Abstract
In the 1980s, an anti-drunk-driving movement emerged, seemingly out of nowhere. How is it that this movement could flourish and have such dramatic effects? More significantly, how has Mothers Against Drunk Driving continued to flourish even today? In this article, I demonstrate that more than a strong organizational basis, the right historical context, and the appropriate management of material and symbolic resources, the continuing success of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and drunk driving depends on Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s ability to evoke intense emotions and fears surrounding drunk driving. Generalizing from Alexander et al.’s cultural trauma theory, I introduce two concepts: perpetual trauma and the trauma organization. Perpetual trauma is based on potentiality, a sense of future danger, and iconic victims/perpetrators. Beyond an improved understanding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and drunk driving, perpetual trauma theory offers a sociological explanation for how individuals and societies understand their deepest fears and emotions in postmodern society.
Keywords
Introduction
In the United States, we expect the advice to drink responsibly, and not to drink and drive. Before prom, a local high school displays the remains of a mangled car and a placard, resting on the wreckage, reminds students “Don’t drink and drive!” 1 Advertisements glorify the fun of alcohol but carry a sobering reminder to “drink responsibly, don’t drink and drive.” Prior to 4 July, electronic displays show a bottle with a line through it, warning drivers that there will be increased police surveillance against drunk driving. 2 We forget that only 30 years ago, drunk driving was hardly a topic of discussion.
An anti-drunk-driving movement emerged in the 1980s, seemingly out of nowhere. In 1979, two mothers whose children were killed or injured in a drunk-driving crash started Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). In 1982, President Reagan established a Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving. Why then? There was no increase in drunk-driving fatalities at the time—the United States had a comparatively low rate of traffic incidents. One scholar argues that MADD’s claims were in line with the morality, policy ideologies, and social control strategies of the Reagan Administration, and this catalyzed the movement (Reinarman, 1988). Although this explains the emergence of the movement, it fails to explain the endurance of drunk driving as a pressing social concern. How has MADD continued to flourish even today?
The answer to these questions is not only crucial to understanding MADD and drunk driving, but will also shed light on a major and growing phenomenon in our postmodern world. We are daily bombarded with news of the latest dangers of society. Warnings about the newest strain of influenza, rising terrorism alert levels, and even drunk-driving crashes, permeate headlines, classrooms, and dinner table conversation. These warnings stir our emotions, and tap into our deepest fears—about death and loss to name two. Of course, there were risks to society long before contemporary times. What is unique is the specific way these events and emotions are carefully structured, mediated, and interpreted in contemporary society.
In this article, I argue that cultural trauma theory is the best theoretical lens through which to consider this mediation. Typically, we assume that there are events that are inherently traumatic. We cannot simply walk away from these events; they require that we work through them, to find a catharsis that allows us to carry on “business as usual.” We tend to think of these events retrospectively. They are past experiences that somehow alter our future. Cultural trauma theory, as developed by Alexander et al. (2004), challenges these assumptions, asserting that trauma is not natural but is the result of social construction via the “trauma process” (Alexander, 2004). This original theory of cultural trauma, however, does not question the assumption that traumas are events that have occurred in the past and are reconstructed retrospectively. In this article, while adopting the cultural–sociological understanding of trauma as process, I challenge these assumptions about temporality. I introduce a new concept of cultural trauma: perpetual trauma. I argue that perpetual trauma is unique in that it is not based on actual events and people, but rather on potentiality, a sense of future danger, and iconic victims/perpetrators. By illustrating that collectivities can and are traumatized by the potential of events that might happen, and that trauma organizations are central to maintaining these fears, I offer a fuller explanation of MADD’s enduring success and make a fundamental revision in trauma theory. These revisions deepen its antinaturalistic premises in a thoroughly cultural way.
As it has been socially constructed in the past three decades, drunk driving has become the prototypical example of a perpetual trauma. Not surprisingly, however, this is not how it has been addressed in the existing literature. Existing research views MADD as a social movement organization (SMO) or advocacy group, and focuses on MADD’s success or failure as an agent of change. For example, they have considered how the organizational structure affects success (Weed, 1991), or the effects of agency, strategy, and the presence of a strong national organization on the ability to mobilize resources (McCarthy and Wolfson, 1996). From a different perspective, Gusfield (1981) developed a theory of “public drama” in order to look at how drunk-driving crashes have been reconstructed for the public as “the drinking-driving problem.” These approaches are overly instrumental. Each treats drunk driving as a problem that is somehow imposed upon a collective—either via organizational power and material resources or via symbolic and moral power. The literature ignores the intensity of emotion and fear that permeates the issue of drunk driving. It assumes as natural, and thereby leaves unquestioned, the worry that parents feel as their high school students leave for prom, the popularity of all-night graduation parties that encourage students to avoid parties, which may or may not have alcohol. Additionally, it represents the emergence of the drunk-driving problem as a unidirectional process by which the construction of drunk driving as a social problem is transmitted to an audience. Although analytically neat, the effect is an oversimplified understanding of both MADD and drunk driving. As successful and enduring as MADD and drunk driving have been, we cannot ignore the debate that has pushed back on drunk driving as a public problem.
