What Is Trauma? 4

Each society, every culture, all nations each strike their own particular toxic balance.  The more dysfunctional the state, the more extreme the measures taken to maintain that balance.  I am thinking of Stalinist Cuba (which was the model of communism adopted by Castro.  Che, I suspect, was more Maoist) and Fidel Castro's six hour revolutionary tirades that he would deliver to the Cuban people.  I am sure that prolonged exposure to any kind of harangue could be exhausting, mind-numbing, and eventually brainwashing.  Ever hear of Stockholm Syndrome?

Here it is straight from Uncle Wiki:

Stockholm syndrome (sometimes erroneously referred to as Helsinki syndrome)^[1][2] is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity.^[3] These feelings, resulting from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time spent together, are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. Generally speaking, Stockholm syndrome consists of "strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.

and...

Formally named in 1973 when four hostages were taken during a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, Stockholm syndrome is also commonly known as "capture bonding".^[5] The syndrome's title was developed when the victims of the Stockholm bank robbery defended their captors after being released and would not agree to testify in court against them.^[6] Stockholm syndrome's significance arises because it is based on a paradox, as captives' sentiments for their captors are the opposite of the fear and disdain an onlooker may expect to see as a result of trauma.

Whether you are training a dog or saddle-breaking a horse, you have always two objectives in mind: breaking the animal's will,

and...

persuading them to love you.

How many of you have read the ultimate dystopian novel, by George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four?
This is the story of the ultimate totalitarian state, where the state, also known as Big Brother, has complete control over every detail of the lives of the members of the "Party" which constantly feeds the people lies and propaganda loaded with fear in order to keep them in line.   The protagonist, Winston Smith, becomes lovers with a woman in the Party (called a sex crime) and she ends up betraying him to the authorities.  After he has been held and tortured he is told that he will be in time executed, after being set free for a while.  This is when Orwell draws his most chilling prophecy of the future of humankind, as being that of a boot forever stamping on a human face.  At the very end, he is broken, and concludes that he has come to love Big Brother.  Fait accompli.

Even the ugliest, most oppressive regimes are usually able to seduce their own populace into loving them and commanding their undying loyalty, and sometimes especially the worst of the worst.  North Korea would be a splendid example of this.  The fear of consequences is often a very effective corrective for winning the hearts and loyalty of the subjects.  We are a social animal, we humans, by far one of the most social animals on the planet, along with ants, bees and lemmings.  There is something so powerful about our need to belong, to be fully bonded members of the tribe, that we really cannot exist without this sense of full participation.  One has only to consider the effectiveness of the passive form of schoolyard bullying, known also as shunning.  Girls are especially good at this, but schoolboys can be every bit as evil this way.  This is why exile, in ancient times, was often so popular as an alternative to the death penalty.  Banning a miscreant from the very community that they always called home was the equivalent of declaring "you are dead to me."  And early death has often followed exile, hence the brutal consequences that are often experienced by our own modern refugees.  Another example might have been the slave who loved unconditionally their brutal and antagonistic master.

I believe this all ties in with trauma.  Living under the trauma of fear and threat we are coerced into conforming.  And we are all treated with stark reminders of what could happen to us for not conforming to the social order: whether in having to witness the burning of witches and heretics, or bloody human sacrifice, or in our own progressive and enlightened era, being subjected daily to the spectacle of the visibly and profoundly homeless as a chronic lesson of what happens to those who will not worship the golden cow called money and wealth, and will not work at the low-paying and meaningless jobs that in the end will still do little or nothing to keep a roof over your head.  In order to live with this state of cognitive dissonance we often fall in love with our overlords.  Mission accomplished, our will has been broken, their wish is our command, or, stick a fork in me.  I'm done.

So we usually end up conforming and following the dictates of our overlords and for one simple reason.  The alternative is just too scary and too deadly.  The isolation will end up killing us long before the executioner's bullet, and for this reason in all our collectives we live in a toxic state of balance that always regains and reasserts its form and consistency no matter what is done to really try to change anything.  Either way, we are traumatized.  Either way, we are screwed.