{"id":430,"date":"2016-07-28T18:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/?p=430"},"modified":"2019-06-11T14:10:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T13:10:33","slug":"chosen-trauma-memories-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/chosen-trauma-memories-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Chosen trauma and memories of the war"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Trauma
Trauma and celebration in World War II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The psychoanalyst Vamik Volkan talks of \u201cchosen traumas\u201d and \u201cchosen glories\u201d, as stories from the past get retold and shape collective identity.<\/p>\n

The trouble is that how the events are remembered changes. The stories seem to be about the past, but also have a present-day purpose. At the celebrations of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, Margaret Thatcher pointed out that we had had a revolution a century earlier: she was quoting history, but also making a point about how she understood Anglo-French relations now.<\/p>\n

My sense is that the two world wars are acting as chosen traumas — articulating a sense of the struggle — and as chosen glories, speaking of our success.<\/p>\n

But the wars are remembered differently on the two sides of the Channel. Though things were tough, we didn\u2019t experience invasion, fighting in our streets, occupation or brutal repression.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The films and stories I remember from childhood gave the impression that we defeated the Germans on our own, grossly understimating the contribution of our allies. In fact, most of what I remember gave the impression that England won, fuelling an \u201cEngland against the world\u201d mentality which might well have contributed to the reasons for Scotland voting differently in the referendum.<\/p>\n

At the very least this overlooks the huge amount the English and the Germans have in common, going right back to the fact that \u201cEngland\u201d is a German word and the Anglo Saxons were Germanic tribes. It\u2019s appealing to think of Nazism as a German vice we bravely resisted, but Mosley\u2019s Black Shirts, admiration for Hitler (at least early on) and widespread anti-semitism at the time suggest we could have gone down the facist route more easily than we like to think.<\/p>\n

In psychoanalytic terms it\u2019s sometimes useful to think of feelings that are around being acted out by a minority. If the feelings are in some way unacceptable, a great way of dealing with the feelings is to then attack the minority. I think there were some nasty things in the European consciousness in the 1930s. Hitler wasn\u2019t a great leader: he was a nasty man who acted as a lightening conductor for those feelings.<\/p>\n

When people talk of the EU as the \u201cfourth reich\u201d they are invoking that chosen trauma. It puts some of our unacceptable vices into the driving seat:<\/p>\n