The huge increase in diagnosed psychiatric illnesses since end of WW2, but especially during the last 20-30 years, has been one of the defining characteristics of our current era. The "conventional wisdom" of "experts" attributes this increase to advances in the field of psychiatry, more access to medical care, advances in drug therapy of mental illnesses etc. But is this really the case? What if the very nature and structure of contemporary societies is not quite right? What if the rules, expectations and mores underlying modern societies and institutions within them are themselves bizarre, sociopathic and irrational?
I think that it is this divorce from spirit and tradition, that BowTiedIronHide mentions in his comment, and increased secularism, unending progressivism, scientism and consumerism that are causing societies to become unhinged.
Whatever you may think of religion and tradition, they provide a stable firmament out of which societies can grow.
Yet in the modern age we suffer from a sort of chronological snobbery - as CS Lewis once put it.
We live in a perpetual present, worshiping the new god of constant progress, disconnected from history, where we deem everything that was in the past as provincial and outdated.
This causes a collective metaphysical angst to manifest itself at a societal level, because people are being robed of something they don't realize is essential for their existance.
There's also a constant pressure to think that however much progress we have achieved, is still not e enough.
You are right in asserting that "the problem with contemporary society and its institutions is that they are almost totally divorced from what human beings really are and what we truly desire".
What we are seeing is the repressive psyche of an increasingly Faustian society. No amount of clinical diagnosis and pills will cure this.
Man has divorced from spirit multiple times over 10s of thousands of years. The absence of mass individual reflection on the grandiosity of the universe & uniqueness of the human experience keeps taking us full circle. Spirit is energy and energy cannot be destroyed. The ever growing ills & deceit in society isn't a battle for physical resources & political power, those are the meagre rewards for harvesting societies spirit(energy). The more pertinent question is what is the larger unseen reward for harvesting societies collective spirit?
I think that it is this divorce from spirit and tradition, that BowTiedIronHide mentions in his comment, and increased secularism, unending progressivism, scientism and consumerism that are causing societies to become unhinged.
Whatever you may think of religion and tradition, they provide a stable firmament out of which societies can grow.
Yet in the modern age we suffer from a sort of chronological snobbery - as CS Lewis once put it.
We live in a perpetual present, worshiping the new god of constant progress, disconnected from history, where we deem everything that was in the past as provincial and outdated.
This causes a collective metaphysical angst to manifest itself at a societal level, because people are being robed of something they don't realize is essential for their existance.
There's also a constant pressure to think that however much progress we have achieved, is still not e enough.
You are right in asserting that "the problem with contemporary society and its institutions is that they are almost totally divorced from what human beings really are and what we truly desire".
What we are seeing is the repressive psyche of an increasingly Faustian society. No amount of clinical diagnosis and pills will cure this.
Man has divorced from spirit multiple times over 10s of thousands of years. The absence of mass individual reflection on the grandiosity of the universe & uniqueness of the human experience keeps taking us full circle. Spirit is energy and energy cannot be destroyed. The ever growing ills & deceit in society isn't a battle for physical resources & political power, those are the meagre rewards for harvesting societies spirit(energy). The more pertinent question is what is the larger unseen reward for harvesting societies collective spirit?