Academic literature on the topic 'Existential life crises'

The article analyzes the potential of the existential personality setting in the face of social crises, the issues of ecological consciousness and the freedom to choose models of self-realization of modern man. Constructiveness and effectiveness of existential way of life are investigated on the example of ecological practices and downshifting phenomenon.In the axiological dimension, the crisis is characterized by the collapse of norms, the absence of generally significant values. The problem for the self-identification and self-realization of Ukrainians is that Ukraine does not have a well-defined strategy of development, an official ideology as a concentrated expression of the main problems of Ukrainian society.In today's Ukrainian socio-cultural context, the existential problems of responsibility for one's choice of life path are actualized. This choice as an existential choice is certainly an axiological choice.Traditional family values and families remain relevant to Ukrainians. In times of social crisis, in the era of development of social programming technologies, globalization of mental regulation of behavior, the presence of the family is a threat to resistance to mass consumer culture, because the family is a violation of the homogeneity of the mass - a source of personal meanings and values, etc.The actualization of existential problems in society has been the impetus for the growth of existential topics in humanities. Рractices built on the platform of existential outlook as being of concrete application demonstrating their effectiveness by refuting the concept of existentialism as a cultural and historical temporary project.The existential personality setting is closely linked to the ecological setting, which is seen as an alternative to the consumer setting. Particular attention is paid to eco-practices, environmental lifestyles as a way of solving existential problems, realizing authentic existence and existential self-realization.In this context, the choice of Simple life as a strategy of life is a choice between the scales of values and the possibilities of their realization. Simple life reflects the movement towards true self-realization, an ecology of consciousness, freedom and responsibility.Thus, the existential setting of the personality provides an increase in the dimensions of one's freedom can be a constructive and effective basis for self-realization of the individual.

The Feeling of Loneliness as a Moderator of the Course of Situational, Developmental and Existential Crises The article addresses the issue of different categories of psychological crises. The main thesis of the work formulates the belief that feeling of loneliness (consisting of three dimensions: a feeling of social, emotional and existential loneliness) in crisis states is an important moderator (predictor) of their course and ultimately psychological consequences. In the theoretical layer, the problem raised here is based on the assumptions of life-span developmental psychology theory, and in the empirical layer refers to the results of a number of research projects in which a sense of loneliness among other numerous variables has been given the status of predictor. The results of the projects show that taking the feeling of loneliness into account provides a better insight into the direct or indirect consequences of psychological crises with different characteristics. This matters not only theoretically, but also practically. On the one hand, it raises awareness of the course and psychological consequences of crises caused by various risks, losses and relational deficits. On the other hand, it advocates the use of proprietary tools to measure feelings of loneliness: (SBS-C, 8–13 years), adolescents (SBS, 12–19 years), and adults (SBS-AD and SBS-ADC) (Dołęga, 2020).

In the course of acmeological development, transition of an individual from adaptation to preadaptive activity takes place. Thanks to preadaptivity, a person has new opportunities for the development of such features of his personality that help to overcome various crisis and uncertain situations. In such conditions, the system of personal senses becomes an integral regulator of life activity. The state of integrity of this system shows the possible ways of raising a person above self-actualization as a result of self realization in reality. Self-transcendence follows self-actualization and means going beyond the present self to fulfill the highest purpose. Self-transcendence is based on the process of overcoming the existential crisis of finiteness of one's being, as a result of which the system of personal senses gets restarted and shifts to creating cultural benefits for other people. Self-transcendence contains such existential attributes as experience of creative insights, preservation of subjectivity, ability to overcome existential crises in a positive way, tolerance to uncertainty, creative thinking, freedom in taking responsibility in search for one's own destiny

