The Distress of Our Time

"Our era is not the first in history in which the dominant feeling is distress, anxiety, a sense of waiting for one knows not what, nor the first in which men feel they have the painful privilege of being a generation destined for an exceptional fate. Since history is past and exists only on paper, it is easy to entertain the illusion that all previous periods were peaceful compared to the one in which we are now living, just as twenty-year-old adolescents always feel they are the first to have ever experienced the anxieties of youth. Nevertheless, one can say with no fear of exaggeration that the part of humanity in our little corner of Europe that has ruled the world for so long is going through a profound and serious crisis. The great hopes inherited from the three preceding centuries, especially from the last--hopes of a progressive spread of enlightenment, of general well-being, of democracy, of peace--are rapidly crumbling. That would not be so serious if it were simply a matter of disillusionment affecting certain intellectual circles, or certain spheres particularly taken up with political and social problems. But the conditions under which we live are such that the distress touches and taints every aspect of men's lives, every source of action, hope, and happiness. Private life, in its daily course, is less and less separated from public life, and this is the case in every sphere. There have previously been times in history when great collective outbursts temporarily reduced private life to insignificance; today, however, it is the enduring conditions of our existence that prevent us from finding in daily life any moral resources that are independent of the political and social situation.

Our feeling of security is profoundly affected. That, however, is not something absolutely bad; there can be no security for man on this earth, and the feeling of security, beyond a certain degree, is a dangerous illusion that falsifies everything, that makes minds narrow, limited, superficial, and stupidly satisfied; we saw quite a lot of that during the so-called period of prosperity, and we still see it in a few--increasingly rare--sectors of society in which people feel protected. But the total absence of security, especially when the catastrophes to be feared are incommensurable with the resources that intelligence, action, and courage might be able to provide, is no more favorable to the health of the soul. We saw an economic crisis in several large countries deprive a whole young generation of any hope of ever being able to enter into the social structure, earn a living, and maintain a family. We have a good chance of shortly seeing a new generation in the same impasse...The fear of war--a war in which nothing would be left intact--has stopped being a subject of lectures or pamphlets and has become a general preoccupation; it is increasingly becoming a daily preoccupation as civilian life is everywhere subordinated to military preparation. Modern means of communication--the press, the radio, the cinema--are powerful enough to day to rattle the nerves of an entire nation. Of course, life always defends itself, protected by instinct and a certain layer of unconsciousness; nevertheless, the fear of great collective catastrophes, awaited as passively as tidal waves or earthquakes, increasingly colors the way each man sees his personal future.

--Simone Weil, 1938.