@article{Madsen, author = {Madsen, Ole Jacob}, title = {The Pathology of Modernity}, series = {Deconstructing Scandinavia's >Achievement Generation<, Cham (Palgrave Macmillan) 2021, pp. 19-39. [Online ISBN 978-3-030-72555-6] [doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72555-6_2]}, journal = {Deconstructing Scandinavia's >Achievement Generation<, Cham (Palgrave Macmillan) 2021, pp. 19-39. [Online ISBN 978-3-030-72555-6] [doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72555-6_2]}, abstract = {This chapter presents the psychological burden of living under modernity's law of gravitation as the defining focus of much continental philosophy and social science. Most Western philosophers with any self-respect have their own diagnoses of present-day society, intended to capture the essence of living in modernity. Key thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud, Adorno and Horkheimer, Fromm, Rieff, Eriksson and Mitscherlich gave their important contribution to individuation - the development of a unique self, socialization and subjectivation. Equally important is the question of failed individuation as these psychologists, sociologists and philosophers ask themselves whether modern man can manage without >God< and if the science-based Enlightenment's promise of secular happiness would hold water.}, language = {en} }