The Therapeutic State: How Social Decay Fuels State Power

Описание: Thesis: The erosion of intermediary social institutions creates a structural void, leading to fragile, atomized individuals.
Consequence: This void enables the expansion of a therapeutic state that invades citizens' psychological lives.
Mechanism 1: A cultural shift towards a victim mindset, where claimed injury grants authority.
Mechanism 2: The rise of emotivism, where subjective feelings replace reasoned debate.
Historical Origin: 19th-century philanthropy's invasive moralizing interventions.
Development: The Progressive Era's pathologizing of families and the Great Depression's nationalization of conditional aid.
Modern Manifestation: The fusion of therapy and punishment, where treatment acts as coercion, leading to the total medicalization of life and an unprecedented expansion of state power.

Argues that modern societal fragility and demands for institutional intervention are symptoms of a structural void caused by the erosion of intermediary social institutions, leading to atomized, hypersensitive individuals who then fuel the expansion of the therapeutic state into personal psychological lives. The logic traces this from the decline of associational life, which historically taught resilience and managed conflict, leaving individuals vulnerable to centralized power. This void is then filled by a cultural shift towards a victim mindset, where claimed injury grants authority and demands institutional protection, and emotivism, where subjective feelings replace reasoned debate. Historically, the therapeutic state developed from 19th-century philanthropy's invasive moralizing interventions into working-class families, through the Progressive Era's casework revolution that pathologized families and enforced scientific domestic reconstruction via institutions like juvenile courts and conditional aid programs. The Great Depression nationalized this model, extending federal influence for psychological diagnosis and conditional aid. In the modern state, therapy and punishment are complementary, with treatment in problem-solving courts acting as coercion to enforce personal adjustment, culminating in the total medicalization of everyday life and a dramatic expansion of state power into citizens' psychological, moral, and physical well-being.