ANOMIE AND THE WESTERN DELUSION OF IDENTITY, FREEDOM (CONTROL), AND EQUALITY

Liah Greenfeld, Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U. Press, 2013) ("Why do the secular focus of nationalism and the two principles embodied in the society constructed on its basis lead to madness--or schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness? All three of these features place the individual in control of his or her destiny, eliminating the expectation of putting things right in the afterlife, making one the ultimate authority in deciding on one's priorities, encouraging one to strive for a higher social status (since one is presumed to be equal to everyone, but one wants to be equal only to those who are superior), and giving one the right to choose one's social position (since the presumption of fundamental equality makes everyone interchangeable) and therefore identity. But this very liberty implied in nationalism, both empowering and encouraging the individual to choose what to be--in contrast to all the religious pre-national societies in which no one was asked 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' since one was whatever one was born--makes the formation of the individual identity problematic, and the more so the moire choices for the definition of one's identity a society offers and the more insistent it is on equality. A clear sense of identity being a condition sine qua non for adequate mental functioning malformation of identity leads to mental disease, but modern culture cannot help the individual to acquire such clear sense, it is inherently confusing. This cultural insufficiency--the inability of a culture to provide individuals within it with consistent guidance--was named anomie by Durkheim" Id. at 4-5.).