Angor animi, czyli kultura lęku

Leszek KOCZANOWICZ

Katedra Psychologii Społecznej, Szkoła Wyższa Psychologii Społecznej, Wydział Zamiejscowy we Wrocławiu, ul. Grunwaldzka 98, 50-357 Wrocław, Poland , Poland

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of the fears of modernity. The author develops the concept of a culture of fear conceived of as a universal mental condition reflecting the transformations of modern society. The starting point for the analyses is the concepts of, respectively, angor animi (a medical term) and ‘beast’ (a description recurring in Henry James’s The Beast in the Jungle). The two categories refer to two types of fear: the terror caused by the feeling of imminent death and the anxiety caused by falling into ordinariness in life. Both kinds of fear are engendered by the instability of every-day reality in modernity. The instability in question is responsible for the universal experience of living on the verge of an abyss which induces a pessimistic vision of both the present and the future.

Keywords:

modernity, modern culture, fear, risk society, angor animi