Background: The global outbreak of COVID-19set new challenges and threats for every human being. In the psychological field it is similar to deep existential crises or a traumatic experience that may lead to the appearance or exacerbation of a serious mental disorder and loss of life meaning and satisfaction. Courtney et al. (2020) discussed deadly pandemic COVID-19 in the light of TMT theory and named it as global contagion of mortality that personally affected every human being. Such unique conditions activate existential fears as people start to be aware of their own mortality. Objective: The main aim of this study was to test the mediating effect of existential anxiety, activated by COVID-19 and life satisfaction (SWLS) on the relationship between PTSD symptoms and post-traumatic growth (PTG). We also examined the moderated mediating effect of severity of trauma symptoms on life satisfaction and existential anxiety and its associations with PTG. Method: We conducted an online survey during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Poland. The participants completed existential anxiety scale (SNE), life satisfaction scale (SWLS), IES-R scale for measuring the level of PTSD symptoms and post-traumatic growth inventory (PTGI). Results: The effect of PTSD on PTG was found to be mediated by existential anxiety and life satisfaction. We also confirmed two indirect effects: (1) the indirect effect of PTSD on PTG via existential anxiety and life satisfaction tested simultaneously; (2) the indirect effect of life satisfaction on PTG through severity of trauma symptoms. An intermediate or high level of PTSD level was related to less PTG when low and full PTSD stress symptoms strengthened PTG experiences. Conclusions: A therapeutic intervention for individuals after traumatic experience should attempt to include fundamental existential questions and meaning of life as well as the severity of PTSD symptoms. The severity of traumatic sensations may affect the relationship between life satisfaction and post-traumatic growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a powerful border experience awakening us to our existential predicament. Such a predicament includes transience and impermanence, unpredictability, emptiness (existential vacuum), and the interdependence of life and death. The anxiety aroused by the pandemic can awaken us to an ontological mode of existence in which we are authentic, aware, responsible, and transcendent. The Chinese idiom reminds us that crises contain both danger and opportunity. Thus, this article explores how out of this awareness can emerge resilience, creativity, and meaning-making in the midst of confinement, isolation, and suffering.

This essay concerns the multiple faces of science in ethical environmental decision-making. Environmental crises pose existential threats to human and non-human life. Science is essential to any meaningful response to these crises, but science as it is conventionally understood and practiced is not adequate to the task. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour in his 2013 Gifford Lectures on ―Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature,‖1 I will critique this understanding and practice in relation to four faces of science - (i) capacity builder, (ii) informer and guide, (iii) philosophy, and (iv) institution—and propose reforms.

The article presents a typological model of the psychological and pedagogical factors of family determination of personal crises. The main groups of psychological and pedagogical factors of family determinants of personality life construction and crisis experience formation have been determined, and namely: factors of constructive mode, strategic mode, and functional mode; whereas psychological and pedagogical factors of the constructive mode are ensured by the action of humanistic value factors, accumulative value factors; constructive balance factors; goal-setting value factors; problem-oriented factors; subjective and vital factors; creative and constructive factors. Factors of strategic mode include reflexive and existential factors (determining an ability of an individual or a community to track phenomena, to understand their essence, to learn existential values); experience and historical factors (determining standardized behavioural patterns of an individual, family, nation, those patterns having fostered their survival in a certain historical period); cultural and traditional factors (determining local and global heritage, the achievements of a society in the material and spiritual segments of existence and their manifestation in the life of an individual, family, nation, and humanity); spiritual and religious factors (characterizing basic spiritual values of an individual and family regarding the role and place of a human in the world, as individuals, as men and women inter-connected and inter-related with the Absolute. Functional psychological and pedagogical factors are primarily ensuring the consistency of marital values (in the parental and own family), the consistency of values (family values and those individually acquired) with the traditional values of a particular nation (or nations), which ethos the specific individual is representing; the consistency of values (family values and those individually acquired) with the situational values of a particular community and society in a particular time and space. The results of an empirical study of the effects of psychological and pedagogical factors of family determination on the nature of overcoming personal crises of different etiology in target samples are presented. Correlation relationships between groups of strategic factors are determined. Based on the research data, peculiarities of influence of psychological and pedagogical factors of family determinants on a personal life design along three research vectors are identified: transgenerational, intergenerational, and individual. The specific features of sensitivity in selected supportive and crisis families to the types of psychological and pedagogical factors of family determinants in crises periods are revealed.

Philosophical counseling is a dialogical practice which aims to explore and elucidate issues that do not fall into the pathological sphere, focusing on: common situations you may experience in daily life, moral dilemmas, existential crises due to lack of meaning or purpose of life, ethical conflicts in the workplace, reconciling present experiences with previous thoughts and painstakingly careful inquiries. Sandu Frunză reminds us that philosophical practices should not be understood as a way to satisfy the counseled person or applying painstakingly careful inquiries by finding a viable solution to the problem that worries them, but rather offers them an opportunity to broaden their horizons of knowledge by confronting ideas and beliefs different from his own. In the light of these statements, it would not be to bold to reassure that one of the main purposes of philosophical counseling could only be the search for and acquisition of wisdom. Practicing counsellors as well as scholars and advanced students of philosophy, communication, counseling, and educational and ethical guidance will find the volume Philosophy and everyday life: Books might change your life of particular importance.