Although the relative success of both drunk driving and MADD is certainly in part due to a strong organizational basis, the right historical context, and appropriate management of material and symbolic resources, their continuing success depends on something more—on the ability to evoke the intense emotions and fears surrounding drunk driving while also mediating and tempering these emotions. MADD has raised awareness and concern about drunk driving while also portraying drunk-driving crashes as ongoing, future tragedies. Cultural trauma offers a way to make sense of these constructions by explaining the process by which cultural structures (such as symbols, myths, and icons) mediate our fears and insecurities, and allow us to heal these problems. At the same time, cultural trauma theory is sensitive to the contingency and contention that accompanies meaning-making.
In developing and extending cultural trauma theory, I introduce my new concepts: perpetual trauma and trauma organization. I turn to the case of MADD and drunk driving to illustrate these new concepts. In doing so, I will reconstruct the trauma process, focusing on the way deep structures of meaning inform and impel MADD’s understanding of the drunk-driving problem, and similarly create the possibility for progress and healing. Furthermore, I will look at the cultural opposition to drunk driving and MADD. In conclusion, I will examine the shortcomings of the existing sociological literature, highlighting how my revisions to trauma theory provide a new, and better explanation, not only of MADD and drunk driving but also of the way that even the deep fears and anxieties that plague postmodern social life are not natural, but intensely mediated.
Cultural trauma theory
Cultural trauma, Alexander (2004) argues, does not occur when an individual experiences a tragedy but rather when “members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways” (p. 1). An event can be tragic, but that alone does not mean it will become a “cultural trauma” affecting a wider population—this requires redefinition. This process, called the trauma process, can be compared to a speech act (p. 12). A speaker initiates the trauma process; they are the individual or group who is responsible for articulating the trauma itself. What is the traumatic event? What is the nature of pain? Who is the victim? Who is the perpetrator? Is it an individual perpetrator, a group of individuals, or a nation-state? How does this trauma relate to a larger audience? These claims are articulated, even performed, in a particular historical and social situation, for an audience. The carrier group’s task is to foster a sense of collective identity from the trauma experience among a heterogeneous audience.
Alexander (2004) acknowledges that “attribution [of trauma] may be made in real time, as an event unfolds; it may also be made before the event occurs, as an adumbration, or after the event has concluded, as a post-hoc reconstruction” (p. 8). Yet, existing theory only addresses traumas in which the trauma process takes place after the trauma event occurs. MADD and drunk driving provide an example of a trauma process that is not retrospective but occurs in real-time. The trauma claim is not in past tense but instead in present and future tense.
In the following section, I introduce and develop the concept of “perpetual trauma” by juxtaposing it with “retrospective traumas.” I show that the temporal shift from a past-oriented, retrospective trauma to the future-oriented, perpetual trauma significantly alters the perpetual trauma process.
Retrospective trauma versus perpetual trauma
In retrospective traumas, the trauma event is not random. It is a systematic act targeted at a particular group. Thus, the trauma process begins when a carrier group makes a claim to trauma on behalf of this group. In the trauma narrative, the collective identity is the victim of the trauma. The perpetrators are either individuals or another collective identity. The trauma narrative situates the trauma event within a binary, moral discourse about what is sacred and profane and good and evil in society (Alexander, 2006). In it, victims are represented as sacred—innocent and pure—while perpetrators are profane—guilty and anticivil. 3 The trauma event, therefore, is not merely a tragic situation; it is a challenge to the moral and cultural foundations of a society.
Retrospective traumas are always collective traumas; the trauma narrative is performed for society at large, as well as the victims and perpetrators. The community is asked to feel the pain of the trauma event. They may wonder how such an event could have happened and how they could have allowed such a thing to happen. As a result, healing is a social effort and a social process. The retrospective trauma has a unique cultural project—not only to signify and sacralize but also to profane and prevent. Even as time passes and the raw emotions and horrors of the trauma begin to diminish (routinization), the trauma drama will continue to be performed. The retrospective trauma narrative and its values are inscribed not only into public memory but also culture.
Because of its broad audience, success for the trauma process is uncertain. Individuals might find the trauma event to be inhumane and unbearable—but will they be willing to accept the guilty, evil nature of the perpetrators as a general collective group? Collective identities are not free of preconceived prejudices and stereotypes. Individuals and society may oppose the trauma narrative, instead assuming that “They got what they deserved.”
The principal case studies employed to illustrate earlier trauma theory (the Holocaust (Alexander, 2004b; Giesen, 2004) and slavery (Eyerman, 2004)) are retrospective traumas. The trauma processes began after the trauma events—the genocide of Jews in Europe and the slavery of African-Americans in the United States—were over. While carrier groups acting on behalf of the two collective identities initiated the trauma process, the trauma reaches beyond the relationship of Jews/Nazis and African-Americans/slave-owners. The trauma has been performed for political events, public remembrances, and even fictional media representations. Citizens who stood by were also charged with responsibility. Thus, the healing process takes time. Germans found it difficult to discuss the Holocaust. Race relations are a source of tension for Americans. The trauma is not about “those African-Americans” or “those Jews”—it affects all of us.
