Philosopher and philosophical counselor Sameer Chopra wisely, if sometimes euphemistically, draws on a long and well-known lineage of anxiety in his new book.Anxiety: A philosophical guide” “My insecurities shaped me into the person I am today,” he writes in the preface. “I couldn’t get rid of my anxiety without stopping being me.”
Although it contains some moving accounts of his own trauma and turmoil, much of the slim book is devoted to staging a whirlwind journey through the intellectual history of the wrongly stigmatized sentiment. There is. Of course, “anxiety” is not a comprehensive study. Chopra focuses on his four schools of thought that illuminate his subject matter with special acuity: Buddhism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, and critical theory. All of these traditions are the subject of books in their own right, and Chopra’s summary can sometimes feel rushed. In a book of this modest size, it’s difficult to do justice to such troubling and alien thinkers as the fiercely anti-Christian iconoclast Friedrich Nietzsche and the Christian existentialist Paul Tillich.
Still, “Anxiety” is a useful introduction to the work of thinkers who confront, rather than rebel against, our most fruitful and unpleasant emotions. Perhaps more importantly, in an age when simple painkillers are sought after, Chopra’s book represents an urgent attempt to take anxiety back from those who threaten to treat it or make it go away with counseling. It means that there is. It sets an example and offers a challenging and rewarding alternative to the easy self-promotion that it implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) criticizes.
In fact, “Anxiety” opens with a nod to the conventions of the self-help genre, half-simulating, half-mocking. “Any book on anxiety must begin with an extensive list of sociological observations and statistics, each showing how common suffering from anxiety is in modern society,” Chopra said. writing. Worse, he continued, any book on anxiety must claim that its prevalence is unprecedented. Jonathan Haidt’s recent book declares Gen Z to be an “anxious generation,” but with a little historical awareness we can see how previous generations have thought of themselves as the same. is sufficient to indicate. Why is our anxiety so persistent and so elusive? Perhaps because it is a “universal and enduring human condition,” or at least the philosophical version of it, Chopra suggests.
What is the difference between this brand of heightened anxiety and one that isn’t? Clinical anxiety is typically irrational, but many of the traditions Chopra explores suggest that existential anxiety seen as a clear reaction to the fate of which one But whether aspects of the human condition cause existential anxiety depends on who you ask.
Buddhists, for example, believe that our suffering is tied to a “true, unblinking understanding of the nature of the world and the place of human existence within it,” Chopra writes. In other words, we despair not because we are afraid of illusions, but because we recognize that we are limited in life, in our abilities, in our accomplishments, and that we are destined for mortality. Sigmund Freud and his followers echoed Buddhist concerns, suggesting that anxiety is, broadly speaking, a reaction to a world filled with “painful and terrible losses.” Existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Kierkegaard take a different position, arguing that freedom involves anxiety. So once you accept that you’re not bound to a single path, you’re left wondering which path to choose. And left-wing critics like Karl Marx see anxiety as a social disease, a product of living in “a world constructed on other people’s terms.”
These explanations are not exactly contradictory. We may feel existential anxiety because we are mortal and free. and Because we have little control over the circumstances of our lives. However, they do not blend smoothly. If we feel insecure because we are forced to live in a world designed by the wealthy, then perhaps our freedom is not as taxing as existentialists claim. not. Moreover, it is not clear whether what Marx famously called “alienation,” the sense of alienation a worker endures when forced to accept the orders of his superiors, actually amounts to anxiety. . Chopra doesn’t have the luxury of fully insisting on this dubious identification, nor is he able to reconcile the character’s various emphases, which may point in different directions.
Ultimately, whether existential anxiety can be cured to any degree depends on what it is. The Marxist cure for alienation seems to be social and political reform. In the eyes of Buddhists, the cure for the seeds of anxiety is the realization that there is “no permanent entity”, the Self, whose finitude can trouble us. But Chopra clearly sympathizes with those who believe that anxiety is and should be chronic. “Even if all material benefits were secured, we would never be free from existential anxiety,” he reflects in a chapter on Marxist alienation theory.
Still, certain strategies can reduce anxiety without eliminating or reducing it. When Chopra himself discovered existentialism, he stopped worrying so much. Existentialism reassured us that there is no single way to live or a single standard to follow. And philosophy, like psychoanalysis, can reshape our fears. After his philosophy, Chopra wrote, “What appears to be a problem is no longer a problem, because in the process of reinterpreting the problem, its identity and essence have changed.”
His goal is to show that we don’t need to worry about becoming anxious, even though we are inherently destined to be anxious. In contrast to those who seek to abolish all forms of friction and frustration, he argues that anxiety is a way of honoring who and what we are. In his words, it is “a fundamental human response to our finitude, mortality, and cognitive limitations.” Without it, who knows what kind of truncated beings we would be.
As we ponder the prospect of a life without anxiety, we fortunately become aware of another fear to worry about.
Becca Rosfeld is a nonfiction book reviewer for The Washington Post.
Princeton. 185 pages $27.95
