“This has been called the “Age of Anxiety.” Considering the attention given the subject by psychology, theology, literature, and the pharmaceutical industry, not to mention the testimony from our own lives, we could fairly well conclude that there is more anxiety today, and, moreover, that there is definitely more anxiety about anxiety now than there has been in previous epochs of history.
Nevertheless, I would hesitate to characterize this as an “Age of Anxiety,” just as I would be loathe to call this an “Age of Affluence,” “Coronary Disease,” “Mental Health,” “Dieting,” “Conformity,” or “Sexual Freedom.” My reason being, that none of these labels, whatever fact or truth they may involve, goes to the heart of the matter.
Much as I dislike this game of labels, my preference would be to call this the “Age of the Disordered Will.” It takes only a glance to see a few of the myriad varieties of willing what cannot be willed that enslave us: we will to sleep, will to read fast, will to have simultaneous orgasm, will to be creative and spontaneous, will to enjoy our old age, and, most urgently, will to will.
If anxiety is more prominent in our time, such anxiety is the product of our particular modern disability of the will. To this disability, rather than to anxiety, I would attribute the ever-increasing dependence on drugs affecting all level of our society. While drugs do offer relief from anxiety, their more important task is to offer the illusion of healing the split between the will and its refractory object. The resulting feeling of wholeness may not be a responsible one, but at least within that wholeness–no matter how willful the drugged state may appear to an outsider–there seems to be, briefly and subjectively, a responsible and vigorous will. This is the reason, I believe, that the addictive possibilities of our age are so enormous.” (1976, p.32)
Farber, L.H. (1976), Lying, despair, jealousy, envy, sex, suicide, drugs, and the good life. New York: Harper & Row.
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