This feeling that "reality is crumbling beneath our feet," or the new malaise in civilization

Something is wrong. Worrying. signals give the impression that our societies are on the verge of implosion. It must be said that each day brings its share of despondency, its flood of astonishment, its share of commotions. The deadly news spares no subject, no front. The war in Ukraine and the crushing of Gaza, the women forced into silence in Afghanistan, the conspiracy theories that, from Washington to Moscow, are reaching the highest levels of government. But also the senseless killings, the serial suicides, the social networks where so many uncontrolled impulses and targeted harassments surge.

The gloomy climate is not a confused sensation. Objective data support the picture of a deadly era. Wars are proliferating: according to a report from the Oslo Peace Research Institute, published on June 11, 61 conflicts were recorded worldwide in 2024, bringing them to their highest level since 1946. An indicator of psychological disorientation, mental illnesses are increasing: one in eight people in the world suffers from a mental disorder , with anxiety and depressive symptoms being the most frequent, according to a report from the World Health Organization, published in 2022. Drug use and trafficking are exploding, social anomie is spreading, and digital addiction is relaying obscurantism, conspiracy theories, and identity-based hatred.

In 1930, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) cautiously hypothesized that our societies had become "neurotic." The inventor of psychoanalysis diagnosed that the West was experiencing a Civilizational Discontents . The psychological cost of the renunciation of impulses required to form a society was becoming too high for individuals and was creating immense tensions. According to Freud, "the decisive question for the destiny of the human species" was "whether and to what extent its cultural development will succeed in mastering the disruption brought to life in common by the human impulse of aggression and self-annihilation."

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