariness. Given the seriousness of the act, can we again trust the betrayer? Betrayal is a loss for everyone. In the middle three chapters, Turnaturi examines betrayal as it appears in fiction, theatre, and history. She uses the notion of the stranger, from Simmel, to combine Joseph Conrad with Shakespeare for an exploration of how our need for relations ensures betrayal. An analysis of the relations of Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex reveals how role con-tent (governance, romance), role conflict (monarch, lover) and role distance (loyalty, obedience) shape betrayal, leading to a schismogenesis. Jesus, betrayed by Judas and Peter, confirms that everyone is vulnerable and shapes resulting discussion of the act. The archetypal act by Judas suggests all are able to betray, and Peter underscores its inevitability. <\/p>\n

If relations are to flourish, social disclosure is necessary to define inclusion and create intimacy. Exchanging secrets may be the most treacherous form of disclosure. Regretfully, the rich potential that a chapter about secrets promises goes unfilled in Betrayals because there is too much description and too little integration of the disparate. A consilient ending provides meaning. This is especially true for the literature of social relations (e.g., Erving Goffman, Georg Simmel and Lyn Lofland), which roams widely, as do relations. In Betrayals, Tunaturi opts to apply further her explication of betrayal, rather than delve into meaning. As in a Raymond Chandler novel, Betrayals never honestly ends, instead sputtering and fading before stopping. Turnaturi nevertheless remains provocative. She suggests betrayal emerges from complexity (p. 111). Until the 16th century, ideology, the state, and religion formed the most complex relations, and treason was a principal form of betrayal. After that, social relations grew increasingly complex; forms of betrayal multiplied and, today, adultery may be most harmful. Until the 16th century, argues Turnaturi, betrayal was a societal act, whereas, today, it is the act of an individual. The word, \u201cbetrayal,\u201d still carries the gravitas Turnaturi assigns to its 16th century results, and well it should. In the private realm, adultery chips away at the feasibility of the family, damaging trust, loyalty, and fidelity. Adultery also threatens commitment to and perhaps economic investment in home, children, and future. In the public realm, the betrayal of thousands of investors, by Bernard L. Madoff, for example, leaves many retirees destitute and several smaller universities in financial danger. Madoff fuels the news media, as do the infidelities of presidents, prime ministers, and celebrities. Media coverage of betrayals, now morphed into less weighty deceits, adopts an indifferent tone (p. 122). \u201cWhile Hillary\u2019s Away Bill Plays\u201d is a feature of \u201cLate Night with David Letterman.\u201d \u201cEntertainment Tonight\u201d and People magazine report that celebrity betrayals resolve with a cheque or a week in rehabilitation. What once toppled monarchies now sells mops.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More. Here are some of my favorite bits: * What are we talking about when we speak of betrayal? Can we imagine a sociological definition of betrayal that would include all of its various modes, aspects, and forms? To betray … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9079"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187488,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079\/revisions\/187488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}