The purpose of the study was to explore older adults’ views and perceptions of psychotherapy in Cyprus. A total of 25 older adults, aged between 65–89, participated in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis identified three main themes: Familiar term/Unfamiliar process; existential crises during this stage; and the issue of stigma in psychotherapy. Participants indicated a basic understanding of what psychotherapy entails, but did not associate psychotherapy with serious mental illness. Participants identified a number of existential issues that are potentially major life stressors for an elderly person and referred to the historical stigma that has an impact on their own perceptions about psychotherapy. However, participants seemed to view their ability to overcome psychological difficulties on their own as a proof of personal strength. Psychologists and other health professionals also need to be mindful of how they describe psychological concepts and treatment, as older adults may not understand what they are being told or may be afraid of what treatment involves based on historical context. This study highlights the importance of using strategies that may have the potential to empower this population in order to proactively attend to their mental health, including community-based education and national mental health campaigns.

The following work is a commentary on the article “Digitalization challenges for technogenic civilization” written by Evgeniy Maslanov. The main focus here is on an individual, facing the new experience of digital world as an average user and a researcher at the same time. New technical tools, which have been put into use throughout history of humanity, require continual redefinition by a human being of himself/herself in the world and in multiple professional fields. Nevertheless, one of the most drastic issues in question is whether a virtual personality could be considered as an “extension” of a real life human, or it represents a “digital twin”. With any position accepted, digital systems initiate a certain order of power relations, where digital “footprints” assemble into personal biographies. This fact challenges not only personal privacy, but also existential conti-nuity of humanity. At the level of scientific research, one of the major disputes centers on data collection and its claim for the leading methodological strategy of science today. This study argues that the dispute only illustrates transitional period related to approbation of new data algorithms. Therefore, it is in no way a substitution of theoretical level of science with empirical knowledge. Nevertheless, the issue that caught E. Maslanov’s attention is extremely valuable. The new “big data” tools require competence, which becomes the key factor of adequate methodological improvements and scientific conceptualization.

Bakgrund: Det har visat sig att äldre, i västvärlden, utgör den grupp som begår flest självmord. Hög ålder medför nedsatt reservkapacitet och minskat motstånd mot yttre påfrestningar. Många äldre drabbas av depression, vilket är den vanligaste behandlingsbara riskfaktorn för livsleda och suicid. Samtidigt upplevs ofta ångest. Orsaker till livsleda kan vara en separation från en livspartner, genomgång av en dramatisk livsfas eller somatisk sjukdom. Självmordsbenägna patenter, som kan sägas vara i en existentiell kris, kräver särskild vård vid inläggning. Vårdpersonal har upplevt det viktigt att bemöta patienter med livsleda men inte alltid tyckt att de har möjlighet på grund av tidsbrist, stress och för lite kunskap. Syfte: Att beskriva sjuksköterskors erfarenhet av att identifiera äldre patienter i psykiatrisk vård som känner livsleda och kanske inte längre vill leva och hur sjuksköterskor kan ha ett stödjande bemötande av dessa patienter och därmed främja deras psykiska hälsa. Metod: Fem semistrukturerade intervjuer gjordes med sjuksköterskor på en avdelning med inriktning att vårda äldre patienter med psykisk ohälsa. Resultat: Utifrån intervjuanalysen framkom två kategorier med vardera tre subkategorier. Kategorin Identifiering av patienter med livsleda hade subkategorierna Verbal - och icke verbal kommunikation, Åldrandets innebörd och Dödsönskan. Den andra kategorin, Stöd av patienter med livsleda hade subkategorier Acceptans, Bemötande och Vårdande miljö. Informanterna i studien uppfattade och bemötte patienternas livleda i sitt arbete och bemötte dem med psykiatrisk och somatisk vård. Genom stödsamtal, lyhördhet för de äldres behov och förutsättningar, uppmuntran till aktivering på de äldres villkor bemötte de på ett pedagogiskt vis de äldre patienterna i deras existentiella kris. Diskussion: Resultatet diskuterades i relation till resultat och litteratur. Det som framkommit i studien är att informanterna på valda avdelning på ett lyhört sätt adresserade de äldres problem och bemötte dem på ett pedagogiskt vis och med stor kunskap om de äldres problem och förutsättningar.
Background: It has been shown that elderly, in the western world, is the age group who commits the most suicides. An elderly person has a lower capacity and a lesser ability to come to terms with trying circumstances. The aging process influences psychological quickness, ability to adjust and sense of memory. Elderly are often subjected to depression, which is the most common treatable risk factor for weariness of life. Anguish is often experienced simultaneously. Reasons for weariness of life could be a separation from a partner or spouse, to go through a dramatic life phase or physical illness. Often an existential life crises is experienced and a feeling of standing on one’s own in life. Suicidal patients who experience a life crises demand special care when hospitalized. Nursing staff perceive it as important to treat patients who experience weariness of life but they do not always feel that they have the capacity to do so due to stress and lack of time and knowledge. Aim: To describe nurse ́s experiences of identifying and caring for elderly patients in psychiatric care who experience weariness of life and who might no longer want to live. Method: Five semi structured interviews were done with nurses on a ward specialized on psychiatric care of the elderly. Inductive content analysis has been used to analyze the interviews. Results: The analysis resulted in two categories: Identifying patients who experience weariness of life and Supporting patients who experience weariness of life. Three subcategories Verbal - and nonverbal communication, The signification of aging and Wishing to die are included in the category Identifying patients who experience weariness of life. Subcategories Acceptance, Caring and Environmental influence belong to the category Supporting patients who experience weariness of life. The informants in the study understood the elderly patient’s feeling of weariness of life and cared for them with psychiatric and somatic nursing. Through supporting conversation, a sensitive and empathic approach to the needs and conditions of the elderly, they encouraged them to become more active on their own terms. The informants treated the elderly with pedagogical sensitivity to support them in their existential crisis. Discussion: The results are discussed in relation to articles and literature and also in relation to the chosen theoretical basis of the study.

