cultural trauma

is a kind of trauma which, for whatever reason, registers in the collective.

[C]ultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways'.[18]

is a publicly accepted memory which is negative, unforgettable, and existentially threatening.

a memory accepted and publicly given credence by a relevant membership group and evoking an event or situation which is a) laden with negative affect, b) represented as indelible, and c) regarded as threatening a society's existence or violating one or more of its fundamental cultural presuppositions.'

is like a personal trauma, is not immediately registered as a universal trauma. Even the holocaust and watergate had to be constructed as such through a long process of narration and signification.

In one, he demonstrates that the Holocaust was not immediately perceived as universally signifying universal evil for Western societies. Rather than that, it was constructed as such by way of a long process of narration and signification.[15][16] In the second, he shows that the Watergate Crisis was originally not perceived by American society as much more than a minor incident. Here, too, the incident had to be culturally narrated and constructed as compromising the core values of American society, turning what was first thought to be a mundane faux-pas into a full-fledged scandal.[17] A key claim of both studies is that even events that are currently thought of as deeply traumatic for civil society are not inherently devastating but are rather constructed as such through cultural processes. (wiki). . . '[C]ultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways'.[18]

cultural trauma, n.Definitions

cultural trauma