Ordinary Unhappiness UNLOCKED: 32: Thanksgiving Special, Part 2: Murder, Myth, and Memory
Nov 25, 2025
This Thanksgiving special dives deep into the myths surrounding gratitude rituals and the darker histories at play. The hosts examine how social performances of thankfulness mask realities of settler colonialism and historical violence. Freud’s theories are explored, revealing how primal acts can shape modern rituals. The discussion unfolds on the constructed nature of Thanksgiving as a national holiday and critiques the narratives that obscure indigenous perspectives. Listeners are invited to reflect on the complexities of memory, myth-making, and the ongoing impacts of colonialism.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Thanksgiving Is A Manufactured Tradition
- Thanksgiving as a national holiday is an invented tradition largely shaped in 19th-century New England.
- It was promoted to unify a growing nation and to naturalize a selective founding myth.
Holiday As Trauma Metabolizer
- Lincoln nationalized Thanksgiving during the Civil War to heal division and frame violence as divine deliverance.
- The holiday functions to metabolize political trauma into civic unity and religious gratitude.
Myth Masks Ongoing Violence
- Genealogizing Thanksgiving exposes repression: the ritual masks ongoing structural violence against Indigenous peoples.
- Repression must be repeatedly enforced because the originary crime is both horrific and ongoing.