Each of these traumas faced the aforementioned challenges. Jews and African-Americans were historically viewed as lesser members of the society. They had to overcome these long-entrenched cultural values before they could be considered sacred victims—symbols or representatives of innocence, innate goodness, and purity in civil society. Additionally, because the retrospective trauma extends beyond its historical context, the trauma process risks becoming stale, outdated, or overused. For example, Days of Remembrances, Holocaust Museums, and African-American History month refresh the tragic events in the society’s memory, but the society may be weary of reliving the trauma narrative.
Perpetual trauma
Unlike retrospective traumas, perpetual traumas are ongoing, random, tragic events that plague everyday life—such as drunk driving, incurable diseases, or global terrorism. These problems go beyond individuals and specific groups; they affect humankind. The trauma is not the reconstruction of a particular experience, but instead, the potentiality of particular events coupled with the mediation of fears and anxieties. In other words, we are all traumatized by the possibility of becoming victims.
Trauma organizations
Originally, cultural trauma theory focused on the Weberian idea of carrier groups. Carrier groups were not formal organizations, but self-appointed proponents (be it individual, institutional, or national) of the trauma claim. Fundamentally, a postmodern phenomenon, the perpetual trauma lacks this seemingly natural, self-organizing basis for carrying the trauma process forward. Thus, in order to fully develop the concept of perpetual trauma, we have to consider both the ideal and material interests that fuel the trauma process in a more contemporary way. Here, I introduce the concept of the trauma organization. The trauma organization is a formal organization whose material and ideal interests are devoted to the construction of a perpetual trauma. The trauma organization, rather than groups per se, propels the cultural construction of trauma. It is largely the strategy and success (or failure) of these organizations that determine the longevity of the perpetual trauma, and the salience of the trauma narrative.
As the trauma initiator, the trauma organization has three essential tasks. First, the trauma organization functions like an SMO or advocacy group. They are responsible for resource mobilization. They fundraise, they organize functions, and they recruit members and volunteers.
Second, taking resource mobilization theory one step further, the trauma organization is responsible for managing the symbolic resources: the construction and maintenance of the trauma narrative. The trauma organization does not create symbolic resources but manages them. That is to say, the goal of the trauma organization is to situate their trauma narrative within the existing frameworks of what is sacred and valued in society. They do so by drawing on cultural structures (symbols, binary codes, and narrative forms) that preexist the organization and cause. This narrative never exists within a vacuum. There may be competing narratives. Or, the audience may interpret the trauma narrative in a different light, or simply reject it altogether. Both narrative construction and audience reception are informed by these deep cultural structures.
This cultural work, when successful, creates a niche for the organization’s social and political work. It is the basis for defining, supporting, and legitimating more pragmatic efforts. Of course, this is an interdependent process. The narrative is nothing if not heard by an audience and embodied by the pragmatic work of the trauma organization. At the same time, social and political efforts are meaningless outside of the trauma narrative’s framework.
Finally, in a trauma that is otherwise rooted in potentiality, possibility, and generalizations, the trauma organization locates the trauma—both symbolically and practically. Quite literally, the trauma process has a location and foundation—an office and institutional support.
Trauma narrative
Because the perpetual trauma is based on potentiality and future events, it runs the risk of being ungrounded and ambiguous. The task of the trauma organization is to construct a trauma narrative that at once anchors the perpetual trauma, while leaving it flexible to adapt throughout time and space. This is still a process of definition and resignification. The trauma organization makes a claim to a potential trauma. Upon doing so, they also have to identify both a victim and a perpetrator. In retrospective traumas, the victim and perpetrator are particular collective identities. They are preexisting entities with salient social identities. In the perpetual trauma, the opposite occurs. The categories of victim and perpetrator are depersonalized. They are empty positions waiting to be filled by any individual. They are drunk drivers, AIDS patients, and “evil-doers.” Although certain individuals might fill these positions, the individuals themselves are insignificant. It is the symbolic category that is relevant to the perpetual trauma. The trauma event is the fear that we might fill one of these categories.
“Performing” trauma narratives
Once the trauma narrative is constructed, the trauma organization has to find or create performance opportunities. In retrospective traumas, there are already scheduled “performance times” where the “trauma drama” might be presented. These are existing moments in social life where individuals and groups are expected to congregate (i.e. a community meeting or church service) and share their experiences, to find a sense of unity on the basis of their common identity. In the perpetual trauma, however, these so-called performance times do not readily exist; thus, the trauma organization must create these opportunities for the trauma process. This might involve incorporating the trauma process into one of these prescheduled gatherings. The risk, of course, is that the trauma narrative will have to be adapted, perhaps losing its potency, to fit within the particular setting and particular audience.
