In the former Yugoslavia we have a concept of "inat", which (among other things, it's a complicated and multifaceted term) is kind of a genetic hatred, passed down from generation to generation. The attempts at genocide in the region are sure to have strengthened those hatreds in future generations, as did all of the other regional conflicts in the past.
I can trace my personal issues as a result of my parents experience to their parents experience in WW2 (Germany). My grandfather for example as a teenager had to clear landmines as a prisoner of war. The damage from these experiences lasts for generations, like a ripple effect.
Even something less traumatic like being drafted for the Vietnam War has a measurable impact on descendants:
<a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/01/being-drafted-during-the-vietnam-war-also-hurt-your-descendents.html" rel="nofollow">https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/01/be...</a>
As I can't read the full article. Do they indicate any kind of leads into an hypothesis that the trauma is transferred through the genes themselves? Or is this more an effect of culture and education?
What can I say? One of my grandmothers came back from Auschwitz, the other from Lichtenwörth. Most of their generation didn't survive. And then I went to Yad Vashem when I was 16. That was a grave mistake. Don't go to Yad Vashem at 16 especially not when you have relatives affected by the Holocaust. I haven't seen a World War II movie since, I can't.
I have seen this first hand amongst my friends who are grandchildren of holocaust survivors.<p>For many of them their grandparents anxiety is very visible and part of their lives. One grandparent would always steal the free bread from restaurants, another could not be left at home alone, another bought an Uzi and gold and kept it hidden in the house in case the Nazi's come back... the list keeps on going.<p>I grew up in Skokie which has(or had) the largest concentration of holocaust survivors in the world. Even more than cities in Israel.
One must put in contrast the eagerness to push epigenetics, inheritable trauma with the unwillingness to accept the heritability of IQ and its consequences.
And this is a fantastic argument why 'The West' owes reparations to the descendants of the West African Slave trade. The genocide in Rwanda, the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (to name but two recent atrocities); these were over within a handful of years. Every single second of it was worse-then-horrible and equally shows the worst of humanity. They nonetheless ended.<p>The West African Slave trade lasted for HUNDREDS of years. "Chattle Slavery" only ended in name and one needs only look at the Prison system in the United States to see the still evident policies and procedures that continue to this very day to continually harm the descendants of slavery. This is an ongoing crisis, that must be resolved.<p>What tortured damage lingers in the DNA of these descendants? We have proof that Rwandans, and Jews have suffered damage and harm; is it too hard to imagine that we owe a debt and an obligation to healing these injuries?<p>And for healing to begin, the damage must stop.