Our Times

The dawn of the third millennium is characterized by an enormous difficulty in imagining the future. We fear the worst. There is no longer expectation, or an opening to the future. Rather, the future seems closed: in the best-case scenario, it is destined to reproduce the past, reiterating it in a present that appears in the trappings of a future

Along these lines, one recalls, too, Arendt’s warning in the prologue to The Human Condition: “The future man, whom the scientists tell us they will produce in no more than a hundred years, seems possessed by a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it

In den meisten Ländern kann man sich heute – eingeschränkt allenfalls durch Eigentumsrechte – innerhalb des Territoriums frei bewegen, muss aber staatliche Kontrollen akzeptieren, sobald man eine Staatsgrenze überschreiten möchte. Der Staat wurde zum einzig legitimen Akteur der Mobilitätsermöglichung und ‑beschränkung sowie der Grenzkontrolle am

Trauma is a far subtler concept than many of us realise. It isn't just a word for something extremely stressful. It doesn't always come from short, sharp shocks like car accidents, terrorist attacks, or firefights. And, trauma isn't the same thing as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). What trauma is about is events and their effect on the mind.

The clearest impact of technology on teen development to date has been starkly negative. According to psychologist Jean Twenge’s 2017 book, iGen, smartphone use has caused a spike in depression and anxiety among people born from 1995 on, and a diminution in sociability and independence. An excerpt of her book in The Atlantic was aptly titled, “Have