On Trauma & War

“Denial of the consequences of trauma can wreak havoc with the social fabric of society. The refusal to face the damage caused by the war [World War I] and its intolerance of ‘weakness’ played an important role in the rise of fascism and militarism around the world in the 1930s [setting] the stage for the ultimate debasement of human right under the Nazi regime: the moral justification for the strong to vanquish the inferior, the rationale for the ensuing war.”

– Bessel Van Der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score (pgs 188-189).