Have We Reached ‘Peak Anxiety'?

Epoch Times

23-05-2025

Commentary
Has Western society—perhaps societies in almost all countries—reached the point where the indefinable, pervasive sense of anxiety has reached its limit? Are we ready to burst? Or are we ready to calm down?
It is inevitable that when the intense, feverish, unabated clangor of the street sirens and debate chambers invades the brains of individuals, affording them no respite, they will seek relief from the stress—the insanity—of such a 'war zone.'
They will seek relief or release; relief as tensions calm, or release as when a crowd or mass movement erupts in its final explosion of energy.
We see, in the fevered society, burnout at an individual level; but it also exists at a mass level, especially as the waves of mass psychosis play out on the streets and cities, inciting social divisions of great magnitude with irrational fear of neighbors and even greater fear of distant populations. Sometimes, we see a reverse of this: when local stagnation or fears irrationally illuminate foreign 'havens' as a 'flight to safety.'
To a great extent, we are in a world of pain, much of it exacerbated by the pervasive flow of sentiments—not necessarily news or contextually-balanced facts—that wash over entire communities that have no means of 'shutting off the noise.' Couple that with the fact that societies—mostly urban societies—have been universally and gradually robbed of the space and opportunity for reflection, education through individual experience, and deeper access to a wide range of human-evolved reasoning, and we see the inevitable path to unrest and social collapse.
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None of this is a surprise.
Indeed, if we reflect on the fact that we moved from an intensely dangerous Cold War (1945–1990) to a more pervasive form of 'total war,' entering every phase of human life from, say, 1990 until today, we have to view the global society as one that has endured an escalating and inescapable growth of psychological pressures. This is a strategic factor. It creates societies in search of release, and that release can be equally as irrational as much of the build-up of fears and the decline of options of individuals.
But it is a strategic factor that is largely outside the normal skill sets of military or civilian leaders, either to comprehend or address. The fear of uncontrolled mass actions—either at elections or on the streets—causes politicians to attempt tactical responses and Band-Aid solutions, often taking actions abroad to signal strength to populations at home. The results are inevitably counterproductive in the longer term, even when they quell mob pressure in the short term.
What analysts of the level of Hannah Arendt or Stefan Possony understood was that when mass movements are unresolved, or are addressed only by partial and temporary measures, they will continue until they dissipate through 'release': the explosion of violence by which they achieve either victory or the sudden dissipation of their energy.
Everywhere, we see the signs of these impending 'releases,' even as the U.S. installation of President Donald Trump in January 2025 indicated a massive 'controlled release' of energy with ramifications for the entire world. It represented a decisive turning point in the internal war in the United States between what have been labeled—perhaps not with sufficient clarity—as nationalist and globalist mass movements. Trump's victory launched a nationalist agenda by the United States into the global community, with initial forays into the foreign arena.
Such a release signifies either a dissipation of the energy of a movement, or a victory that then gathers a fresh momentum. The U.S. 'release' seems to be gaining momentum.
This new U.S. momentum has begun to transform the domestic and international perception of the United States. With Trump's first international set of state visits abroad—in May 2025 to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—he 'recaptured' the Middle East under the U.S. umbrella. For the United States, this transformed a situation of regional decline in influence that had been underway since the end of the presidency of Richard Nixon (1969–1974) and was accelerated by the collapse of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran in 1978 (when Jimmy Carter was U.S. president).
How far will the new U.S. dominance go in the Middle East? At first glance, with Trump's visit this month, it seems to have firmly displaced China, Russia, and even Turkey in their attempts to gain or regain influence in the region. The regional uncertainties as to the reliability and future strength of the United States were allayed by the naked display of willpower by the incoming Trump administration. The locals felt that they no longer needed to 'hedge their bets' by allying with China or Russia, not that the Middle Eastern states will turn away from Beijing or Moscow.
Rather, they will follow strength.
What follows will be the resurgence of U.S. trade and investment with the region, and in addition, the Abraham Accords will revive and build a network interrelated with the United States and with Washington's movement of its strategic presence further to the East of NATO Europe. Whether Europe can become part of this momentum remains moot. Trump has walked away from outdated mechanisms such as NATO, the United Nations, and other obsolete modalities.
Thus some clarity is beginning to emerge of the shape of the Trump and post-Trump global strategic architecture. Nothing signaled the eclipse of China, for example, more than the Trump Middle East visit, which resulted in massive new economic benefits for the United States as well as the promise of revived U.S. economic relationships with the regional states.
At the same time, the great frenzy of the globalism/nationalism confrontation, while resolving rapidly in favor of nationalist forms of governance, will work itself out with considerable anger and violence over the coming year or two. How will Europe fracture and rebuild? How will Russia re-emerge on the global stage? At what point, and with either a whimper or a bang, will the Chinese regime dash itself on the shores of fate, and who will suffer in the process?
When will we see, if ever, the frenzy and anxiety subside into calm? Indeed, has there ever been calm, except in our memories?
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.