Explanation of the socio-cultural situation through the prism of trauma

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the social consequences of psychological trauma at the individual and collective levels and the identification of the effects of transforming the trauma into a tool of social research and impact. In the process of research, it is shown that in modern intellectual discourse, mental trauma is understood as a wound caused by a certain catastrophic event and capable of affecting not only the immediate victims, but also large social groups or even the entire society. Mental trauma destroys the established ideas of a person or a group of people about the world and their own position in it, thus it can cause various manifestations. At the individual level, trauma manifests itself through apathy, which destroys the will, self-confidence, and with them personal identity, despair, which undermines the idea of oneself, or disintegration, which causes various antisocial consequences (alcoholism, drug addiction, etc.). No less threatening to the community are collective traumas, the consequences of which are determined by the specific historical context and political conjuncture, and can be manifested not only in the aggravation of existential issues, but also in the strengthening of group identity. It is emphasized that the ability of collective trauma to strengthen the emotional unity of the group and consolidate communities should be used with great care. The revival of historical memory of collective trauma, including historical one, is accompanied by an increase in emotional tension and generates an internal desire to react to the wrong done. Thus, the desire to talk about the trauma, mourn the victims, preserve the memory of the wrong done, and ultimately develop strategies to overcome the opposition, that led to the trauma in the past, contributes to the detraumatization of the group, so as the desire for revenge can cause new traumas and even turn the victim into a criminal, and thereby providing an opportunity for criminals to avoid responsibility