Tracing Spikes in Fear and Narcissism in Western Democracies Since 9/11

Tracing Spikes in Fear and Narcissism in Western Democracies Since 9/11 discusses critically not only the modern obsession with consuming news related to disasters or terrorism as a primary form of entertainment, but also explores the theory of pleasure as it was formulated by the ancient Greeks and continued by Sigmund Freud. Beyond the principle of pleasure was the touchstone of the sense of scarcity, which was rooted in the logic of capitalism. Throughout the 1970s, the society of producers brought about the advent of a society of consumerists; however, after the attacks on the World Trade Center September 11, 2001, things radically changed. The idea of terror, which had been encapsulated within the society of producers, was expanded to become the centerpiece of a new stage of capitalism, Thana-Capitalism, which made the death of others the main commodity for exchange and consumption. Maximiliano E. Korstanje is Senior Researcher in the Department of Economics at University of Palermo, Argentina. He was awarded Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK, and at the University of Havana, Cuba. He was recently awarded Emeritus Chief Editor of the Journal of Cyber Warfare and Terrorism. His recent books include The Rise of Thana-Capitalism and Tourism (2016), Terrorism, Tourism and the End of Hospitality in the West (2017), and Mobilities Paradox: A Critical Analysis (2017).