Philip Rieff and the Unmooring of Modernity

A longtime sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Philip Rieff analyzed the telltale signs of a culture approaching its crisis point. Well-versed in history, literature, and psychology, Rieff traced the inward turn in the human quest for meaning towards therapeutic solutions and away from traditional answers invoking religious authority. Following Sigmund Freud, Rieff developed a theory of culture centered around moral prohibitions which Rieff termed “interdicts.” Underpinned by religion, interdicts long played an essential role in maintaining Western culture’s vitality and longevity. But with the modern assault on faith and metaphysical claims to absolute truth, the strength of the interdicts started to wane. In an unprecedented historical shift, Western society had undermined its cultural basis by abolishing interdicts and lifting all restraints and pressures on the individual.