The third decade of the twenty-first century is not the first time in recorded human history people have feared that the end of the world was imminent. In the years leading to 1,000 of the Christian Era a millennial panic gripped medieval Europe. In 1910 people around the world feared that Halley’s Comet would strike the Earth and end all life on it. In 2012 there was a global fear of “the Maya Apocalypse,” a misinterpretation of the ancient Maya Long Count calendar that led many to believe the world would end on December 21 (the winter solstice).
Now, however, the likelihood of the end of our species is all too real. There has been a series of serious books entitled The End of the World (see here). The Doomsday Clock stands at 89 seconds to Midnight, the closest to a global catastrophe it has been since its inception in 1947. Our species faces imminent extinction from global warming, environmental catastrophe or nuclear war.
The centerpiece of this website is the psychoanalytic interpretation of history, which, among many other things, attempts to explain about how and why we have come to this terrible pass. It is my belief that without the insights of psychoanalysis, both on the individual and on the collective level, we can neither answer these questions nor save ourselves from an unprecedented catastrophe. What has become of our species and of our civilization — and why?
Applied psychoanalysis is a discipline for studying the wonders of human creation, including literature, art, science, music, architecture, films, and urban civilization, as well as the horrors of human destruction, including war, genocide, environmental pollution, and the annihilation of other species.
This website is based on the interdisciplinary research fields of psychohistory, psychobiography, political psychology, psychogeography, and psychoanthropology, among others. Here you will find my books, articles, and blogs on the psychoanalytic interpretation of history, politics, geography, literature, music and other aspects of human behavior and endeavor.
From time to time you will find new pages here about subjects such as the tragic mass murders in Norway and France, the Scottish referendum, U.S.-Israeli relations, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Arab-Israeli conflict, or the former U.S. President Donald Trump and his followers.
Any comments or suggestions from you will be appreciated.
Thank you for visiting my website.
Avner Falk, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist Jerusalem, Israel