Thinking in the “We,” Where Individual and Collective Traumas Meet

Bakó and Zana argue in their concept of Transgenerational Atmosphere that we inhabit, without full awareness of its impact, the traumas of our families, our culture, and history. I believe that they are offering a very relational theory of trauma transmission that interpenetrates with the historical and the political allowing for both the cultural collective trauma and the trauma to the individual. They term this as a “we experience.” In my discussion, I extend their ideas of Transgenerational Atmosphere to an even broader “we.” I contend that societies soaked in atmospheres of trauma, hatred, and violence, without containment or attempts at repair, inevitably perpetuate violence. In understanding the magnitude of our current world and its wars and respective civic failures, it becomes equally crucial to creatively think of how reparative work can occur on a scale greater than one individual at a time.