Trauma als Preis der Moderne

While the "pathologies of tyranny” (greed for power and oppression, persecution of dissenters, and the spread of fear), as they exist in authoritarian states and systems, are usually plain to see, the “pathologies of freedom” (reversal of institutionalized promises of freedom into their opposite, etc.) are harder to discern. Moreover, they are even harder to heal. Werner Theobald explores the traumatic potential of modernity on various levels (mind, culture, history, society, and politics) and interprets its “great promises” as the flipside of a history of violence and as part of the history of narcissism – a trauma-theoretical reconstruction of our culture and its history, from the beginnings of modernity to the present day.