La presente investigación tiene como objetivo comprender las experiencias de sentido de vida de los ingresantes al movimiento Hare Krishna. El enfoque empleado para esta investigación fue de tipo cualitativo con un diseño fenomenológico Se entrevistó a 5 ingresantes a la comunidad, tres varones y dos mujeres entre 26 y 36 años. Así mismo, se optó por un análisis de contenido, que dio a vislumbrar cuatro categorías; crisis existencial, valores creativos, actitudinales y vivenciales. Los resultados mostraron que los participantes expresaron que experimentaron el sentido de vida cuando ingresaron a la comunidad. Describen situaciones que ellos afirman como reveladoras y de respuestas a sus inquietudes e insatisfacciones.
The present research aims to understand the experiences of meaning of life of the entrants to the Hare Krishna movement. The approach used for this research was of a qualitative type with a phenomenological design. Five newcomers to the community were interviewed, three men and two women between 26 and 36 years old. Likewise, a content analysis was chosen, which revealed four categories; existential crisis, creative, attitudinal and experiential values. The results showed that the participants expressed that they experienced the meaning of life when they entered the community. They describe situations that they affirm as revealing and as responses to their concerns and dissatisfactions.
Tesis

Palestinian refugees’ experience of displacement is among the lengthiest in history. Life Lived in Relief explores this community’s engagement with humanitarian assistance over a seventy-year period and their persistent efforts over this long time span to alter their present and future conditions. Even as humanitarian intervention is conceived as crisis-driven and focused on survival, protracted displacement is a common circumstance, necessitating long-term humanitarian presence. The book describes the operational challenges of oscillating between chronic conditions and repeating emergency situations as “punctuated humanitarianism.” Punctuated humanitarianism also means that people move through different relationships with the humanitarian apparatus. Palestinian refugee politics is buffeted between near and far futures, close and distant geographies, and immediate needs and existential claims. This politics is expressed not only in the register of suffering but also as aspiration, existence, and refusal. These multiplicities are often discordant, but they persist together. The “politics of living” in and against humanitarianism is central to what it has meant to be Palestinian since 1948. It also provides new insights into the possibilities of political life in precarious conditions. The story of Palestinians and humanitarianism is illustrative of life and relief in the many circumstances of protracted displacement across the globe.

Suicide is a uniquely human phenomenon, necessitating a human response. Suicide disproportionately claims the lives of older adults, and men in particular. Effective clinical practice with at-risk older adults requires sensitivity to contributing developmental, intrapersonal, social, and existential factors. Whereas the presence of suicide thoughts and behavior may be conceptualized as potential signs of an incipient mental health emergency, demanding quick and decisive action, working clinically with at-risk older adults nevertheless extends temporally beyond moments of behavioral crisis and conceptually beyond risk assessment and management. The field of later-life suicide prevention is in its relative infancy; however, progress is being made in investigating associated risk and resiliency factors and in developing, testing, and disseminating approaches to assessment and intervention. We provide an overview of the literature and call for a more sensitive, compassionate, and effective approach to suicide prevention among older adults, drawing on individually tailored and humanistic-existential approaches to care.

