PTSD Politics Affects Future Generations Too

PTSD Politics is mostly argued in terms of either the antiwar implications of the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or the cost savings of not recognizing serious combat related psychological disabilities. The reactions to the plight of Viet Nam War veterans continuing disabilities has been intensified as part of the general desire that the bulk of war expenditures go to politically connected vendor firms and not to the unprofitable expenses of wage-based employees (combat soldiers).

Veterans who return home with psychological disabilities affect far more than their own quality of living, even including those unfortunate folks around them who may suffer their own traumatic injuries from the veteran victim’s acting out. They most tragically influence and limit the lives and well-being of their families and those they mentor from their experience and projected nightmares.

To avoid the current controversy over the merits and meaning of the recent foreign invasions of Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan let us consider a famous historical example of the terrible effects upon future generations of PTSD Politics. Perhaps the most famous example, though generally not recognized in the literature, is the historical reality of Socrates in ancient Athens.

The historian V.D. Hanson writes in the Book What If… Complete (Books I & II) about the terrible loss almost suffered to Western ethical philosophy by the near fatal result of Socrates being drafted to serve in the Athenian hoplite infantry in the catastrophic Battle of Delium. After relating the details of the defeat which ended with the hoplite phalanx being overtaken from the rear by a significant force of cavalry which caused them all to panic and flee in terror as many were run down, killed, injured or taken prisoner.

Socrates managed to survive, hide in nearby wooded area and under cover of darkness return to Athens. Hanson notes that decades after Socrates execution Plato wrote in his books The Republic and The Laws passages clearly colored by Socrates’ experience of being caught alone having to fend off blows by the pursuing enemy victors at Delium. The only thing Hanson does not notice is that this is a clear expression of a second generation effect of PTSD Politics.

The passage Hanson notes describes a requirement in Plato’s ideal world where everyone, including women and children who never participated in military exercises or battles, should be obliged to spend all day in all sorts of weather learning how to defend themselves from the attack Socrates suffered at the Battle of Delium.

This is clearly an expression of the projection of Socrates’ PTSD Politics based upon his nightmares from that trauma becoming part of the worldview of Plato whom he mentored. There is no possible objective reason for such a military exercise with such intensity carried on by non-combatants. This was not what Socrates spent his time doing, it was what Plato thought would be the ideal situation for the entire populace.

What was the situation with Socrates himself that created such a warped ideal society in Plato? History tells us that Socrates had been a conventional natural philosopher before he was drafted by lot to serve at Delium. He returned to Athens unable to continue his career or even to return home to his family and get on with his life.

Instead Socrates swaggered the streets of Athens harassing and attacking democratic citizens as not being worthy, being truly sheep only fit to be controlled by some more perfect shepherd and treated as livestock to be protected from predators and fed until it might please or profit their shepherd to shear or slaughter them.

For decades the citizens of Athens put up with this pathetic, deranged, traumatically stressed war veteran who attracted a small group of young, aristocrats amused and inspired by the systematic attacks Socrates’ launched against individual citizens. He did not hold any opinion or maintain any specific opinion in open discussion. He only attacked others while maintaining he knew nothing and defended no position of his own.

He assailed the notion that Athenian citizens were worthy of holding any position, that they were livestock not free citizens, that they lacked any clarity about the definition of anything. Socrates proved this by disputing any definition offered and ultimately simply declaring that he did not agree and therefore, they could not be right since a correct definition must be accepted by all reasonable men. Of course, Socrates was not reasonable; he was deranged by PTSD Politics. His general attacks became part of the political style of aristocrats seeking to overturn the Athenian democracy.

Eventually, after two of Socrates’ favorite students were overthrown for their brutal, corrupt tyranny; and after another gang of similar conspirators were also overthrown and their most ardent leaders executed; a general amnesty was sworn in Athens to end all political bickering and get on with their peaceful lives. Socrates was the last person still walking the streets attacking the Athenian democrats as unfit to rule themselves. He could not stop due to his PTSD Politics.

The exact nature of Socrates’ PTSD Politics was that he attacked middle class Athenian citizens as unfit to rule themselves since they had dissolved in panic alongside him at the Battle of Delium. He railed against the injustice of his having been drafted to serve in that disastrous battle and he ridiculed the Athenian city gods who were believed to control the casting of lots in Athens to choose minor officials, jury members, and those citizens to be drafted to serve in a particular military campaign.

Like many veterans suffering traumatic stress, Socrates was assailed by nightmares of being back on the field of the Battle of Delium, alongside comrades who may well have been killed in his sight, and suffering over and over the blows that killed and wounded others which Socrates just barely survived. He was depressed, unable to enjoy his wife or children or carry on any gainful employment or career. This all evolved into PTSD Politics as his attacks against the democratic government of Athens conflicted with the aristocratic political uprisings.

When indicted for continuing to wander the streets harassing citizens in a manner continuing the attacks of the recent aristocratic uprisings now forbidden by the amnesty, Socrates became suicidal. He presented his case clearly seeking to insult the jury into convicting him. The result was not to his liking. Of a jury of 500 he fell only 30 votes short of being acquitted. The citizens were reasoned, measured, and sympathetic to what they knew was over 30 years of PTSD Politics.

The jury knew that it was time to stop the attacks upon the dignity, justice and piety of the gods and government of Athens. Many opportunities were offered Socrates to mend his ways or leave the city to suffer his PTSD Politics in peace somewhere else. However, being psychologically deranged he could not do anything but continue his vehement attacks.

