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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

> I'll bet if they had still been calling it 'shell shock,' some of those Vietnam veterans might have received the attention they needed.

History lesson: no, WWI veterans didn't get the attention they needed. This is wistful conservatism wrapped in a shroud of comedy. Don't mistake it for truth or wisdom. The treatment of Vietnam veterans was not a departure from the standard practice of wars predating it. The depth of their trauma was a departure, and that was the eye-opener that primed us to take PTSD seriously in the aftermath of the wars of the 21st century.

Now, PTSD (a four-syllable, jargon-free, hyphen-free term, if we're counting) has received greater attention than it did in the previous century of wars. It's recognized to effect more than just soldiers (which "shell shock" doesn't really cover), and progress is being made on a variety of treatments. George Carlin is funny, but that doesn't make him right.

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Each generation complains about the new generation's usage of new terms. My younger siblings use the phrases like NPC so often, that irritates many older people in the family.

From my understanding the top down terms enforced by language police at universities, public schools and corporations invariably end up becoming joke over time. The bottom up terms which were created by bullies, incels, sluts, car mechanics, bartenders continue to stick around and improve the language for the better.

Initially it is hard to determine which one is which. LGBTQ for example appears to be a bottoms up term that gained popularity and will be around for a long time. LGBTQIA2S++-- is likely going to end up as a joke. "Preferred Pronounce" another nonsense promoted by the bloat at corporate HRs (diversity departments) too in my opinion would end up as material for stand up comics down the line. There are more modern bottoms up terms like Incel, NPC etc. will stick around for a long time just like YOLO, FOMO etc have become pretty mainstream.

The better care our soldiers get is a result of medical field advancement, better economy and has very little to do with the terminology.

Term "snowflake" is also something that is will stick around forever now which can be used to describe people who downvote my comment. So is "Cancel Culture". Bottoms up worlds will live on.

If the words have any meaning, Budweiser offended snowflakes, and met Cancel Culture head-on.

It is a storm in a teacup. Budweiser's execs will soon course correct, fire the gender studies majors they hired for their creative team and move on.

Budweiser is not the first nor the last for overdoing the Woke Inc. drama. (Note that Woke itself is a fleeting bottoms up term). Large businesses course correct pretty well.

For example, in reference to the WWI experience in specific:

> Some men with shell shock were put on trial, and even executed, for military crimes including desertion and cowardice.[16] While it was recognised that the stresses of war could cause men to break down, a lasting episode was likely to be seen as symptomatic of an underlying lack of character.[17] For instance, in his testimony to the post-war Royal Commission examining shell shock, Lord Gort said that shell shock was a weakness and was not found in "good" units.[17] The continued pressure to avoid medical recognition of shell shock meant that it was not, in itself, considered an admissible defence. Although some doctors or medics did take procedure to try to cure soldiers' shell shock, it was first done in a brutal way. Doctors would provide electric shock to soldiers in hopes that it would shock them back to their normal, heroic, pre-war self. While illustrating cases of mutism in his book Hysterical Disorders of Warfare, therapist Lewis Yealland describes a patient who had, over the course of 9 months, been subjected unsuccessfully to numerous treatments for his mutism; these included strong application of electricity to his throat, lit cigarette ends applied to the tip of his tongue, and "hot plates" placed in the back of his mouth.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock

>History lesson: no, WWI veterans didn't get the attention they needed.

Where does Carlin say that WWI veterans did the proper attention? He said with the name shell shock maybe Vietnam veterans would have, because 50 years the same name for the same problem without proper treatment could have get the publics attention

>This is wistful conservatism wrapped in a shroud of comedy.

That is your interpretation and not necessarily the truth, especially since Carlin can hardly be called a conservative

> especially since Carlin can hardly be called a conservative

What an interesting response. I did not call him a conservative, did I? I said that he was performing a conservative bit.

>The depth of their trauma was a departure,

I get the impression that combat vets of WWI were no less traumatized, but society didn't talk about it and preferred to talk about heroism, duty, honor, etc. Traumatized soldiers were counter to the prevailing narrative, seen as an embarrassment that people didn't want to think about.

My belief that part of the depth of Trauma compared to WWII and Korea was the rotation system as used, vs demob as a unit.

To expand on this, in Vietnam, individual soldiers were rotated in and out based on time in country, in WWII, units rotated as a unit, with replacements added during the rotation.

The fact that it took weeks or months to repatriate people back to CONUS after WWII, gave time for people to process their experiences with their brother in arms.

This makes perfect sense. Taking a ship back from Europe for a couple weeks is like a built in therapy detox group session.

The way my grandfather talked about WWII was different than other folks I've heard talk about wars after. My grandfather was at peace about it within himself in a way I haven't seen since. The things he saw and had to do were no doubt just as horrific.

I've done some reading on the topic - and what surprises me is that none of the professional literature (that I've found), touches on this.

But for me as a reader of history, it's blindly obvious - in particular with the strategy used to treat PTSD, which is functionally group therapy with over vets with similar experiences.

FWIW, Jonathan Shay's /Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character/ [1] touches on this. It's a good book.

IDK if Shay's book qualifies as "professional literature", but he was certainly a professional (VA psychiatrist), and I have the impression it was fairly influential.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Achilles-Vietnam-Combat-Undoing-Chara...

Indeed, my single-paragraph "history lesson" doesn't do the topic any justice. To add to what you've said, mental health care went through a deinstitutionalization movement between the World Wars and the Vietnam War-- leaving a total void of "care" in place of torture/imprisonment. Upon reflection, I'd revise my statement to say that the impact of the trauma on veterans was much more visible than prior wars; in part because they ended up on the streets doing crack and heroin.

Thank you. And what about accuracy? All the simpletons who love the word "shell shock" are simply wrong much of the time if the soldier's (psychological) injury wasn't caused by a shell. Some may call that pedantry, but to me it's not. It correctly classifies (what we believe to be) the same illness: someone who witnessed people being shot in a war, to witness of city violence, to domestic abuse. Psychologists are finding out that their symptoms all line up, hence the disease needs a more precise name. Baffles me to see so much support for "shell shock" here, the mother-ship of pedantry.

You certainly did an excellent job of refuting a claim Carlin never made.

You're welcome.

Was funny.

I think it's a well-constructed comedic narrative. I disagree with the facts as he presents them and the conclusions he reaches, but I have respect for his art. In my opinion, this is way better than, for example, Seinfeld lashing out because audiences don't find his work funny.

edit: Oh, lol. Perhaps you meant "because he's dead." Whoosh!

> I think it's a well-constructed comedic narrative

Why do you write like this? What's wrong with just saying "I think it's funny"?

> Why do you write like this?

I write how I talk: analytical to a fault.

> What's wrong with just saying "I think it's funny"?

Slapstick is "just" funny. Carlin's comedy isn't that simple. His style was to make a reasoned argument with a goal of making you laugh, making you think, and persuading you to adopt his worldview. He wasn't just funny, and sometimes he wasn't even funny. And that's the case here: a joke that wasn't funny, despite its well-constructed comedic narrative.

In the quote I highlighted at the top of the thread, I found myself unable to suspend my disbelief enough to laugh. I have a lot of respect for the construction of his joke, but having grown up around vietnam veterans who were raised by WWII veterans, the joke fails to be funny. It's actually sad, that he was fighting progress on mental health care, and convincing others to do the same.

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