The other option is that the trauma organization can create and organize entirely new performance opportunities for the perpetual trauma. This requires significantly more material resources but has the advantage of being controlled by the trauma organization. It is likely to be more difficult to generate a sense of solidarity from a diverse audience, but if successful, the cohesion in these performances will be centered wholly on the trauma, rather than in tension with other narratives and identities.
Contingency and perpetual trauma
Contingency in the perpetual trauma process exceeds even that of the retrospective trauma process. Already, we have seen that the very act of defining victims and perpetrators is not a matter of mere allocation. Furthermore, in the perpetual trauma, the audience is not united by identity traits. Finally, we have seen that the perpetual trauma process depends entirely upon the ability of the trauma organization to find or create opportunities for the trauma performance. But in addition to these more readily navigated contingencies, the perpetual trauma faces two other significant challenges.
First, in existing cultural trauma theory, the trauma process is expected to flatten out eventually—what Alexander calls “routinization” (2004: 22). At this point, the trauma has become a part of the normative values of a society. It is a time of “public and private relief”; the trauma process has successfully created a collective consciousness, but the society is emotionally exhausted by these trauma narratives. Routinization is a desirable moment in the trauma process. Both goals of the cultural trauma—to signify and sacralize and to profane and prevent—have occurred. Routinization poses a catch-22 for perpetual trauma. However, the trauma organization hopes their tragic narrative will be accepted as the “right” way to interpret these events. Likewise, there is a desire for the emotional relief that accompanies routinization.
But at the same time, routinization itself would be the demise of the perpetual trauma. The perpetual trauma must remain just that: perpetual. The trauma organization has to expect to be horrified daily by the trauma events, and insists that its audience and society come to expect the same thing. We might crave emotional relief, but we cannot have it until the cause of trauma itself ceases. These are, however, serious issues for the trauma process. To the extent that the trauma organization wants its audience to expect and feel the pain of the perpetual trauma on a continuous level, there has to be a progressive narrative that offers some sort of emotional relief, else the audience is likely to develop a fatalistic perspective. The perpetual trauma process has to allow for components of routinization without actually allowing the trauma to become mundane. The trauma organization might, for example, vary the content of trauma performances—not all performances have to explicitly describe the horrors. Success might be redefined so that it is not only a total eradication but also the sum of individual successes. In doing so, the trauma organization and audience gets a taste of routinization, without sacrificing momentum.
Second, the perpetual trauma process is a “real-time” reconstruction effort. Similar to retrospective trauma, this process is not isolated from counternarratives. In retrospective traumas, however, there is the benefit of the trauma event being concluded and in the past. These traumas are assumed to be “natural”; there is an expectation that though the meaning of the event is unclear and needs interpretation, the details of the event itself can be verified. None of these luxuries exist for perpetual traumas. Not only is the interpretation of the trauma claim subject to counternarratives, but the very nature of the trauma event is ambiguous. Thus, the perpetual trauma narrative must establish some common understanding of the trauma event—but also remain flexible enough that it can include subjective experience as it occurs in real time. The perpetual trauma narrative in essence must create categories that are not only open and can be filled but also closed enough that the trauma remains sacred, even exclusive.
The drunk-driving trauma and MADD
At the heart of cultural trauma is the fundamental question “How do we as a society move forward, in spite of tragedy and fear?” With perpetual traumas, answering this question is an everyday, moment-by-moment task. In the next section of this article, I will focus on how MADD, as a trauma organization, and their trauma narrative attempt the careful balance of despair and hope and gridlock and progress. More specifically, I will show how deep cultural structures (e.g. maternity and personal responsibility) inform MADD and the trauma narrative by managing our emotions and fears. It is this constructed fear of drunk driving that is the basis of the perpetual trauma. Finally, I will show that the trauma process is not simply a transmission of fear and anxiety but a complex, collective process of negotiating meaning and experience—one that is highly contingent and often contested.
The empirical data comes from my own ethnographic research in MADD’s Connecticut chapter (MADD CT). MADD CT, is a small office, with approximately 10 full-time staff members. In addition to coordinating the volunteers and fundraisers, MADD CT focuses on three projects. First, they organize Victim Impact Panels (VIPs) in five locations in Connecticut. Used primarily as a sentencing option for first-time driving under the influence (DUI) offenders, the program consists of a brief bit of alcohol education, several speakers who have firsthand experience losing a family member in a drunk-driving crash, and a speaker from MADD. Second, they present the Hard Truth to local high schools and colleges. Similar to the VIPs, the Hard Truth consists of alcohol education, speakers who have firsthand experience losing a family member in a drunk-driving crash, and a speaker from MADD, but is specifically directed at underage and young people. Finally, MADD CT has three full-time Victim Advocates who offer support and assist the families and individuals who have lost loved ones through their court cases. Over the course of 5 months, MADD CT welcomed me to participate and observe many of these large-scale programs. Additionally, they allowed me to assist in the office and attend various staff, volunteer, and council meetings. The ethnographic data from these visits, as well as data from one formal interview, are my primary sources. This is not meant to be an exhaustive study of MADD but a brief illustration of perpetual trauma and the trauma process to show what it adds to our understanding of these potential problems.
