Just writing this here because it involves something in my head and it is vaguely related to epigenetics. I seem to have taken an interest over the years in the nature of history-induced trauma, especially that which is not seen. We all know that those who have experienced genocides have a sense of historically-induced trauma, however that is defined. As well as this, there are those responses to trauma that are not noticed, seemingly be anybody studying any of the academic disciplines (cultural studies probably gets the closest). I have said that at the base of the “Western personality” is the trauma of being identified as a colonizer. That explains why Obama is left making all sorts of lame-ass statements about Islamic State, such as that Christians in the past also set people alight. Westerners are people who have castrated themselves at the level of the ability to identity aggressive power interests and to work effectively against these. They always seem to end up on the back foot. Or even meddling in dangerous affairs, but still with not any deep sense of the power interests, so they are caught out once again. Ask a typical Western person with a guilt complex to help you against an attack by those, perhaps, espousing chauvinistic interests, and they will mutter something about everybody’s patriarchy being different, as they wander off into the ether. A Westerner is someone who has castrated themselves at the point of looking at power
Well, that is invisible historically-induced trauma, experienced as guilt, which makes people practically useless as defence (and certainly such people are worse than useless as allies, because they get very muddle-headed, due to guilt, and start to victimise their friends when they feel confused).
I’m not sure if this level of guilt has sunk deeply into the genetic make-up of people, but there is something that is so deep it may as well be in my own genes. As I mentioned, I have been talking to Japanese about the I.S. killings, and what followed was strange — the whole week I had a sensation that I could have stopped I.S from killing Mr Kenji Goto, if only I had been more on my toes and less useless. What had I done wrong? I kept going through everything in my head I could have done to stop this useless death. I was trying to get into the fabric of history to see if anything could have been changed. That was really weird seeing as how I am totally unrelated to these events, but I did feel deep personal responsibility. More than that, I felt guilt and anxiety that I would be blamed for this failure.
And then I began to see that this relates to my own basic historically-induced trauma, since my father seems to have blamed me for his loss of the Rhodesia war. I’m very used to this emotion of sinking into guilt about a war I cannot win. This basic trauma defines my character, since I am rooted in history on the basis of this historical guilt — or more precisely, sense of ineptitude. I do try to overcome it through my writing, though. And, needless to say, it is a very different order of sensation from those Westerners who view themselves as capable of extremely evil deeds because their ancestors were “colonialists”. I just feel responsible for not being able to help those whom I feel responsible for — those who are closest to me because I relate to them every day. But this sensation is certainly extreme and I feel it on a primal level, as if preoccupation with it uses up all my primal energy. And its so weird that I do not think that my job is something different than to go behind enemy lines and conduct a rescue. Instead I just anticipate being blamed for not doing that.
This describes the knot of trauma that is underneath all my writings.
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