The Trauma of Unbroken Silence by Paul Nyklicek

While the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech is well maintained, in the spring of 1967 Dr. King gave what some consider a far more important one. This speech, titled “A Time to Break Silence” (also known as “Beyond Vietnam”), marked the end of King’s own silence about the Vietnam War that was increasingly dividing American society. In breaking his own silence, King directly criticized America’s participation in the war and highlighted the existing systemic evil functioning within our society. He identified racism, materialism, and militarism as the “giant triplets” of this evil.

Racism, materialism, and militarism have long had a close relationship in American history. Racism is arguably the most obvious and blatant form of dehumanization. The concept of “race” is a scientifically invalid fiction. We are all members of the same human species. The notion of different races is a fabrication designed to give one group a way to dominate another by arbitrarily assuming who is superior. Beginning with European colonization and occupation of the continent now known as North America, racism has been an integral part of American society and culture. It began with the genocidal slaughter of the humans who were living here long before those colonists arrived. It continued with the heinous abductions of humans from Africa to serve as slave labor for the colonists. While legal slavery ended in the 1860s, it soon resurfaced in other “legal” forms and is currently manifested in the grossly disproportionate legal penalties against and mass incarceration of persons of color in the United States. And these are not the only ways that racism persists in America.    

“Profits over people” is the catchphrase that exemplifies the corrosive dynamic of materialism, the second of King’s “giant triplets.” Persons are commodified within the structure of a materialistic culture. The power and dominance of corporations have grown tremendously since 1967, and although corporations have become legal “persons” in America, they are not good citizens. According to their consistent behavior, they are sociopathic colony-organisms whose primary goal is to maintain their own existence and to increase profits for shareholders. They consider the harm they inflict only to the extent that it may detract from profitability. They are legally structured to be this way. More Americans suffer and die as a result of corporate crime than from street crime, yet very few with political power draw attention to this fact.

The extreme materialism of our culture dehumanizes us by reducing people to mere providers and consumers of “goods and services.” Dr. King’s warning that “we must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society” has become tragically prophetic because we have utterly failed to make that shift. If anything, our society has become much more “thing-oriented.”

When Dr. King speaks to us of the evil of militarism, we need to understand the pervasive dehumanization caused by war. All who are involved in it, all who witness it from any distance, experience the harm of war. The dehumanization of persons in uniform takes place when they are regarded merely as “boots on the ground” and numbered as casualties. Civilians who are killed are euphemistically labelled “collateral damage.” News reporting of wars carefully avoids calling them human beings.

No one is immune to the pervasive, destructive power of war. Pretending that “God’s on our side” does not immunize anyone who pulls a trigger or pushes a button causing others to die. The suicide rate for veterans of nearly 18 per day is deeply disturbing but not well publicized. That number does not include the many other “deaths of despair” that are not categorized as suicides.

President Eisenhower’s prescient warning in early 1961 about the rise of the military-industrial complex has become our current reality. The American economy has become highly dependent on our nation’s preparation for and participation in war. More than half of our government’s discretionary spending goes toward “defense.” Dare we consider what would happen to our economy if world peace actually happened? At best it would extensive chaos. On a societal level, it could be as painful as heroin withdrawal.

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Each of Dr. King’s “giant triplets” induces trauma within individuals and society as a whole. Each one is highly toxic. All who become infected with these toxins are injured as trauma is internalized individually and collectively, producing a diminished sense of value as a human being. This sense of inner shame is intensely painful for those who feel it and is often invisible to the casual observer. It is important to recognize that each of the three “triplets” are well established as part of our current legal, economic, educational, cultural, and social structure. In other words, all three are still the status quo in America.

Trauma is the experience of deep injury to the sense of our true identity. This true identity is one of knowing and trusting the fundamental goodness of who we are. What occurs when we are traumatized is a kind of obscuring of our true identity, such that we are left with fictional narratives of being undeserving or “bad.” This produces an experience of tremendous emotional pain. We try our best to avoid or numb this pain, but when we can’t, we become reactive and either lash out externally or internally against ourselves. Either way, we feed into the vicious cycle of violent perpetration and victimization.

The famed psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl wrote that there is a crucial difference between reacting and responding. Unlike merely reacting, responding provides space within which we can consider the meaning and potential consequences of how we might act. If we merely react to our trauma, we will very likely behave destructively toward others, ourselves, or both. If we allow ourselves some time and space to reflect on the true nature of our injuries and the false narratives we have constructed around them, we can begin to find our way out of the torture chamber of our shame.

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The question of who we are has been with us for thousands of years. Perhaps it is our belief in who we are that establishes how we live our lives. We have an old story of who we are: it’s the story of human beings who are merely biochemical machines, who live and desperately want to keep living. In this way we perceive our separateness from all “others” and hold a corresponding belief that there is a scarcity of what we need to stay alive. We are primarily motivated by fear of dying because we imagine that we don’t have enough to survive. Through our fear, we see others as obstacles or threats to our survival.

This tired old story rests on a kind of arrogance masquerading as “science” that would have us believe that all of reality is nothing more than a collection of subatomic particles in various arrangements interacting with various forms of electromagnetic radiation. Each of us are just “things” in such a universe.

But the reemergence of a new story is, in a way, older than the old story of us as things. Long ago we had a story that told of how we are profoundly connected to each other and to the sacredness of all creation. It proclaimed that each one of us is far more than a mere biochemical machine and that our natural inclination is toward love rather than fear. We are made for love and meant to participate in the sharing of love. This love is what Dr. King clarifies in the following way: “I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I’m talking about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. . . . If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love.”

King speaks here of love as a force that is exceedingly powerful, that transcends the limits of materialistic power. He is not talking about the kind of love we see in a Valentine’s Day card or on the Hallmark Channel. This the new story of who we are that is making a comeback. I believe that Dr. King extended an invitation to each of us to break our own silence regarding the systemic evil that continues to profane our shared humanity and the beautiful little world we have been gifted. We are invited to exercise our freedom of speech and to say no to what is wrong and unacceptable: War is wrong and unacceptable. Corporate greed is wrong and unacceptable. Destroying the biosphere is wrong and unacceptable. White supremacy is wrong and unacceptable. Christian nationalism is wrong and unacceptable. Misogyny is wrong and unacceptable. Poverty is wrong and unacceptable. “Othering” is wrong and unacceptable. To maintain our silence is to give power to the “giant triplets,” making them ever more toxic.

Dr. King encourages us to speak to the unspeakable and name every head of the hydra that would have us forget who we truly are and our true kinship with each other. He exhorts us to look directly at the source of lies and declare: “I don’t believe you.” He calls us to remember the truth: that we are a people of courageous love. He reminds us to be who we are and to live accordingly as members of the beloved community he envisioned. ♦

Paul Nyklicek is a husband and a father. He works in Farmington, Connecticut, as a psychotherapist and is a member of the Campaign Nonviolence Central CT Group.

Image: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a press conference, March 26, 1964.

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