Does the USA suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ?

possum

This is a mere supposition as it is impossible to research and hence prove something like this. But when I took my directive from..(I think it was Shelby Foote) to try and understand the US psyche by understanding the ACC, I made an interesting observation.Could it be that the huge trauma of the ACC which did not just affect the soldiers, so many of them mere boys, but their families and friends.Could this have created intergenerational PTSD? 150 years isn't so long ago and here in NZ we are generationally still coming to terms with the scars inflicted on our great-grandfathers and mothers through colonialism of around the same time. Deep trauma reverberates through the generations.Some of the masked presentations of PTSD include:
Alcohol and drug misuse/abuse; Obsessive eating - obesity, anorexia, bulimia; Obsessive spending; gambling problems;
Homicidal and suicidal tendencies;(your gun laws are in keeping with this) Phobias- hmmmm used to be the commies with Senator McCarthy, now its..let me guess, the terrorists;
Amnesia is another one...Vietnam what happened there again so we don't make the same mistake twice???

620,000 of the country's prime decimated..something that deep does not go away overnight. When children are traumatised, you know what they do? They re-enact. If Mother tried to drown them at bath-time, they spend their days drowning Barbie in a bowl of water over and over. If they were thrashed merciless, the little ones bash the bejayzus out of their dollies only to minister to them afterwards with their Florence Nightingale outfits on. Its a means of trying to come to terms with the insanity of extreme violence, you repeat the pattern until the experience is integrated. Unfortunately many traumatised individuals re-enact in real ways instead of play-acting and our prisons bear testimony to their PTSD rage.
This is not on a physiological or psychological level, more on an archetypal level possibly. And ít's not a criticism...I'm really trying to understand you guys. Shoot me down in flames if you must but it was a little epiphany.

charge_of_glory · Captain Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 136

I understand where you're coming from and I think you may be right. It seems like America fits a lot of the symptoms of PTSD. I know the Civil War definitely generated a lot of hard feelings between people of the North and South in the 1860's. That hasn't gone away yet. The two still fight with each other. There are perfect examples in these forums. If those hard feelings can be passed down through generations, I don't see why PTSD couldn't be passed down too. Although, I think it's more so the population than it is the country. Three milion fought. That's three million families affected by the CC. With millions of people related to those soldiers, they all feel the pain of those in 1861-65. The fact that people reenact the battles and that the original sites from the war are preserved possibly contributes to the intergenerational PTSD too. But even though the US may still be healing from the Civil War, I think it had to happen and the PTSD from it is a good thing in some ways. It's like a reminder not to let a civil war happen again.

possum · Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:19 am Post subject: Does the U.S.A. suffer from PTSD

Or war altogether. I guess there's alot of people making alot of money out of the sale of armaments. I also imagine that we as a species lack the kind of empathy required to put ourselves in the now empty shoes of the recipients of the shells, bullets, land-mines etc that are propping up alot of people's lifestyles.
Wouldn't it be great if memories of the horror of the ACC became a means of working against the forces of destruction rather than a means to indulge more of the same? I'm of Celtic origin (Irish, Scottish)with a touch of Maori. (I'd be an Octaroon if I was in the US south in 1860) And my forebears of all denominations have slashed, carved, annhilated, exploded, probably raped and pillaged merrily down the generations with the best of 'em.
So now I just think why do we keep doing it? Are we all stark raving mad heading rapidly to extinction? What do you reckon CoG????

charge_of_glory · Captain Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 136

I think people keep doing it because they've lost touch with our species' mortality. They think that humans are the ultimate beings and that we'll never become extinct. They don't realize that one day something will happen and humans may not survive. I think it's all a result of our advancing civilizations and medical technology. It's a real shame too. But while I think all this pointless violence is terrible, I don't think the same about some wars. The Revolutionary war and the Civil War were needed and those who fought and died weren't murderers, they were heroes. Of course there were a handful of not so honorable men in the armies, but they were just bad people. Unfortunately, it seems like people think that if you can do it in a war, you can do it all the time.

I believe that in the next 1,000 years, some huge natural diasaster will strike and the whole world will be affected. While it will be terrible and some will die, I think it will cause people to work together as a species fighting for survival instead of individuals just worrying about themselves. It will be a horrible, but needed event. But until then, we just need to hope that humans don't completely lose touch with each other.

possum

Pity we have to wait for a natural disaster before it happens.
Thanks CoG..you are helping to restore same balance in a perhaps slightly jaundiced view I have that many people in the USofA are gun-totin', xenophobic, 'shoot now, ask questions later' type people. Mind you I have a bit of a soft spot for Tony Soprano...

charge_of_glory · Captain Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 136

Well only a few Americans are actually like that lol. They just happen to run the country. But come 2008, that will hopefully change.

possum

That's if we're all still around in 2008. Sorry, I was being a bit flippant before. I really do understand what happened in Florida in the last election and how Dubbya managed to get in and how close it was. There's a rather anti-american feeling in NZ which dates back to the 80's when we banned US nuclear warships from our shores and copped alot of bullying and flac from the US administration and were expelled from the ANZUS alliance. It was quite a David and Goliath action (especially given that our Prime Minister at the time was called David) from a country of only 3 million inhabitants. Twenty years on, the pressure still continues and the people are generally vehemently anti-US foreign policy and this inevitably spills over into anti-americanism per se.I realise this topic has strayed from anything to do with Civil War. PS I tend to stick up for Americans in the American bashing conversations that happen around and about and that's when I get back to talking about that huge national trauma you endured as a nation in the 1860's.

charge_of_glory · Captain Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 136

Wow, the US government really is quite a bully. It sucks too since most of the people here don't like what they do. Thanks for sticking up for us though. It's kind of hard to be hated by so many different countries. You start to feel a little alone in the world.

