“Gather together, find your footing and your story.” That is the advice I have been giving for two decades about how to stay out of shock during moments of collective trauma. Metabolize the shock together, I would tell people, create meaning together. Resist the tin-pot tyrants who will tell you that the world is now a blank sheet for them to write their violent stories upon.

QUESTION: What psychologically explains why collective meaning-making buffers against shock?

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 21