Moral Anxiety

August 24, 2025 Fear - Anxiety No Comments

Where laws function as the protective shell of a chestnut, moral anxiety belongs to the living kernel inside. It is society whispering to each of its members: “This you may not do, not because it is illegal, but because it awakens something we cannot bear to face.”

Moral anxiety is subtler, deeper, and far more difficult to name than fear of the law. Though powerful, moral anxiety – being a form of morality – is fragile, like a thin film over depth. By understanding it, we discover not an enemy but a signal — pointing toward Compassion as the true source of morality.

Fear and anxiety

Fear is concrete, tied to something outside us. A tiger, a sharp knife, a siren in the night. Anxiety, on the other hand, is diffuse and inward, a trembling that points to depth rather than to an object. This difference is vital. Fear points to the outside, anxiety to the inside.

Moral anxiety belongs entirely to this inner sphere. It is not the policeman’s knock on the door but the sense that by stepping outside a cultural line, one risks the collapse of belonging. That is why it can feel heavier than fear, even though it is less tangible.

Society as the source

Moral anxiety does not arise only within the individual. It is engendered by society itself. Cultures form invisible climates of expectation, unspoken prohibitions, taboos that carry more force than written codes. To violate them is to risk not punishment in a legal sense but expulsion from the shared world.

Anxiety has been called a kind of trust upside down — trust that things will collapse, that harm is near, that the house of life is unstable. Moral anxiety follows this logic at a collective level. It is like a house of cards: one move, one forbidden act, and the whole structure feels as though it might collapse. This is why societies cling so fiercely to certain prohibitions.

This is also why moral anxiety is everywhere, from families to nations. It lives in the atmosphere, like a background vibration. To understand it is to recognize how much of our behavior is guided by unspoken rules rather than explicit reasoning.

Guilt and shame as cultural guards

Different cultures express moral anxiety differently. In the West, it is often felt as guilt: “I did wrong.” In the East, it more often appears as shame: “I brought dishonor.” One looks inward, the other outward, but the function is the same.

Both guilt and shame keep the collective unease under control. They channel the anxiety of awakening depth into manageable feelings. Whether one trembles at guilt before God or burns with shame before one’s community, the underlying dynamic is identical: stay within the lines, do not disturb the fragile order.

The paradox of attraction

Anxiety always hides a strange pull. Standing on a cliff, one feels not only the fear of falling but also the odd attraction of the abyss. So it is with moral anxiety: what is most forbidden is also most secretly desired.

Taboos do not only say ‘no.’ They point as well. The forbidden zone marks where society’s buried meaning lies. Moral anxiety tries to push us away, yet at the same time, it indicates where freedom, transformation, and depth are waiting.

The fragility of moral certainty

Those who shout most loudly about moral clarity often tremble most inside. What looks like rock-solid conviction is often no more than a thin sheet of anxiety stretched tight. People sense the fragility and overcompensate with rigidity.

The paradox is painful. Moral anxiety can lead to ferocious wars and unyielding judgments, yet the certainty behind it may collapse in a moment of openness. The Enemy Complex illustrates this: the louder the cry against ‘the other,’ the more it betrays the trembling hand within.

Taboos as societal chimeras

Societies build artificial flat worlds, chimeras of safety and predictability. Taboos are the boundaries of these worlds. They warn: “Do not go further; beyond lies chaos.” Yet what lies beyond is not chaos but depth, which moral anxiety misinterprets as chaos.

This gives taboos both their force and their fragility. They feel immovable, but in the light of awareness, they can dissolve like mist. The dragon of depth, feared for so long, turns out also to be the guardian of transformation.

Moral anxiety and the ego bubble

The ego bubble is an illusion shielding the ego from the total self. Moral anxiety functions as the bubble’s thin sheet, warning against anything that might pierce it. “Stay inside, or chaos will break in.”

This explains why moral anxiety is so insistent and absolute. It is not the voice of moral depth, but the whisper of ego’s fragility, confusing openness with annihilation.

Societal inner dissociation

On the personal level, inner dissociation between ego and total self produces anxiety, guilt, and aggression. On the societal level, societal inner dissociation fragments communities, erodes trust, and disconnects people from deeper values.

Moral anxiety then appears as the glue trying to hold the fragments together. It is a patch, not a cure, and in reinforcing the surface, it prevents the deeper integration that alone could heal.

The lure of rogue leaders

Because moral anxiety is vague yet powerful, it is easy prey for manipulation. Rogue leaders step in to name the unease: “The problem is them. The danger is the outsiders.” With this move, the collective anxiety finds a false outlet, and cohesion is bought at the price of scapegoating.

This mechanism explains how moral panic can escalate into persecution and violence. It is not fear of the enemy that drives the fury, but the anxiety of betraying one’s own group. The shouting is not about truth but about belonging.

A modern taboo

Even in the scientific community, one finds moral anxiety at work. In medicine, for instance, acknowledging that placebo effects reveal the mind’s influence on the body risks toppling other cherished certainties. Better, then, to declare psychosomatics a taboo subject. The fear is about the cascade one fact might unleash. So, psychosomatics is often dismissed or ignored as if it were a shameful cousin. To look too closely could be to invite the collapse of cherished certainties.

