Abstract
The paper analyzes the functioning and role of the affect of anxiety in contemporary society from the point of view of the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, starting from statistical evidence of the ubiquity of anxiety disorders. Reconstructing the psychoanalytic theory of affect, the paper identifies two types of anxiety: realistic and neurotic. Capitalist society is characterized as provoking the growth of unconscious neurotic anxiety in response to the declining role of the Big Other and the disintegration of organic social ties. The paper outlines a model of dialectical interaction between neurotic and realistic anxiety under capitalism. Realistic anxiety about emerging dangers such as the COVID-19 pandemic is used by the media to deflect neurotic anxiety. This provides the modern media with a considerable resource for manipulating the population, and brings a temporary relief to the modern subject, who is suffering from the unconscious and formless anxiety caused by the very socio-economic structure of society.
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