The jury system of Athens did not have a judge who could have dealt with Socrates. The only option was to either accept his insulting suggestion that he be punished by being given the highest honor of the city, to be fed at public expense as the paragon of Athenian virtue or accept the execution sought by the prosecution. His claim that having to accept the highest honor of such lowly livestock of the Athenian citizenry would be a terrible punishment, the jury moved to condemn him to execution, not as a rabid mob, but solely as a somewhat larger plurality for execution that for his original conviction.

Plato revered Socrates as his mentor. He was a well connected aristocrat who lived a life of leisure without ever being drafted into military service. For Plato Socrates was his ideal older veteran whose life he took as his model of what was good and right. This became the archetype of PTSD Politics when Plato used his skills as a tragic poetic and dramatic playwright to craft elegant dialogues of a totally fictitious Socrates who was not psychologically deranged by his war trauma; but rather universally revered, loved and respected as the wisest, best and most wonderful possible person in all of Athens.

By a series of accidents of history, Plato’s published works were declared virtually Christian in later centuries when Christians replaced Athenian pagans in control of the Roman Empire. Plato was considered Christian since his philosophy based upon negations seemed to be referring to some abstract and generalized Divine. Socrates was declared a Christ-like hero who was wrongly condemned by the wild mob proving Socrates right to attack the common citizen as foolish, unknowing, unworthy of self-government and needing a shepherd in absolute and total control of the people’s government.

When the medieval Scholastic monks of the new millennium after 1001 CE developed the “modern” university upon an “academic” model that sought to re-establish Plato’s Academy as translated into Latin assuming Plato was the epitome of philosophy and Socrates was the unique, sole, and absolute perfection of ethical philosophy and social eminence. In this mistranslation, the PTSD Politics written into Plato’s Republic began the Gospel of conservative political doctrine for the rest of the “modern” millennium.

The overall tone and context of Plato’s Dialogues is closely controlled by their author to make Socrates the center of attention, universal adoration, and support. Those who read the text uncritically easily get swept up in the PTSD Politics involved. They wish that if they follow the example of Socrates, they two can someday achieve that level of absolute loving support and universal authority written for Socrates by Plato.

Lao Tzu notes in the Tao Te Ching, that as a fish swims in water, humans live in their Tao or the total, enveloping context or Trail which one follows through the Cosmic Ocean of life upon Planet Earth. This context or trail is not only what each person follows, but also the trail further marked and developed by the passage of all who continue along it. The PTSD Politics of the “modern” “academic” library-based cloistered classroom follows the Trail or Tao of the fictional Socrates and the dramatic fiction of Plato.

The twisted nightmare society of Plato’s Republic and The Laws seeks to describe the world as it would have to be skewed to fit into Socrates’ PTSD Politics. Some have noted The Republic seems a parody or satire with its claims of elections rigged and security as the constant and sole concern of the government. Others note such is simply conservative political rhetoric which continues to be popular to certain segments of the ruling elite.

What generally isn’t noted is that this is purely PTSD Politics based upon a deranged view of the world accepted by those who were raised by folks either suffering their own traumatic stress, or worse believing the nightmares of their ancestors’ PTSD Politics to be Absolute Truth since it clearly was so important to those they revered and desperately wanted to make good, right, wise and knowledgeable as parents, elders or mentors.

The current Republican conservative coalition combines a number of these PTSD Politics. The neo-conservatives are the most famous at the moment. They are mostly Jewish descendents of parents or grandparents traumatized by the lack of forceful response to stop the Nazi Holocaust in the ‘40’s. This caused the families of these neo-conservatives to succumb to the belief that only a totally aggressive, bellicose stance in face of potential adversaries could be allowed. This misplaced PTSD Politics prompted a Crusader mentality in the Middle East that brought forth terrorists and insurgents and made them religious heroes.

Other Republicans are upset by Winston Churchill’s claim that Neville Chamberlain was hoodwinked into not finishing Hitler off instead of signing the Munich accords. Historical records note that the Spitfire aircraft which won the Battle of Britain and made British survival possible were built after the Munich Accords with funds in Chamberlain’s budget. The actual history of the early months of World War II show that Britain was barely ready for war when it came and was in no position whatsoever to even survive War with Hitler any earlier.

The Peace in Our Time Chamberlain heralded was not a naïve belief Hitler’s aggression was over. Rather it was a shrewd political calculation that if given another year to prepare, at the cost of surrendering the Czech Republic, Britain would be ready to fight when they truly had to. PTSD Politics again misinterprets a unique historical example with various interpretations as the total answer to all possible situations.

There are the national security conservatives traumatized over the events before and during the Second World War. There are the anti-federal government conservatives who are reacting to their Confederate ancestors’ traumatic experience of defeat and humiliation with the federal agents of Reconstruction. There are the anti-tax conservatives who share the traditional American objection to paying taxes to the central government to pay for the various war debts going back to King George III and his Stamp Act.

There are the economic conservatives traumatized by the Wall St. Crash of ’29 and the ensuing bank failures and Great Depression. There are also the social conservatives traumatized by the secular world, seeking relief in the literal fundamentalist interpretation of the King James Bible as a magical solution to all current problems. They all share the same PTSD Politics which acts from their imagined prior trauma and seeks to evade current difficulties and necessities in their mentors’ nightmare fantasies.

Now the world in general and the U.S. in particular faces economic, political, climate crisis and cultural difficulties arising from the prior centuries of “academic,” “modern,” crusader and Platonic blindness put forth into the world as the only reasonable scientific civilization alternative to primitive savagery. As we try to deal with the colossal decisions and corrections required, there is a large and growing segment of the population unable to reasonably deal with much of anything due to their PTSD Politics and resultant disabilities and mental aberrations.

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