Blandade känslor: fruktan och förtröstan förr och nu
Author
Editor
- Arne Jönsson
- Stephan Borgehammar
- Per Beskov
Summary, in English
Mixed feelings: fear and consolation now and then (from the 17th to the 21st century). In Early Modern Swedish society a great amount of ideas, words and images were available to explain the earthly suffering. In the Lutheran practice of preaching, consolation, besides instruction and admonition, played an important role.
Today, our life is not as hard as our ancestors’ was. This has enabled us to distance ourselves from suffering, dying and death in our everyday lives. In fiction, however, risks, violence and death are frequently exploited as exciting and entertaining matters. The Late Modern individualistic ideology of Western welfare societies puts a great emphasis on experience and emotion. Still, only positive experiences such as pleasure and excitement are seen as a normal part of real life, while fear, sorrow and desperation are considered as problems to be solved by experts and institutions, medicine and social politics. In the secularized view of the world, suffering has lost its cosmological meaning and social legitimacy.
Today, our life is not as hard as our ancestors’ was. This has enabled us to distance ourselves from suffering, dying and death in our everyday lives. In fiction, however, risks, violence and death are frequently exploited as exciting and entertaining matters. The Late Modern individualistic ideology of Western welfare societies puts a great emphasis on experience and emotion. Still, only positive experiences such as pleasure and excitement are seen as a normal part of real life, while fear, sorrow and desperation are considered as problems to be solved by experts and institutions, medicine and social politics. In the secularized view of the world, suffering has lost its cosmological meaning and social legitimacy.
Department/s
Publishing year
2008
Language
Swedish
Pages
549-557
Publication/Series
Förbistringar och förklaringar. Festskrift till Anders Piltz
Document type
Book chapter
Publisher
Skåneförlaget
Topic
- History of Ideas
Keywords
- emotions
- fear
- consolation
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISBN: 978-91-87976-29-2