Traumatized: How the Exploitation of Suffering and the Objectification of Our Inner Lives Work to Deform Democracy, Politics and the Public Sphere

How trauma became a weapon in the culture wars, by the acclaimed author of Virtue Hoarders

What happens when an idea born of genuine suffering is weaponized as a tool of social control? Traumatized is the story of how shell shock became PTSD, how Oprah turned pain into profit, and how “authenticity” became the ultimate brand. It is a history of surveillance cap­italism’s greatest coup: convincing us that wounds define us and that accom­modating each other’s trauma is more important than challenging the powerful.

Catherine Liu delivers an unflinching diagnosis of our current crisis, rooted as it is in the collapse of liberal politics, the ascendance of performance fragil­ity, and the rise of emotional display as a surrogate for political action. Sharp, provocative, and urgently necessary, Traumatized argues that we must re­ject a politics of permanent victimhood since it destroys solidarity and leaves us defenseless against the systems that cause real harm.

Catherine Liu is Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine. She is the author of Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class and American Idyll: Academic Antielitism as Cultural Critique. She has published widely on critical theory, populism, film and art criticism, psycho­analysis, and left historiography. You can find more of her writing at CLiuAnon.substack.com. Liu is the founder and director of the Palm Springs School for Social Research, an educational and research-focused think tank and plat-form for intellectual and creative engagement with history, culture, and politics.