Модерността, депресивните състояния и прогнозите за близкото бъдеще
Modernity, Depressive Disorders, and the Forecasts for the Near Future

Summary/Abstract: The high rates of depression and suicide in developed countries are frequently attributed to the rationalization of life which culminated in the Enlightenment and dominates (post-)industrial capitalism. However, the present study suggests that highly influential Enlightenment figures such as Hume, Smith, Samuel Johnson and Kant were actually confronting a pre-existing depressive tendency in Western culture caused by the traumatic beginnings of modernity: the Catholic-Protestant split, the Thirty Years War, the British Civil Wars, the Lisbon Earthquake, etc., which shattered the classical Platonized Christian outlook and led to a more pessimistic view in which humans are animalistic and self-centered. Later socio-economic theory generally followed Adam Smith, who rejected pessimism by combining individualism with the old monotheistic beliefs, having realized that a “fatherless” universe appears full of “endless misery and wretchedness”. Yet today’s individualistic solutions to depression still fail to consider the need for solidarity and common values among modern “fatherless” individuals.

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