Blame It On Society, 1

I would like to begin to explore in this blog the idea of collective trauma.  This is not a scholarly dissertation but the beginning of what I hope will turn into a series of reflections and meditations on trauma, mental illness and its relation to the collective cultural, social and political environments in which we live.

I have had a peripheral interest in collective trauma or collective PTSD for many years now, but for me it has always existed in the background, a rather reluctantly acknowledged fact of life, but still a fact that is often ignored or goes unnoticed because of other and flashier concerns.  During my recent month spent in Bogota Colombia, all recorded on this blog, collective trauma was suddenly front and centre to me as I began to witness its symptoms and effects on the people surrounding me.

My second day in Bogota I witnessed three distinct angry outbursts: the owner of my hotel, who lost her temper and threatened to kick me out when I tactfully confronted her about her lack of transparency concerning some of the costs of my stay; one man on the sidewalk punching another for allegedly getting in his way; then, five seconds later, a woman with a crutch on a stalled bus yelling and screaming at the driver and hitting him with her crutch.  Colombia, as we all know, has endured fifty years of internal warfare thanks to FARC and the paramilitaries as well as the infamous drug wars of the eighies and nineties.

I had conversations with a wide number of Bogotanos about this.  They were all in agreement about the culture of PTSD that exists in their city and that many people have been permanently effected and irreparably broken by the decades of conflict, corruption and struggle and scandal they have had to endure.  I also appeared to see this in people's public behaviour and private attitudes: over all a survivor mentality; indifference to the needs and sufferings of others or at least of those outside of one's circles of kinship and social and professional affiliation.

These are all generalizations, of course, and in some cases likely sweeping generalizations, not to mention that I was often pleasantly surprised by acts of kindness by strangers and simply this almost seductive warmth and generosity that also very strongly characterises Colombians.

I came to think of the role that society, governments, and economic systems play on mental health; and now I am wondering more than ever about the role of the collective that is played on the well being or the malaise of the individual.  I also believe that this dynamic has as much relevance in our current Canadian zeitgeist as it does in regions of conflict and war, though perhaps with subtler findings.

One challenge that I believe that faces me in writing these dissertations has to do with objectivity.  One could even say that it doesn't exist but I still want to try to create and develop some facsimile of objectivity, given the limitations that hobble me: that is to say, the fact that I also am a product of my social, political and economic environment.  This is the soup that I, that we all live in; and I am an ingredient to this soup just like the rest of us.  The soup is me and I am the soup.  I am my formative environment and my formative environment is me.

I do hope that those of you who read this and succeeding posts will take the liberty to comment and share your insights, opinions and questions, especially your questions so that we can get a lively and ongoing discussion started.  On this matter, this subject of collective trauma, we have a lot of asking to do.