MADD and maternity
MADD began humbly. In 1979, Cari Lightner was killed in an accident caused by a drunk driver in California. The driver had been released 2 days earlier on bail for a hit-and-run drunk-driving crash. Candy Lightner, Cari’s mother, and a small group of friends gathered at local steak houses and started a group to combat the crime of drunk driving. The same year, in Maryland, 5-month-old Laura Lamb was paralyzed in an accident caused by a drunk driver. Again, the driver was a repeat offender. Lamb’s mother, Cindi, gathered a group of friends in her household to start a movement to stop drunk driving in Maryland. By 1981, Lightner and Lamb joined forces and “Mothers Against Drunk Drivers” was born. Now “Mothers Against Drunk Driving,” the organization, boasts 25 years of service and nearly 600 chapters (including five affiliate organizations outside of the United States). 4
Already, we see the role of deep cultural structures in the construction of this perpetual trauma. Although MADD originally began as a grassroots organization of mothers, today MADD’s membership extends far beyond mothers. Their slogan proudly announces, “We’re dads and daughters, sons and uncles, friends and neighbors. And mothers. We’re from all walks of life. We are many colors with one voice.” Recently, the national president was a man. Within MADD CT, the full-time staff is all women but not all are mothers. Yet, despite these membership and leadership changes, MADD remains MADD. Why? One answer is pragmatic; it would be a large financial undertaking to reproduce the MADD products (bumper stickers, key chains, t-shirts, red ribbons, etc.). Also, it would require the organization to rebuild their national recognition with a new name. More important, however, maternity is a strong cultural symbol that even in contemporary society suggests a privileged status, evokes certain emotions, and thereby anchors the trauma narrative. Mothers are culturally coded as pure, unconditionally loving, and innocent. Few, if any, would deny that a mother losing a child is a tragic event. Even further, we can all imagine the pain of a mother losing her child. By remaining Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD situates itself at the heart of these intense emotions, and evokes this “untouchable” category and experience. In doing so, the perpetual trauma of drunk driving becomes more than an individual crisis; it is a threat to something sacred in society: the relationship of mother and child and thus, by extension, posits individual tragedy as a crucial threat to our existence. To question MADD is to question the primacy of motherhood and the experience of losing a child.
The trauma claim
Gusfield (1981) describes the process of creating “drinking-driving problem” as “an orderly account of danger in the contemporary world” (p. 173). Indeed, this is the basis of MADD’s perpetual trauma narrative. The trauma event is not the actual loss of life in a crash caused by drunk driving. After all, this would be too narrow and too tangible a trauma event for a perpetual trauma. In this case, it is the potential to lose one’s life or the life of a loved one or the potential to unintentionally take another person’s life as a result of drunk driving. The fear of a drunk-driving crash is as traumatizing as the crash itself.
This fear is not primal; it is mediated and constructed via the trauma process. For example, as former MADD President Glenn Birch described drunk driving on a recent program on National Public Radio (News & Notes, 2005), he commented, “It [drunk driving] does not discriminate. It’s important that our community realize that it is a problem that affects everyone.” This is a clever construction. Whereas in retrospective traumas, there is a clear boundary between the sacred victim and the profane perpetrator, this trauma narrative erases those boundaries. We all are at risk—not only of becoming a victim but also of becoming a perpetrator. Regardless of actual firsthand experiences with drunk-driving crashes, no one is exempt from this insecurity and anxiety.
Furthermore, MADD depersonalizes the trauma. Once Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, MADD is now Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In making this identity shift, MADD establishes their mission as opposed to an action rather than an individual. Again, they are opposed to the fear and worry that the possibility of drunk driving evokes—not “bad” people. It is the act, rather than the individual, that is profaned. This depersonalization not only bolsters the perpetual trauma narrative but also allows for redemption. Even individuals who made the mistake of driving drunk can see the errors of their ways, feel these fears, and join in solidarity with the organization.
Victims and perpetrators
Victims and perpetrators in this perpetual trauma narrative are not characterized as particular individuals or groups, but instead, as refillable containers. There is no type, no predictability. In the trauma narrative, numbers stand in for victims and perpetrators. On MADD’s website, there are entire sections devoted to the most recent statistics on drunk driving. Newspaper articles report various statistics, such as “About 20 percent of highway fatalities last year [2006] involved accidents in which one driver had a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher” (Wald, 2006). Gusfield (1981) critiques that these statistics fail to account for any other host of issues that might influence a drinking-driving crash, such as speed, road conditions, and seatbelt usage. He argues that they are not presented as subjective opinion but as scientific fact, and thus grant legitimacy and authority to the claim that drinking–driving is a problem.
