There is a claim that modern living conditions negatively affect the human psyche, as a very high level of stress, the prevalence of psychological problems, and even suicides can be observed in society today. At the same time, more primitive, conservative, and often even authoritarian societies of the past are cited as examples of the opposite, in which supposedly no psychological problems were observed. Sometimes such claims go as far as suggesting that people who slogged away around the clock simply to ensure basic survival and submitted to authoritarian-conservative orders—with attributes such as a lack of women’s rights, cruel upbringing of children, and submission to authority—were mentally healthier than the average resident of a modern city, who has far fewer difficulties and far more freedoms in life.
In one Indian article about mental health problems in conservative societies, there is a good paragraph that describes the entire situation:
“Due to erroneous conservative views on mental health, society characterizes patients [suffering from such problems] as crazy or weak people. People with such conservative beliefs generally remain in ignorance and suffer in silence, hiding their pain or suppressing the pain of their loved ones, who may also be suffering. As a result, such an undesirable conservative ego prevents people or their family members not only from accepting their pain—that is, opening up about their struggle—but also from seeking professional help.”
People with authoritarian-conservative views have no evidence that people in stricter and more authoritarian societies possess better mental health. On the contrary, it would be logical to expect that phenomena such as poverty, violent coercion and abuse, and a lack of rights and freedoms should seriously traumatize people. But in societies characterized by such attributes, it is not customary to even raise the issue of psychological problems, because no one would simply understand the suffering person; they would quite likely be ridiculed, called a weakling, or even punished for such a revelation. Therefore, such problems will not be observed in them.
In modern society, things are different, as over time, sharing one’s problems has become a normal practice that does not face misunderstanding and condemnation. Now we can observe so many psychological problems because people take the opportunity to tell everyone about them. If in the past a person hid their suffering, and suicide was an absolutely unexpected act for those around them, now few people would hide, and a potential suicide would complain about their state to those around them many times, or at least hint at it in some way, before attempting to cause themselves real harm. This is precisely the difference between authoritarian-conservative and more liberal and free societies—the latter only have more visible psychological problems because they are hidden less. However, a greater number of real psychological problems can be expected specifically from stricter and more authoritarian societies.
