When I started writing the book, there were two things I wasn’t clear about.

On the one hand, I was a little caught up in a criticism of the 68er generation of psychology: Psychology creates adapted people who work and don’t question much. To simplify Foucault: The individual body is expropriated by the state, massively disciplined, to be a useful part of a nation state. A psychiatry is invented to make the great majority of the population comply with the normality of the threat of involuntary commitment to the clinic. This criticism of psychology, respectively psychiatry, deliberately overlooks the modernizing functions of the psychological schools: Yes, human experience and behavior can be changed. We have not been brought to stagnation by fate or whoever. We can shape ourselves. We can and must explore the unconscious to understand who we are. This can help us to get the death drive under control to such an extent that it does not become the basis for totalitarian political ideologies. With an optimistic view of man (man is good by nature, he wants to realize himself), a prerequisite is created to want to work on oneself productively. If the system is taken into account, the human individual is relieved. It is not responsible for everyone. It does not have to be crushed by a great soul. So psychology is actually a defender of modernity.

On the other hand, I was a little carried along by the wave of relative indifference to the achievements of modernity. A Diderot was imprisoned for what he wrote. I can write what comes to my mind. I am certainly not threatened by imprisonment. And when I retire, I will receive a monthly pension. And if I get sick, my health insurance will pay the costs. And I always have enough to eat. All this was rather self-evident. Through writing this book, this has changed. I am now almost shaken that we are doing so well. And this must be defended. With all my might.

With all my might, it is to be prevented that totalitarian ideologies gain further ground.