Collective Trauma: The Fallout 1

We are all damaged. Everyone of us. No one gets a pass. There is something about our human nature that is simultaneously endearingly resilient and abhorrently stupid and self-destructive. Let's remember that our earliest ancestors, as they came out of Africa, were already survivors of a couple of millions of years of difficulty, danger, trauma. It's going to be in our collective DNA. This is an already given. There has always been a nasty Darwinist streak or tendency towards our way of doing things, even long before Darwin himself was around to theorize about it. There is something about this ancestral collective trauma that has become a kind of systemic galloping violence and we still haven't learned how to put the reins on it. It isn't as if the ones in power, the alphas who get on top and stay on top are any less damaged than the rest of us. They are every bit as wounded and in many cases even worse-off for their lack of empathy and lack of capacity for introspection. And this isn't to say that all alphas are like that as experiments have been conducted to prove that the most successful alphas are also themselves very empathetic, for which reason they are able to win and maintain the loyalty and love of their devoted subjects. But it doesn't always happen this way. Generally we have wounded, damaged and incomplete selves, competing and winning and dominating over other wounded, damaged and incomplete selves. But the damaged people in power have a particularly insidious ace up their sleeve and they use it over and over again with frightening skill and impunity. How it manifests nowadays is in the way that people with mental illness, who live in poverty, with addictions, or are simply stranded in low wage and unskilled or almost unskilled employment (as in my case) are always going to be marginalized, judged, dismissed, despised, oppressed, ignored, forgotten and patronized as the other. You are damaged but we are whole. And for the most part we buy into this nonsense. We internalise it, live it, it becomes part of our collective DNA and we all live or subsist saying in more different ways than can be counted: we are your inferiors. I have seen this play out over and over again in my work, with my housing providers, and with some of my friends. I don't think that any of us does any of these things consciously, deliberately or with malicious intent. It is simply hardwired into us. So, I will find myself being treated by one of my more privileged friends or associates in a way that feels patronizing or classist, and I will react defensively and for a brief moment or two, perhaps for but a nanosecond, we are class enemies. They usually are completely unaware of this dynamic, and the privileged almost always are oblivious to their privilege. But those of us who live at the bottom or on the margins do indeed see it. But it isn't so black and white, or should I say, black and red, since those are the colours of real anger and rage. If I can just get past my near-genetic suspiciousness and distrust, then I will also see and feel where the other is wounded and hurting, and very often we hurt in much the same way. This is why I am able to maintain friendships across the divide, by refusing to let it exist between us, while acknowledging its existence, and by cultivating empathy without preference. I will conclude, Gentle Reader, with an incident I witnessed on public transit yesterday. On the Davie Street bus in the morning there was a ruckus between a quarrelling couple. They both looked socially disadvantaged, possibly or recently homeless, but two very hurting individuals. She was trying to get away from him and he was begging her not to leave him They were both swearing like proverbial troopers. As he got out of his seat to follow her to the door, he almost lost his pants, his shorts literally falling down so everyone could see his bare bum. We did enjoy the entertainment value. I commented to the young man seated next to me that this is also very sad, and there must be a hidden message here. He seemed open to the idea. Then, a mother with a little girl, perhaps four or five years old, got on and sat nearby. The little girl was singing, repeating over and over again the lyrics, "I love you." just outside the bus, the couple was still swearing and raging at each other, and the little girl kept singing. I turned to the fellow next to me and said, "That is the message. The child never stops singing." He seemed to get it. That's all for now, Gentle Reader. No comments, please.