On Cultural Trauma
I’m reading about cultural trauma for my dissertation. Lots of people have asserted that events of large-scale traumatic nature have a means of permeating the social milieu of the societies that are affected, or if the societies are destroyed (as was the case in America — or as North American readers might say ‘The Americas’ —), then the trauma of the event still permeates the social milieu of the society that gradually forms in the aftermath of the cataclysmic event.
Because cultural traits are certainly evolving but still transmitted across generations for a very, very long time, it stands to reason to suggest that our societies both in the north of south of this continent (or as North American readers might understand: the North American and Central American continents) are still experiencing the affects of the genocide against the 90 million people who used to inhabit this continent before Columbus crossed the Atlantic.
A reader may react to the above by thinking “yes, so what’s the news?” The news is that I am just getting the hang of how is it possible that such a traumatic episode of history continues to affect our everyday lives.
The (not-at-all) funny news is that I am not convinced anybody has yet articulated a means to work on healing at the cultural level, unlike the robust interventions that are already in place to heal individual trauma. The hopeful news is that there are a lot of people trying to figure this out now. I like to believe I am one of them.