How to Be a Survivor

Democracy Newsletter: March 2024

By Steve Zolno

​Our discussion for February 12, 2024 was on the book Surviving Our Catastrophes [hardcover] [Kindle], by Robert Jay Lifton, published September, 2023.
 
The author points out that catastrophes always have been with us, but there are ways for us to become less overwhelmed by them. They have varied from war to pandemics to personal trauma.
 
He states that experiencing a catastrophe can affect us physically as well as mentally, making us less able to move through life and confront our daily challenges (Page 4). Many books have been written about survivors who have adopted means to help them cope and move on. Sharing those experiences with others — which has the potential to make them meaningful — can have a healing effect (Page 5). Lifton (who is 97) interviewed Hiroshima survivors who carried the trauma of that bombing with them. But many were able to convert their trauma to anti-nuclear activism which gave their lives meaning (Page 11).
 
The author quotes from the diary of an occupant of the Warsaw ghetto: “The worst part of this ugly death is you don’t know the reason for it.” This individual was typical of those who have lost hope and were unable to find meaning in their situation (Page 27).
 
Some survivors of catastrophes close themselves off altogether from their memory of the event and experience what the author calls “doubling” — establishing a separate inner personality that is hidden from the world as that individual refuses to discuss the event (Page 29). Other survivors can become angry at the world and vent that anger repeatedly to those around them (Page 31).
 
Catastrophes, or fear of them, that affect large numbers of people, like the Black Plague of the 1300s, the 1918 flu epidemic, or our recent Covid pandemic, can contribute to what the author calls “a general apocalyptic aura where fear is widespread.” (Page 37)
 
The author discusses the apocalyptic narrative in some religions that predict a violent end to the world, but with a glorious resurrection for believers, as occurs in the Judaic and Christian traditions (Page 38).
 
Those who survive large catastrophes can have survivor’s guilt while they mourn for what they have lost. In some cases, such as the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, widely shared mourning can contribute to healing (Page 65).
 
Jacques Lacan, the French psychoanalyst, wrote about those who refuse to mourn but instead hold on to a hope to avenge themselves, Shakespeare’s Hamlet as an example (Page 68). These people remain psychologically stuck because they refuse to fully experience their mourning.
 
Collective mourning for mass losses, such as the soldiers whose lives were lost in the Vietnam war, is a beginning to healing for those affected by such events: “In collective mourning the sharing is the essence of the process.” (Page 72) This also may include the naming of the dead.
 
There are many survivor groups that support each other during meetings, speaking out, and even starting organizations to champion their cause (Page 87). This has been done by groups composed of victims of mass school shooting, both parents and children.
 
Lifton identifies climate change as a “looming catastrophe” (Page 93). “Climate scientists have identified some of those effects as very much present in our immediate world and as posing a threat to human civilization over the course of this century.” He expresses hope that enough people will see it that way so that the urgent action needed to prevent climate change from being an irreversible catastrophe will be taken. Most of the American public sees this threat, but we are distracted by other catastrophes that may keep us from focusing on it.
 
How do we learn the lessons that we need from our history of catastrophes? “They can be passed down, directly or informally, through word of mouth in families and communities, and sometimes taught in schools. But they also can be given more public structure in memorials and commemorative events.” (Page 108)
 
Hopefully we have learned enough to successfully deal with future catastrophes that inevitably will occur: “We need to confront whatever catastrophe we experience and recognize its interaction with everyday life.” (Page 131)

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Steve Zolno graduated from Shimer College with a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences and holds a master’s in Educational Psychology from Sonoma State University. Steve has founded and directed private schools and a health care agency in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of six books.

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