Has anybody done research on the possible relationship between the medieval taedium vitae, and the modern cultural fatigue? I touch upon this issue just passing by in a chapter entitled El ser para la muerte, de mi libro "Historia y Etnografía de la indumentari indígena en México"
Estimado Enrique,
It sounds like what you are researching is what is now called "burnout" and I suggest you start with the workplace definitions and psychological explanations of repetitive work, stress and reactions.
If you are focusing on the "cultural" aspect and Kroeber's approach to burnout faced by Anthropologists in their research, you can look at Delmos Jones' 1973 article.
Certainly there is plenty of burnout today in academic work given how ideological controls and hierarchy have destroyed the excitement of discovery, of creativity, and the joy of spontaneity in teaching and research, as well as the value of real change and visible and measurable benefits for communities, cultures and society, as well as the real development of skills and competence of human beings that social sciences and universities have now eliminated (a good example of Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed").
Buenos,
David Lempert, Ph.D., J.D., M.B.A., E.D. (Hon.)
Thanks for your comment. Actually my interest started when somebody referred to an American anthropologist who used cultural fatigue to explain some social changes. I have rather related it to the philosophical development of existentialism, Heideggers death as justification for life, and Vattimo L´essere per la morte. I call that chapter being for death, as the English translation of "El ser para la muerte". In Medieval times apparently they had what they called taedium vitae, which I suppose is something like what you call burn out, depression, to languish, ,etc. I´m contending with the idea that being became associated with political power in a two thousend years process, and that truth has several forms of being expressed culturally.
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