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https://theconversation.com/national-insecurity-what-happens-when-countries-start-to-lose-their-sense-of-identity-284530>
"You need only glance at the headlines these days to know that the current
state of international relations is dangerous.
From Washington’s retreat from multilateral commitments to Moscow’s aggressive
ethno-nationalism, the defining feature of world affairs is not simply cold
strategic calculation but something closer to anxiety.
To explain this search for certainty in a world that no longer reflects the
stories states have long told about themselves, political theorists have turned
to the field of psychiatry. Specifically, to ideas of “self” and “being” that
explain the idea of “ontological security”.
Ontology is a branch of philosophy that ponders the basic question of what it
means to exist. In psychiatry, the term ontological security was coined by
Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, who characterised mentally stable people as
having an identity and sense of autonomy that is never in question.
Those suffering from schizophrenia, however, typically felt:
more unreal than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive;
precariously differentiated from the rest of the world so that his identity
and autonomy are always in question.
States, too, can suffer from this form of insecurity – not as a clinical
condition but a structural one, emerging from the uncertainties of a fracturing
international system.
As political scientist Jennifer Mitzen argues, states have similar needs to
people: “to experience oneself as a whole, continuous person in time” to
maintain a stable identity.
In his book
Modernity and Self-Identity, sociologist Anthony Giddens argues
that ontological security for states involves a “sense of continuity and order
in events” – “security as being” rather than “security as survival”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
