Trauma als Preis der Moderne

Lust for power and oppression, the persecution of dissenters, and the spread of fear are intrinsic to the logic of authoritarian states; promises of freedom and happiness are intrinsic to democracy. While the “pathologies of tyranny” are plain to see, the “pathologies of freedom” are harder to discern, especially when liberality turns into its opposite. On intellectual, cultural, historical, social, and political levels, Werner Theobald uncovers modernity’s potential for trauma and interprets its “great promises” (Erich Fromm) as the other side of the history of violence and as part of the history of narcissism: a trauma-theoretical outline of our cultural history from the beginnings of modernity to the present.