Sometimes I wonder if I would've fought in the Civil War and it's hard to decide what my choice would've been. But then I think about how my government is today and how it was back then, and I think I would rather die for my country in the 1860's than now. Back then at least the government wasn't so corrupt. It's a shame what the world is becoming nowadays. I only wish there was something we could do about it...

possum

Your country IS great, your country is not the problem.When you have such a vast population, its so easy to feel you can't do much. Its really easy to make a difference in our small country (which can tend to make us outspoken and stroppy). For you people it was more cut and dried in the 1860's, will i get the musket down and enlist or not? Or maybe it just seems simpler from the perspective of time gone by.
Just by talking in these forums online is already quite alot as people make more and more friends and we appeal to our common humanity. I believe lots of Israeli individuals were chatting to Lebanese individuals as their towns were being decimated. So you're breaking down that polarization of good guys/bad guys. Governments excel at manipulating the negative emotions (ie.fear) of their populations. If you keep a population terrified and dumbed down, you've got way more control over them.

possum

Your country IS great, your country is not the problem.When you have such a vast population, its so easy to feel you can't do much. Its really easy to make a difference in our small country (which can tend to make us outspoken and stroppy). For you people it was more cut and dried in the 1860's, will i get the musket down and enlist or not? Or maybe it just seems simpler from the perspective of time gone by.
Just by talking in these forums online is already quite alot as people make more and more friends and we appeal to our common humanity. I believe lots of Israeli individuals were chatting to Lebanese individuals as their towns were being decimated. So you're breaking down that polarization of good guys/bad guys. Governments excel at manipulating the negative emotions (ie.fear) of their populations. If you keep a population terrified and dumbed down, you've got way more control over them.

charge_of_glory · Captain Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 136

Yeah, you're right. If people be nice to one another and do what's right, the world can be a good place. As long as the citizens of their countries don't let themselves be pushed around, maybe all the governments of the world can come together and work out some type of global peace treaty. They just need to feel the pressure from their people and have the heart to do the right thing. It sounds a bit farfetched, but maybe it will be a reality someday.

FortDouglas · Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:46 pm Post subject:

Well, that sounds all very nice. However, it won't become a reality, sad to say. You have a problem with cultures, ie: bullfighting. I'm more in favor of the shoot first reasoning. It would be nice if everyone would play nice... but that too is not in the books.
I have looked at other countries that changed because of wars. I have tried to make some sense of it. For example, Russian Tsars truely believed that they were an extension of God. That they above reproach and what they decided was right. The fiasco of the last Romanov was just unbelievable . But I digress, sorry.
What I find interesting is that you don't see re-enactments of WW1 or WW2. As for the ACW itself, I don't believe that it has truely ended. I wanted to fly the Stars and Bars in front of my home. I didn't because it would upset my neighbor.The flag itself has it's origins with the Scottish ,Saint David . Sadly, it brings to mind racism and the KKK .
150 yrs. later we are still debating who was right , who was wrong. Why it happened, was it slaves or was it taxation .Was it a noble cause?
As for Europeans understanding the ACW I really don't care if they understand or not. They have their own mess to sweep out from underneath the rug. Let them focus on and criticise that . Several countries had Civil Wars, What makes the ACW so special ?
Try as one may, No one can come to terms with the mindset of the German people during WW2. A legacy that has followed them ever since.But would it be safe to say that the German people's views on the war is much different than ours? Do they care ? I doubt if they are traumatised by public opinions.They too are a proud people.
Ok, so what does make the ACW so fascinationg ? For many, perhaps, it's the romantic view that the Movie GWTW put out. The death of so many young men is anything but romantic.. Yet we trudge over the same ground for over a century. Why ? On another board, someone made the observation that movies of the ACW seems to favor the South. Could it be because the North was wrong ?
Also what I find interesting is that they cover Andersonville like it was the Holucost, but seldom do you see or watch anything on all the CSA soldiers who perished at Fort Douglas, here in Chicago ! Indeed, Chicagoans are completely oblivious of the fact that there ever was a Fort Douglas !
A few weeks ago, in our local paper, a columinst wanted to trace the Underground Railroad from the Mississippi River, going into Quincy and up towards Galesburg , ILL.. For reasons I haven't been able to put together yet, there seems to be a resurgence of things connected to the ACW. From what little I know, Illinios , outside of producing Lincoln, had very little to do with THE CAUSE.
I think that there was a infantry and a calvary group. For all the movies and documentaries on the ACW, ILL simply doesn't come up.
For myself, I find the ACW fascinating . The loss of 53,000 young men in Gettysberg is mind blowing . I can't even begin to imagine the carnage that those people faced. I went to a small re-enactment in Downer's Grove many years back. I found the area with the medical treatment of that time very interesting as well as shocking by todays standards.
So , we have a time honored fascination with the ACW .With this firmly in place... The South will never die. Indeed, It may well Rise Again.