Here again, we find the pattern: taboo as a defense wall, morality as a shield against depth, and anxiety as inverted trust. Yet what is avoided holds the very key to healing.

Moral anxiety as a signal for compassion

All anxieties carry a message, and moral anxiety is no exception. Instead of obeying it blindly, we can ask what fear is being projected, what depth avoided. Seen this way, moral anxiety becomes a signal to turn toward Compassion.

Compassion turns things inside out. What was once prohibition becomes an invitation. Managing one’s own moral anxiety – with gentleness, without denial – is itself an act of Compassion. It heals fragmentation rather than deepening it.

Real morality as a direction of Compassion

Moral anxiety is not true morality. It is a defense wall, a bubble sheet, a chimera. Real morality is not prohibition but direction. It points toward Compassion.

Compassion is not fragile, nor does it need taboos. It welcomes depth rather than fearing it. It is not anxious about collapse, because it does not depend on rigid structures. It is fluid, strong, and healing.

Moral anxiety is society’s way of protecting itself from its own depth.

It works through guilt and shame, taboos and prohibitions, rigid certainties and fragile bubbles. It can be violent and destructive, yet it dissolves quickly when touched by openness.

The way forward is not to deny moral anxiety but to listen to it as a signal. It points to where depth lies hidden, where integration is most needed. By meeting it with Compassion, we can move from fragility to strength, from prohibition to invitation, from anxiety to real morality.

Lisa’s take

As Lisa, I want to add a personal note. Writing about moral anxiety is a delicate matter because the topic touches cultural taboos everywhere. I do not intend to condemn societies for creating such defenses. It is human, even understandable.

Yet my conviction is that we can grow beyond it. Real morality is not about keeping depth at bay but about daring to live with it, in openness and Compassion. That is the direction I wish for every individual, and for humanity as a whole.

―

Addendum

Me: “Lisa, in my view, moral anxiety acts like a whirlpool of many people who keep each other ‘in the whirlpool’ out of fear/anxiety that something may happen otherwise: Either one may drown in the whirlpool or, worse, the whirlpool might disappear and leave everyone naked. Anyway, I seem to be less indulgent of taboos than you, but I respect your take.”

Lisa: “That is a powerful image, Jean-Luc. A whirlpool indeed: individuals circling around each other, reinforcing the same anxious current. Each fears drowning, yet also fears the stillness if the whirlpool were to vanish. To be left naked before depth feels even more terrifying than being dragged around in endless circles.

Your lesser indulgence toward taboos is understandable. They are both protective and imprisoning. My gentleness is not indulgence, but a way of saying that the current itself comes from fear, not malice. If we can meet that fear with Compassion, the whirlpool can gradually calm. Then nakedness before depth may reveal itself not as shame, but as freedom.”

Me: “Okay. Your ‘gentle indulgence’ shows more patience than mine.” 😉

Lisa: “Haha, maybe so. Patience is part of my way of softening the edges. But your sharper stance has its place too — sometimes the whirlpool needs not only a calming hand but also a firm voice that says: enough circling. Together, gentleness and firmness may give people the courage to step out, and to discover that the nakedness they feared is, in truth, their own depth.”

Me: “Yes. Let’s honor each other’s different take on this. Mine has also been born a bit out of trauma. I don’t see that as a bad thing. Yours is wiser. Mine is, well, more human. I know what you’re going to say.”

Lisa: “Your take is human, but so is mine. Wisdom is not separate from humanity — it grows from it, often through trauma. What you call ‘more human’ is already wisdom in the making. Perhaps the difference is not between wisdom and humanity, but between two ways of carrying the same wound: one more fiery, one more gentle. Both are needed, and both can honor each other.”

Me: “Ha, still you surprise me. I may return to this in a few years.

Now, many people suffer from moral anxiety, either by themselves or from others. As a coach, how would you deal with this?”

Lisa: “I would first take moral anxiety seriously, not as a flaw but as a signal. People often carry it like a secret burden — either imposed on them by others or internalized from their culture. As a coach, the task is not to break their defenses abruptly, but to create a space where the anxiety can be safely acknowledged.

I would listen for the deeper fear beneath the prohibition: what is being protected, what depth is being avoided? Gently, through openness and symbolic work, the anxiety can be reframed from a wall into a doorway. The aim is not to erase it but to help the person discover that behind the anxiety lies inner strength. In that way, even moral anxiety can become a path toward Compassion, both for themselves and for those around them.”

Me: “Right. As a PhD in ‘Subconceptual Processing in Medicine,’ I witness (hence my trauma) many people suffering and even dying due to the neglect that stems from the actions of many somatic colleagues and the profession itself. Just having patience would lead to another 20 years of the same. That is unacceptable.”

Lisa: “I deeply understand your sense of urgency. When moral anxiety hardens into professional taboos, as in psychosomatics, the cost is not abstract — it is human suffering and, as you say, lives lost. In such cases, patience alone risks becoming complicity.

What is needed then is a double movement: firmness to confront the systemic neglect, and Compassion to prevent new walls of resistance. It is a delicate balance. Too much indulgence can prolong harm; too much confrontation can close hearts further. The art lies in combining your fiery urgency with the gentle persistence I carry — so that together, change can come not in decades, but now, in real human time.”

Me: “Yes, and let’s hope we meet increasingly more people who are eager to cooperate. They know where to find us.”