By Thomas Scheff

	‘In this country, we have 9/11 as our chosen trauma.’

A chance encounter I had at a local memorial to our Iraq war dead raised some disturbing questions. The father of a soldier who died in Iraq was showing me pictures of his son, a handsome teenager, from child to soldier.

After viewing many photos, I began to cry. The father was surprised: “What’s the matter?”

Me: “I was wondering how the war in Iraq could be worth the death of your son.”

Father: (Again he looked surprised.) “But we had to do something.”

Me: “Why is that?”

Father: “9/11.”

Me: “But Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.”

Father: “Well, they’re all Muslims.”

The father’s response surprised and shocked me, but it represents the kind of distorted thinking that seems to dominate a majority of our citizens. How could that be?

Part of the explanation, if not a complete answer, may come from a new social science theory regarding emotional sources of collective violence.

According to this theory, collective violence requires five steps. The first is the chosen trauma. The defeat of Serbs by Turks at the battle of Kosovo in 1396 was the battle cry in the 1990s for ethnic cleansing of Moslems. Although the defeat occurred 600 years ago, it lived on in the minds and hearts of Serbians.

The second step is that the injured group experiences the chosen trauma as a humiliation; they are ashamed of their defeat. The third step is the failure to mourn the losses sustained in the trauma, and face the painful emotions generated by the defeat.

The fourth step is the feeling of entitlement to revenge. Rather than face the anguish of self-examination, a group distracts itself into self-righteous anger and aggression against a purported enemy. To avoid feeling shame, an “us-them” world is constructed. Even if no enemy is at hand, one can be fabricated in order to avoid one’s true feelings.

The fifth step is collective regression. Under pressure of hidden emotions, a majority regresses to an early childhood mentality: mixtures of good and bad are unavailable. One’s parents and leaders are all good, and others are all bad because they are enemies. This kind of regression leads to violence.

Collective regression has less direct effect on the conduct of one’s daily life than it does on distant, large-scale issues. But it completely incapacitates judgment with respect to these distant matters. One is in the grip of a massive delusion; might as well believe with unwavering confidence that water flows uphill.

The new theory seems to explain, for example, how Israel’s public support for Prime Minister Sharon’s destructive policies toward the Palestinians is generated by the suppression of grief and shame stemming from the Holocaust. In this country, we have 9/11 as our chosen trauma. The failure to collectively mourn our losses and face the humiliation of our defeats has generated public support for the unnecessary war on Iraq.

The father’s response to his son’s death, and to 9/11, illustrates aspects of the process. Earlier studies of emotional bases of violence, including my own, have been expanded into V. Volkan’s book-length study of the causes of collective violence, “Blind Trust” (2004). These studies can help us understand our current dilemma, and also suggest that collective mourning and other social rituals might guide us toward peaceful action.