Climate Crisis and the Cosmic Bomb: Is the American Dream an Expression of Cultural Trauma?

Abstract

Abstract

By combining key principles from the theories of cultural trauma and developmental trauma and applying them to the collective unconscious from an ecopsychological perspective, America's persistent dysfunctional paralysis in the face of the mounting existential threats and ongoing ecological losses attributable to human-caused climate change can be viewed as a “developmental cultural trauma disorder” rooted in our assertion of dominion over the creative/destructive forces of nature in 1945 and the concurrent use of that awesome power to create hell on Earth. The consumption-driven American Dream itself, with the artificial suburban lifestyle at its atrophied heart, is seen in this shadow-casting light as the product of collectively repressing our natural grief over our lost connection to the natural world, the world soul, and human nature itself. By becoming self-aware of where we are collectively and individually in this suppressed grieving process, and by engaging in some form of truth and reconciliation at the societal level, it becomes feasible to treat this disorder and facilitate a progression to the final stage, acceptance, which is not subject to repression and instead unleashes the kind of energy needed for constructive, systemic changes that hold the potential for reversing climate change socioculturally, from the bottom up, rather than politically, from the top down. Key Words: Depth psychology—Climate change—Connection to nature—Ecopsychology—Jungian/archetypal.