Eenzaamheid en frustratie

CITAAT

« Since September 11 it has become increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that the treats of terrorism is not just an external but also a domestic problem. The difficulties that political leaders have in spelling out ‘our’ way of life acquires momentous significance in relation to the flourishing of anti-Western movements on domestic front.”

“ It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, at least for some people living in the West, their society’s way of life appears repulsive.”

“The dynamic of individualisation has encouraged fear to be experienced in a fragmented and atomized form. […] We fear alone because of the difficulties that we have in constructing a moral consensus about the threats facing our communities. We all attempt to make sense of those threats, but the fragmentation of moral consensus has formed individuals to look for their own sense of meaning. The weakening of shared values fragments the quest for meaning. In turn the fragmentation of the search for meaning privatises it and lends it an individualised character. A quest that is so private often looks for personal solutions and meanings. That is why psychology and therapeutics have emerged as a dominant paradigm through which meaning is bestowed on our experience. Therapeutics is oriented to the experience of atomized individuals and tries to give meaning to the experience of the isolated individual”


REFERENTIE

Frank Furedi: Invitation to Terror. The Expanding Empire of the Unknown. Continuum, Londen, 2007, eerste citaat blz. 93, tweede citaat blz. 95, derde citaat blz. 100 – 101.


COMMENTAAR

Dit citaat ligt in de lijn van mijn vorige blog over Hannah Arendt die eenzaamheid beschouwt als een van de voedingsbodems voor terrorisme gepleegd door ontwortelde individuen, en over de wrevel die bij sommigen bestaat over onze eigen samenleving. De toestand is m.i. als gevolg van 9/11 en de desastreuze inval in Irak ondertussen nog sterk verslechterd sinds Arend haar analyse maakte.