These statistics also operate on a deeper, more cultural level. They represent the potentiality of drunk driving. Numbers have no face. It is important that a certain number of people have been killed or injured in drunk-driving crashes, but equally important is that any one of us might become one of those statistics. At VIPs, for example, firsthand experiences with drunk driving are contrasted with statistics and alcohol education—the presentation of the perpetual trauma. The audience is informed that 16,694 were killed in the United States in 2004 and over 500,000 were injured. At the beginning of the Hard Truth program, for example, Randy asks the students to look at the person on their right and on their left—this program is for their safety. 5 In doing so, Randy emphasizes not only the potentiality but also the randomness. We ought to be concerned, even afraid. Anyone of us could become a victim.
The category of perpetrator is similarly depersonalized. The perpetrator is no longer the driver, but the crime of drunk driving itself. The perpetrator is characterized not by the number of drinks that they drank or the speed that they were driving but by their relationship with the rest of us. They are the “average Joes,” the person that any of us could become. Two offenders expressed disbelief that it could have happened to them, that they “could have done this,” and that they “didn’t know better.” As Jean says in one VIP, I bet you wouldn’t have guessed walking in tonight that I killed someone. But what does a drunk driver look like? We’re all average people. But average people kill people too. It’s like Kari [a previous victim speaker] said—no one wakes up and says I want to kill someone today. They make a bad choice, and that choice costs a life.
In the previously mentioned radio interview, Birch acknowledges that individuals may want to drink alcohol. But he cautions, “Have your drink, but don’t get behind the wheel and drive … you may cause injury or death to someone else.” Each of these examples emphasizes that we are not innately drunk drivers, and likewise, we are not innately not drunk drivers. It is part of the myth of the American dream that citizens have the freedom to act, say, and be who they want to be. But in MADD’s trauma narrative, this freedom to choose can have deadly consequences. Drunk driving is a crime “out there,” waiting for perpetrators, a crime by simple choice—to put the key in the ignition after drinking, a choice that we are all capable of making if our judgment is impaired by alcohol. The freedom to act and choose remains sacred—but along with it comes the responsibility to choose rightly.
Individuals killed in drunk-driving crashes and drunk drivers are not entirely absent from this perpetual trauma narrative. Rather than being protagonists and antagonists, they are iconic representations. Rarely addressed by name, they represent the nameless individual that any of us could become. For example, on the front page of MADD’s website, there is a graphic of a young girl. The scrolling text recounts her milestones: first day of kindergarten, learns to ride a bike, stars in her first play. These dates are then crossed out, and replaced with: Hit by a drunk driver; dies en route to a hospital. Two quilts hang on the back wall of the MADD CT office. Each square is distinctly handmade, conveying sentiments such as, “I love you,” “I’ll never forget you,” and “Rest in Peace.” The pictures proudly portray bright-eyed, happy, lively individuals. We have no details about the individuals’ lives. We only know that they have lost their life in a crash due to drunk driving. In both examples, the individuals’ lives have been reduced to that single experience: drunk driving. In either case, the point is not only that drunk driving has inevitably, irreversibly altered these individuals’ lives—but that they were once “normal” people. By representing their “past life,” we see that they are no different than any of the rest of us. We could all be that person.
The progressive narrative
While MADD’s trauma claim evokes intense emotions, evidenced by teary testimonies, memorial quilts, and graphic images, it is balanced with a progressive narrative. The progressive narrative tempers the fears brought out by the trauma narrative; it redirects these emotions from despair to hope, senseless tragedy to opportunity for change. In essence, the progressive narrative is MADD’s counternarrative to the trauma process. In it, alcohol abuse does not have to be a part of social life. Drunk driving need not be an out-of-control phenomenon. We do not have to accept the perpetual fear that we might kill or be killed by drunk driving.
The progressive narrative is aligned with sacred, positive qualities—personal responsibility, compassion, and positive choice. In it, individuals have the power to act responsibly: they can choose not to drive drunk. In her story, Jean tells the audience “I made the choice. I put the key in the ignition.” Jenny, a recent college graduate, and her friends decided to take a cab home from a bar. A drunk driver crashed into their cab, leaving Jenny nearly paralyzed. Her mother remembers Jenny’s only complaint throughout her rehabilitation: “Why didn’t he take a cab?” This is a clever narrative shift. By reducing drunk driving to a decision, it is simple, everyday, and tentative. We could have pizza for dinner instead of spaghetti. Likewise, we could call a cab instead of driving home from the bar. Furthermore, it emphasizes the compassion in choosing not to drink and drive. The choice is not about obeying the law, it is about caring enough about others not to put them at risk. Finally, it shifts drunk driving from being a problem out there to being a personal issue. We can stop drunk driving if we are willing to change our own actions.
