Blackwell Reference Online

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Social change may have adverse effects, bring shocks and wounds to the social and cultural tissue. This is true even if the changes are beneficial, expected, and defined as a victory by the people. The forerunner of this idea was Durkheim, who coined the famous notion of the “anomie of success.” Traumatogenic change exhibits four traits. First, it is sudden, occurring within a span of time that is relatively short for a given kind of process. For example, a revolution is rapid relative to historical time (even when it takes weeks or months) and a collapse of the market is sudden relative to long-range economic change. Second, traumatogenic change is usually comprehensive, either in the sense that it touches many aspects of social life or that it affects many actors and many actions. Revolution is a good example of traumatogenic social change because it usually embraces not only the political domain, but also the law, economy, morality, culture, art, even language, and it affects the fate of many groups, if not all the population. Third, traumatogenic change is marked by specific content, either in the sense that it is radical, deep, and fundamental (i.e., it touches the core aspects of social life or personal fate) or that it affects universal experiences, whether public or private. For example, a shift in dominant values, a transfer of power, or an overturning of prestige hierarchies ... log in or subscribe to read full text