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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!geoff
From: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Psychological Reactions to Violence
Message-ID: <749@burl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Jun-85 13:21:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.749
Posted: Fri Jun 14 13:21:07 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Jun-85 07:40:59 EDT
References: <615@astrovax.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 27
Summary: 

In article <615@astrovax.UUCP> elt@astrovax.UUCP (Ed Turner) writes:
>
>I cannot help wondering if the severity of the psychological trauma
>associated with violence or potential violence is a result of the fact that
>the typical victim (or potential victim) has almost no previous personal
>experience with violence.  Despite the cliche that we live in a violent
>society, consider the following (randomly ordered) facts:

<etc>

I think Ed makes a very good point here.  I read in the Wall Street Journal
a few weeks ago about interviews with Vietnamese about their side of the
war.  They were fighting one of the biggest countries in the world, had
their homes and families blown to bits around them, and came through it
with vastly fewer psychological problems than our soldiers did.  I guess
they had grown up with it, so to them is was 'normal'.  They could deal
with it.  In contrast, our soldiers were brought up in a very safe (by
comparison) world, where the big problems were whether or not they could
get a date to the prom.  Suddenly they are in an alien environment with
people bent on killing them -- and they can't tell friend from foe.  Humans
are adaptable -- but not infinitely so.

On a smaller scale, this seems to be the same sort of thing as crime victims
go through.  And once it happens, it must be very hard to look at the world
with the same eyes.

	geoff sherwood