A society that drives you crazy
There is a lot of talk about the mental health of the younger generation these days. We talk about it above all by evoking his neurotic relationship to the screens. There is also talk, more broadly, of anxiety among children, who should instead benefit from the privilege
of carelessness. What can be done to face this unprecedented crisis, which many place under the sign of public health?
We will listen carefully to the advice of psychiatrists, who are posing today as whistleblowers.
To fully understand this crisis, however, the parameters need to be expanded. This deep crisis tells us that the social fabric
is destructured like never before, in a modernity gone mad, revealing as ever its shadow.
Advanced modernity makes a poisoned promise to those who live there: you can become exactly who you want.
Traditions will not stifle you anymore. You will design your own identity. You will be little gods.
Individualism
Thus, you will decide whether you feel male or female, or neither, or both at the same time.
You will be able to tear yourself away from the history of your country to make you citizen of the world or to take refuge inversely in the tribe of your choice. You can almost make your own dialect, as seen with Montreal franglais. You can even live in a virtual world where you will
become a different person than yourself, as the technological revolution promises.
Without father, mother, sex, homeland, home, or memory, you will be absolutely free, as if you were the absolute master of your own life.
On paper, all this may seem exciting. In fact, we turn into a nightmare. The man needs landmarks and to be welcomed in a structured world, which offers him authentic existential foundations. From this point of view, radical individualism, which is becoming more and more of a moral absolute,
is a machine for destroying society and hurting souls.
The younger generation feels this social decomposition in their flesh.
We will add to the portrait a feeling of absolute helplessness in the face of the world's misfortunes. For example, the climate crisis creates eco-anxiety.
In the past, politics gave the impression of being able, at least partially, to control one's destiny. Today, we feel unable to engage in anything other than the comedy of power. It manages everyday life, but it no longer gives the impression to a people to govern their destiny. The economy takes hold of everything, and consumption becomes our only reason to live.
Distress
We come back to a truth that our time represses and stifles: the human being, in order to flourish, needs a framework, a community,
a relatively stable social structure. He needs lasting relationships.
Our time has thought to give him a gift by depriving him of all this. We wanted to make him free by confining him in the valorization
of his little ego. He was condemned to existential nudity, distress, despair.
Thank you for your visit
