Virus

“Violence is often described as a social issue, a moral failing, or an innate human instinct. But in fact, argues Dr. Gary Slutkin, violence is a contagion that infects a society like a disease.

This isn’t a metaphor. In THE END OF VIOLENCE, Dr. Slutkin draws on the expertise gleaned from 40+ years on the frontlines fighting deadly epidemics to reveal that violence operates according to the same predictable logic as every other contagious disease, initially infecting a small number of carriers then spreading from host to host. When a shooting occurs in a neighborhood, it’s not just a tragic event — it’s patient zero in an outbreak.”

It should get our attention that every person or group of people that have discovered what the Native American people called wetiko unanimously consider it to be the most important topic - there’s not even any competition - to understand in our world today. To give one example: Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan refers to wetiko (though by a different name) as “the topic of all topics.” Called by many different names throughout history, the spirit of wetiko renders every other issue secondary, for wetiko is the over-arching umbrella that contains, subsumes, informs and underlies every form of self-and-other destruction that our species is acting out in our world. If we don’t come to terms with what wetiko - which can be conceived of as a virus of the mind - is revealing to us, nothing else will matter, as there will be no more human species. Wetiko inspires the darkest evil imaginable while, at the same time, potentially helps us to wake up to our true nature as creative beings. How wetiko winds up actually manifesting depends upon whether we recognize it as the on-going revelation that it is - it is showing us something about ourselves that is of supreme importance for us to know.

I wrote this book to sound the alarm about trauma. Trauma is way too prevalent, harmful, contagious, and often invisible — just like a virus. And if we keep ignoring that fact and allowing trauma to remain hidden, I wouldn’t bet on our ever defeating it.

The Trauma Virus

I probably use this analogy the most, and it’s certainly germane at the time I’m writing this book. I’ve been thinking of trauma as an epidemic for years now, but recently the Covid-19 pandemic has hit home everywhere, and I’ve started considering trauma as being like a virus that also leaves far too many people dead and suffering aftereffects in its wake. As with Covid, you can’t see trauma itself; you just see it at work—silently but maliciously. As it harms one person, it replicates and jumps to another; then it spreads to another and often back again. Unfortunately, there aren’t vaccine trials for trauma, and early testing for trauma is woefully lacking. And until we employ all of the tools at our disposal and finally face the threat of the trauma virus, not only will our happiness and well-being remain threatened but also our survival.