The Structural Trauma of Western Culture

Toward the End of Humanity

Yochai Ataria

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9783319532271
• eBook ISBN: 9783319532288
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book describes the diverse manifestations of trauma and the ways in which trauma has shaped—and dismantled—our culture. Yochai Ataria describes how we are addicted to trauma and have become both its avid producers and consumers. Consequently, the culture in which we live has become posttraumatic in the deepest sense. This is apparent in the products that have shaped and continue to shape Western culture, ranging from the biblical sacrifice of Isaac to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Ataria exposes the primary attributes of this so-called posttraumatic culture: sacrifice through action, an uncontrolled lust for blood, an inability to speak and describe things in words, a sense of foulness and alienation, emotional death, imperviousness, separation, and an overwhelming sense of exile.

Table of contents

• The Structural Trauma of Western Culture
• 1 The Sources of Western Trauma: From the Akeda of Isaac to Kafka
• 2 Toward Post-Humanity: A Literary Consideration
• 3 A Serious Man
• 4 The Crisis of Manhood
• 5 The New God of Anarchy
• 6 The Body in the Postmodern Era: A View from Captivity
• 7 K.’s Fatalistic World
• 8 This is the End: A World of Silence
• 9 Techno Rather than Guns
• 10 Culture-Trauma: Some Critical Remarks
• Bibliography
• Index