The Angst of Mid-21st Century Life
Are we facing a different kind of angst today than we were during the 1950s and 1960s? This is an important question to ask because Angst causes people to retreat to their corners. As members of the psychoanalytic community have often suggested, high levels of angst must be contained—or it will expand and spill out to infect other parts of our life and the lives of other people with whom we interact. When we are considering individualized anxiety, then the container is often to be found in personal defenses (such as regression or denial) or, preferably, the office of a psychotherapist. When angst as a shared source of anxiety is widely found, then the container often resides in their respective right-wing conservative or left-wing liberal groups. A collective “corner” is provided by their group where one can hide from the onslaught of angst. It seems that angst is not only created in a collective manner but is also contained by collective action.
What does all of this mean? It seems that a challenge we face in our current national and world environment is that angst (and associated stress) causes people to move to extremes based on their social contexts and psychological makeup. Family members, neighbors and co-workers migrate to their “in-groups” or tribes that share similar personalities and thinking and begin to distrust “out-groups” in the opposite corners. Different thinking styles make it difficult for these groups to engage in constructive conversations in order to live or work together.
As time goes by, these groups become increasingly insular and their beliefs and thinking become narrower. As we have described before, research described by neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky (2017) suggests authoritarian personalities tend to be uncomfortable with ambiguity while liberal thinkers “think harder”! Sapolsky quotes political scientist Philip Tetlock’s research suggesting that “leftists” have a greater capacity for “integrative complexity”.
This implies that when faced with complex and challenging social conditions such as Covid 19, high inflation and financial angst or international conflicts, conservative authoritarian thinkers are more likely to believe conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones (who has been found guilty of propagating lies and disinformation for financial gain) than more liberal leaders or experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci or liberal leaders who serve as members of the Biden Administration. Often this absolute rejection of liberal supported information is to the detriment (health and financial) of conservative thinkers.
Do we also find a form of conspiracy arising among liberal thinkers and leaders? Is there also a fear among those on the left that the right wing is bent on the destruction of democracy –and ultimately the destruction of American life as we know it (or the life of other countries that are fighting the forces of authoritarianism). While it is often hard to admit that fault resides on both ends of the political spectrum, it is important to recognize that political polarization is highly infectious. It is hard not to become rigid about another person’s rigidity or to be intolerant of another person’s (or group’s) intolerance. There is a wonderfully ironic statement to be offered in this regard: “there are only two kinds of people in this world: those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t!!”