When we talk about development, we are talking about capitalist development. Taking a historical-comparativ e approach, Harrison understands development as a transformation which involves a deep and integrated political economy of change: a shift from a state of ‘capital-ascendance’ to ‘capital-dominance’. It is only through a transformation towards capital dominance that mass poverty reduction and the construction of a commonwealth are possible. However, capitalist development is extremely difficult and requires a highly exacting political endeavour. The politics of development is conceptualized as developmentalism: a strategy and ideology in which governments exercise heavy directive power, endure instability and crisis, and secure a rudimentary legitimacy for their efforts. The political exertions required to generate and sustain a developmentalist strategy are too great to be met by the simple desire to develop. Harrison argues that developmentalism requires a conflation of successful capitalist transformation with some form of existential insecurity of the state itself. Developmentalism flourishes when capitalist transformation connects to profound questions of sovereignty, statehood, nation-building, and elite survival. Authoritarian state action is intrinsic to developmentalism, which the book addresses by adapting a realist approach to politics in which political norms and values are generated within the agonies of suffering and benefit generated by an ascending capital. Taking case studies from the last 250 years, Developmentalism shows the deep contextualization of capitalist transformation as well as the massive improvements in material life that it has generated.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

AbstractIn times of great distress, like in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, people look for relief from the existential threat by searching for some kind of interpretation of the crisis. Some people will look for scapegoats to put the blame on, while others will search for ways by which the crisis can also be perceived as something beneficial.As far as the COVID-19 pandemic goes, earlier this year, media and politicians pointed towards China, where the pandemic started, or to Italy, from where the virus spread over the European continent.Since the beginning of the crisis, we have also been flooded with gurus, motivational speakers, and mindfulness coaches who stimulate us to view the new common as an unexpected but much needed “reboot” of our day-to-day life.Intriguingly enough, these two individual and collective coping strategies are very familiar to those who are acquainted with the Christian philosophical and theological traditions. When confronted with the apparent paradox between the idea of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity on the one hand and the experience of everyday pain and suffering on the other hand, Christians have sought for ways to find a satisfactory solution. This is known as theodicy. As the Roman and Christian philosopher Boethius summarized the problem: si Deus, unde malum? “If God exists, wherefrom evil?”

This chapter goes beyond Kohlberg’s, Hoffman’s, and Haidt’s theories to consider the question of a deeper reality. As noted, Kohlberg argued that existential thinkers in their soul-searching sometimes come to see their earthly moral life from an inspiring “cosmic perspective.” Perhaps such a reality can be glimpsed not only through existential crises, but also through physically life-threatening ones. Accordingly, this chapter studies cases of persons who have had a so-called near-death experience (“When some people come close to death, they go through a profound experience that may include a sense of leaving the body and entering some other realm or dimension” [Greyson]). A review of the literature—especially, recent medical research literature—suggests that the experience entails a transcendent significance congruent with Kohlberg’s cosmic perspective. In this light, “growing beyond the superficial” and “taking the perspectives of others” take on radical new meaning.

The world is always subject to crises and many times significant developments or changes occur in the aftermath of a crisis. In this regard, any crisis can be viewed as a turning point or critical juncture, though typically characterized by ambiguity, volatility and grave worries about the future. A crisis can cause continuing existential and socio-economic impacts; however, it also provides opportunities for creativity and innovation by re-imagining and reconfiguring the strategic purpose of organizations. Crises are apposite circumstances for reflection on management approaches, decision-making and the overall stability and sustainability of any system within which individual organizations operate. Arguably, any crisis prompts change to systems and organizations analogous to its scale and extent of multifaceted impacts. The recent COVID-19 pandemic is a case in point of a multifaceted crisis as it is not only a health emergency. It entirely disrupted the social world and its commerce bringing about serious repercussions to the everyday life of people. The event sector, being a mirror of society, has been affected dramatically. Compulsory closures and regulations regarding social distancing led to innumerable postponements or cancellations of planned events, from the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo to the smallest of community celebrations. Professional and amateur sports alike postponed or cancelled their seasons. Businesses of all scales all along the supply chain, including the venues, entertainers, and suppliers of goods and services, suffered enormous economic losses.

