atrocity-producing situation

is a coping mechanism where men are overwhelmed by unbearable fear and guilt and close themselves off as a kind of symbolic guilt.

Lifton calls 'the atrocity-producing situation.' This state is the moral equivalent of Hiroshima ground zero, a place where men are overwhelmed by unbearable fear and guilt (for their atrocities and survival). Back home, they protect themselves from their painful feelings through a 'psychic closing-off.' The end state of this process is a form of 'symbolic death,' a refuge from madness (Lifton 1967: 34, 35, 500). (Biehl vita 167)

atrocity producing situation, n.All

atrocity producing situation