The pragmatic trauma organization
There is no denying that, in addition to its symbolic work, MADD is responsible for crucial pragmatic details in the trauma process. MADD maintains the material resources required to perform the trauma narrative. Fundraising and volunteer recruitment is a fundamental aspect of MADD’s work. Fundraising is a time-consuming project, but these events also support the symbolic side of the trauma process. For example, MADD CT organizes a yearly pasta dinner and Skate-a-Thon. These events are first and foremost fundraisers. But they also are an opportunity to generate a sense of “we-ness.” They are the “fun events” with “none of that sad stuff.” In the case of the Skate-for-Leah, Vanessa, the director of MADD CT, tells the New Haven Regional Council (primarily high school students), “It’s on a Friday night! It’s date night! Bring a date!” They give people an opportunity to come together without the intensity of the perpetual trauma drama.
Second, MADD must find opportunities to present the trauma narrative. Most prominently, MADD has created two opportunities to perform their trauma: VIPs and the Hard Truth Program. In Connecticut alone, VIPs occur in five different locations throughout the month. In 2006, MADD CT offered their first VIP specifically for under-aged drivers. The Hard Truth is a similar program but presented in local high schools and colleges. In both cases, the audiences for these programs are required to be there. Individuals who have been charged with DUIs for the first time may be sentenced to attend one of the VIPs. Several area high schools required their students to attend the Hard Truth program before allowing students to purchase prom tickets. Likewise, a local college required its athletes to attend the Hard Truth program.
On the one hand, these programs create a ready-made audience for MADD’s trauma performance. On the other hand, simply having an audience does not guarantee receptivity. After VIPs, some individuals would come talk to the speakers, visibly distraught and in tears. But many simply collected their certificate of attendance and left. The same is true in the Hard Truth programs. Where some students were clearly moved by the presentation, Jean commented that others “just wanted to hear prison stories.” The organizational structure and resources are vital, but they cannot replace or endure in the absence of a compelling trauma narrative.
Contingency
These variables are a reminder that even with an audience, the perpetual trauma process is highly contingent. In part, this contingency is material. Is there enough money? Is there an opportunity to perform the trauma narrative? Are there enough volunteers? As I have already shown, MADD has had relative success in stabilizing these uncertainties. Beyond these pragmatic, material challenges to MADD’s perpetual trauma process are the symbolic opposition and counternarratives. In the Hard Truth, for example, many young people resist MADD’s suggestion that it could happen to them. Many young people think of themselves as invincible. For this reason, the Hard Truth program is purposefully visual, designed to “shake them up a bit.” The hope is that the young people might realize that they are not exempt from this risk. In some cases, this is effective—but not always.
Even more problematic is the challenge of narrative ownership. Like any narrative, MADD’s perpetual trauma narrative has a life beyond its initial telling. Their narrative can be reinterpreted, even symbolically reoriented. To the extent that maternity is a salient cultural symbol, alcohol is also a salient cultural symbol. When asked what she thought the biggest challenge to MADD’s work was, Jean readily pointed to the alcohol industry. She commented, We have a lot of advertising showing the good times, but we don’t have advertising showing the kids that are being taken away to the hospital and the one leaning over the toilet bowl and the other one choking on his own vomit.
Where MADD evokes fear, the alcohol industry promotes the opposite: drink alcohol and lose your inhibitions. Furthermore, the alcohol industry has the advantage of telling the story that is common to most people, and the story most want to hear: alcohol is fun. Finally, the alcohol industry is extremely profitable. MADD, well established, but a nonprofit nonetheless, is up against a giant.
Finally, the trauma organization itself can be a source of debate in the perpetual trauma process. Like the trauma narrative, the trauma organization may be reconstructed or opposed. For example, in various settings, MADD employees have commented that they are not against alcohol—they are simply against drinking and driving. But many individuals and organizations reject MADD’s alcohol-respecting self-identification. One headline announced: “MADD is Now Neo-Prohibitionist” (Dahl, 2004). USA Today reported that the American Beverage Institute says, “MADD is maligning social drinking” (O’Donnell, 2005). One letter to the editor laments, “Unfortunately, what started as a good idea, raising awareness of the problems of drinking and driving, has turned into a neo-prohibitionist scheme” (Chapman, 2005). When General Motors (GM) offered financial and political support to MADD, an opposition campaign was launched, called MADDatGM. The group argues “that MADD is no longer just trying to halt drunken driving, but has become a ‘prohibitionist group’ that wants to criminalize all drinking” (McCracken, 2005). In these counternarratives, MADD is not the savior but the enemy. As such, the trauma organization that is such a crucial anchor to the perpetual trauma process runs the risk of becoming a dead weight to the narrative process.
Contribution to the literature
Cultural trauma theory privileges the role of culture in meaning-making. In essence, culture is not the product of meaning-making, but instead culture itself is an active participant in meaning-making. In other words, there are deep cultural structures (shared definitions of what is sacred and profane, cultural myths, symbols, and icons) that inform every action—even the most instrumental. Our individual and collective ability to understand, interpret, and act are deeply intertwined with these shared frameworks of meaning. At the heart of cultural trauma theory is a curiosity for how individuals and societies make sense of tragic experiences that go beyond explanation, and leave a void of meaning. Culture allows us to make sense of our fears and doubts, and to understand and move forward in tragic situations that otherwise defy understanding.