In this chapter the case is made that spirituality can indeed have a significant impact upon practical life. Existential spirituality refers to the way one gives meaning and purpose to one's life. The value of spirituality is best appreciated when one's life undergoes an existential crisis, particularly when a worldview, which was assumed to give sense to one's life, no longer has the legitimacy it once had. When a religious, traditional or customary doctrine or worldview loses its authority through an existential crisis, the individual often experiences nihilism. This can often make an experience of hardship quite unbearable because one's suffering is unable to reference any grand narrative or framework of meaning to give sense to one's situation. Using Kierkegaard's three stages of existence, it is argued that making one's spirituality more authentic by taking personal responsibility on an individual level, might be able to make unbearable experiences more bearable.

When Stalin died on March 5, 1953, Soviet society plunged into an existential crisis. As Jan Plamper has noted, “With the passing of the leader, the force that held their lives together suddenly was no more … ​His cult and its alchemy of power had made him seem larger than life.”...

This chapter considers the “existential crisis” faced by nanotechnology. A few years after nanotechnology blossomed into a global research initiative that consumed billions of government and corporate dollars, questions began to emerge over about what nanotechnology was and who was a nanotechnologist. Fundamentally, nanotechnology's own history was the catalyst for its existential angst. Vastly different interpretations of nanotechnology, both as a research program and as a vision for the future, emerged between Drexler's early publications and the launching of a major national initiative in the United States two decades later. To complicate things further, just as enthusiasts co-opted Gerard O'Neill's ideas, Drexler's visioneering took on a life of its own.

Given this cognitive-developmental concern with superficiality-to-depth in moral judgment or understanding, Kohlberg was particularly concerned to discover and articulate an age trend and possible sequence of developmental advances or stages that may be universal. Our critique of Kohlberg’s theory notes that, although his specific stage typology was misguided, he almost single-handedly put cognitive moral development on the map of American psychology. He encouraged attention to the continued development of moral judgment beyond the childhood years. Finally, he speculated from case studies of mature moral thinkers in existential crisis that there may be a deeper reality (“cosmic perspective”), one that underlies profound moral perception and can support the moral life. Building from Kohlberg’s and others’ contributions, we propose in this chapter a new view of life-span sociomoral development.

This chapter covers the common oncological emergencies, including neutropenic sepsis, spinal cord compression, superior vena cava obstruction, hypercalcaemia, and haemorrhage. In most medical specialties, emergencies are those situations which, if left untreated, will immediately threaten life. In palliative care, where death is an expected outcome, emergencies are those conditions which, if left untreated, will seriously threaten the quality of remaining life. While this chapter focuses on the common oncological emergencies in palliative practice, emergencies may include a wider range of issues, such as the following: emergency discharge so a patient’s wish to die at home can be met; emotional emergencies, with high levels of expressed anxiety; spiritual/existential/social emergencies, with pressure to ‘sort things out’ before it is too late; pain crisis or other unrelieved symptoms. It is important to have a clear understanding of emergencies in palliative care, as their timely management is critical. A crisis situation filled with anxiety may be transformed to an atmosphere of comfort and well-being by pre-decided standardized team responses that demonstrate clarity and decisiveness to the patient and their family.

This chapter analyses the existential crisis that illuminates contemporary Israeli poetry about the binding of Isaac or the akedah. It investigates a series of poems that portray Isaac's mother Sarah and argues that these texts strive to embody and construct the history of the State of Israel. It also reviews earlier poems that entwine Sarah with collective questions of post-Holocaust faith and Jewish national fate, recent texts that turn to individual destiny. The chapter cites Sarah as a mother-figure in the Jewish poetic imagination who struggles with the tensions between an instinctual maternal impulse to preserve life and an ideology rooted in the sacrifice of sons for the sake of the creation and preservation of the State of Israel. It looks at poems that reconstruct the biblical story of Sarah, giving mothers the voice that Sarah lacked at the moment of the akedah.

In his book Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom points to several ways the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) might fail, turn out to be malignant or even induce an existential catastrophe. He describes ‘Perverse Instantiations’ (PI) as cases, in which AI figures out how to satisfy some goal through unintended ways. For instance, AI could attempt to paralyze human facial muscles into constant smiles to achieve the goal of making humans smile. According to Bostrom, cases like this ought to be avoided since they include a violation of human designer’s intentions. However, AI finding solutions that its designers have not yet thought of and therefore could also not have intended is arguably one of the main reasons why we are so eager to use it on a variety of problems. In this paper, I aim to show that the concept of PI is quite vague, mostly due to ambiguities surrounding the term ‘intention’. Ultimately, this text aims to serve as a starting point for a further discussion of the research topic, the development of a research agenda and future improvement of the terminology.