Existing sociological efforts to study MADD and drunk driving have significantly contributed to understanding how the management of material and symbolic resources catalyzed MADD and drunk driving as a public problem (again, Gusfield, 1981; McCarthy and Wolfson, 1996; Weed, 1991). While meaning has on occasion been a part of this conversation, it has not been central. As I mentioned earlier, these studies focus heavily on the relative success or failure of MADD as the agent of change. As a result, MADD has the appearance of being hyperinstrumental, and we lose sight of the “audience” altogether. Even in Gusfield’s work, which rightly observes that the emergence of a drinking–driving problem is deeply intertwined with a society’s moral order, there is a looming sense that this moral order is somehow created and imposed onto societies—be it by law, activist organization, or otherwise. Here, cultural structures are tools used by institutions to bolster a particular cause and experience. In actuality, however, meaning is not a one-way process. Just as culture informs the agents of change and their message, culture also informs the audience, society at large. And as I have shown in the case of MADD, there is always contingency and contention.
This is not to deny that organizational structure, material resources, and public presentations are unimportant. Nor is it a denial that there are agents acting instrumentally, hoping to further their cause. Instead, cultural trauma theory emphasizes that meaning goes deeper than the interaction between agent of change (be it individual or organization) and audience. Rather than one side informing the other, meaning-making is a constant back and forth. Social actors have meaningful agency; that is to say, individuals can either accept or reject the way that a particular event is interpreted and reconstructed. As we can see from the example of MADD, there are not only counternarratives from other organizations, but individuals may interpret drunk driving differently, and reject MADD’s trauma narrative.
Second, other efforts to understand MADD have largely ignored the intensity of emotion that is part of drunk driving as a public problem, and likewise, MADD’s trauma narrative. Yet, as I have argued in this article, these emotions are not only a crucial piece of the MADD and drunk-driving puzzle, they are also deeply sociological. Just as the trauma itself is not a natural, inherent category, our emotions, fears, and anxieties are not natural, inherent responses. They are intensely mediated aspects of both the trauma process and everyday social life. Theories about “the construction of social problems” have to be equipped to account for and understand these emotions. In the case of drunk driving, the trauma narrative goes beyond words; it is compelling on an almost guttural level. Each one of us can empathize with the horror of a mother who has lost a child, and feel the pain and sorrow such an event evokes. The successful trauma narrative taps into our deepest fears and threatens our most sacred values. They are not outside of the realm of sociology, but instead central to it, and cultural trauma theory opens this analytical door.
Third, perpetual trauma theory and the example of MADD and drunk driving offer an important intervention in the sociological consideration of risk. In his work on the “risk society,” Beck (1992 [1986]) argues that while risk and danger have always been an intrinsic aspect of human life, modernity has brought about the rise of a new type of risk: manufactured risks—risks that stem from human actions, and are often invisible or undetectable until too late a date. In this theory, risk is an inevitable fact of social life. Perpetual trauma theory, however, suggests that while danger may be an inevitable aspect of aspect of human life, fear need not be. As MADD’s progressive narrative illustrates, there is a progressive narrative even in the face of an unpredictable, random danger: social actors can and do have the agency to act in a way that minimizes risks and mediates fear.
Conclusion
In this article, I have introduced two new concepts—perpetual trauma and the trauma organization, to theoretically enhance Alexander et al.’s work on cultural trauma. Using these newly introduced theoretical concepts, I have answered the questions posed at the beginning of this article. Drunk driving as a public problem has endured because it evokes our deepest fears of loss and fear of risk itself. By drawing on deep cultural structures (such as the sacred nature of mothers and iconic victims, and myths about responsibility and choice), MADD has not only managed and validated these fears but has also offered a path forward. As a trauma organization, MADD has successfully anchored their trauma narrative in the public eye. Likewise, I have shown how a culturally sensitive theory of perpetual trauma can account for MADD’s shortcomings and challenges.
As analytical categories, perpetual trauma and its organization reach beyond the specific case that we have considered here. These concepts can help us to understand a wide variety of advocacy organizations and activist efforts, for example, those that surround breast cancer and AIDS awareness. The new concepts can also provide new understandings of more political processes, such as the post 9-11 effort to narrate a perpetual “war on terror.” The theory of perpetual trauma I have advanced here lends itself to every case where fervent emotions are coupled with a persistent call for change. As a general theoretical perspective, it explains how individuals and societies interpret and understand their deepest fears and emotions. In moments of crisis, fear, contingency, and debate, we, as individuals and collectives, negotiate who or what is evil, what is to be protected, and what is sacred in society. When it takes progressive forms, perpetual trauma and its organizations can create shared resolve and optimism, and life-enhancing cultural change. More than merely a psychological recovery, resource mobilization or moral imposition, the perpetual trauma and its organization are fundamental processes of active civil sphere, offering the pathway for its renewal.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
A previous version of this article was presented at the Yale University’s Center for Cultural Sociology Spring Conference Meaning, Identity, and Interaction and the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. I am grateful to Jeffrey Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Philip Smith, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.