When Human Beings Must Create Themselves

Identity, Freedom, and Loneliness in Late Modernity

Modern human beings are, in many ways, freer than people have ever been before.

We can choose our education, lifestyle, partner, place of living, beliefs, identity, and sense of belonging. We may change careers several times during life, move between countries, and build new social networks almost without geographical limitations. Traditions have lost much of their former authority. Families no longer determine who we are supposed to become. Religion no longer provides the same fixed framework for life. Social class does not automatically define one’s place in society.

Modern individuals therefore stand more free.

But perhaps also more alone.

For while freedom has increased, the responsibility for creating a life has increasingly been transferred to the individual. Identity is no longer simply inherited. It must be created. Maintained. Explained. Defended. In late modernity, the human being becomes a project unto oneself.

This is part of the core insight found in Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens when they describe late modern society as a “risk society.” In a paper I wrote many years ago about therapy and identity in late modernity, I attempted to understand why modern individuals seek help in new ways, and why institutions such as women’s crisis centres and incest centres came to occupy such an important place in society.

Today, I see that the text was really about something larger.

It was about the human struggle to become someone in a world where the old answers gradually have lost their power.

When Traditions Lose Their Grip

In earlier societies, identity was to a much greater degree given in advance. People were born into particular roles, traditions, and communities. Life could be hard and unfree, yet there often existed a form of existential orientation. Human beings knew who they were because society told them who they were.

In late modernity, much of this has dissolved.

This does not necessarily mean that traditions have disappeared. But they have become optional. Modern individuals must therefore constantly reflect upon:

who they are,
how they wish to live,
what gives meaning,
and which values they want to build their lives upon.

Giddens describes this as “the reflexive project of the self.”
The self becomes a project that must continually be worked upon and reconstructed.

Here, modern freedom reveals its price.

For freedom is not only liberation. Freedom is also responsibility.

“The Single One”

In the writings of Søren Kierkegaard, we find an early understanding of this modern individual. Kierkegaard speaks of “The Single One” — the individual who stands alone before life, choices, and responsibility.

For Kierkegaard, this is not primarily a psychological problem. It is an existential condition.

Human beings cannot hide behind the crowd forever. Sooner or later, one must choose oneself.

This is a difficult thought.

For it means that human beings are not only shaped by society. They must also take responsibility for their own lives. Kierkegaard describes how anxiety arises precisely because human beings discover their freedom. We become dizzy from possibility.

Perhaps we see this dizziness everywhere in modern societies:

in identity crises,
in feelings of rootlessness,
in growing psychological unrest,
and in the increasingly strong need for self-understanding.

Modern human beings no longer ask only:
“How shall I survive?”

They ask:
“Who shall I become?”

The Human Being as a Biographical Project

During many years in social work, I met people who did not primarily lack help, but language for what had happened to them.

Some had lived for years with violence, humiliation, or shame without being able to put words to their experiences. Others had lost direction in life without fully understanding why. Many tried to maintain a façade for as long as possible. Not necessarily because their problems were small, but because asking for help could feel like defeat.

I especially remember how some people almost apologized for their own suffering when they came to conversations. As if they had to justify their right to struggle.

This is not only about personal problems.

It is also about the culture in which we live.

Richard Sennett writes that asking for help easily signals weakness and dependency. Many people therefore attempt to hide their problems for as long as possible. Only when life begins to fall apart does suffering become visible.

Modern human beings are expected to master life on their own.

Defeat therefore becomes privatized.

The Silence of Shame

I believe much of our time’s psychological unrest is connected to this silence.

People live in societies where they are expected to:

be authentic,
succeed,
develop themselves,
be emotionally competent,
and at the same time appear independent.

When life cannot be controlled, shame easily emerges.

Sennett uses the expression “the nakedness of shame.”
It is a powerful expression.

Shame is not only about guilt.
Shame concerns the feeling of being exposed.

Many people therefore live with a constant fear that others will discover:

their inadequacy,
loneliness,
anxiety,
or the feeling of never fully belonging.

I believe this is one reason why modern individuals seek places where they can be met without masks.

Not primarily to be “repaired.”

But to be seen.

When Helping Institutions Become Existential Spaces

In the old paper, I wrote that institutions such as crisis centres and incest centres could be understood as places where people seek what Giddens calls “pure relations.”

I still believe this is true.

People do not only seek help.
They seek relationships in which they can be real.

In a society marked by speed, efficiency, and administration, genuine human presence almost becomes scarce. Many public systems are built around control, assessment, and standardization. This is often necessary. Yet something human may also be lost.

Many times in social work, I experienced that what mattered most was not methods alone, but the feeling of being met as a human being.

Martin Buber described this as the difference between “I–It” and “I–Thou.” Human beings need experiences where they are not merely treated as cases, clients, or diagnoses, but as living persons with a history.

Perhaps this is precisely why so many modern individuals long for authentic relationships.

Not because they are weak.

But because human beings can never fully create themselves alone.

The Moral Dryness

Giddens writes that the self in late modernity must be created within a technically competent but morally dry social environment.

It is a formulation I return to again and again.

Modern societies are, in many ways, remarkably skilled at:

organization,
technology,
efficiency,
information,
and control.

But they are not necessarily equally capable of giving human beings existential orientation.

We are taught how to perform.

But not necessarily how to live.

Here, I believe practical philosophy still has an important task.

Not merely as abstract theory, but as reflection upon:

human dignity,
responsibility,
choice,
relationships,
and the good life.

Finding a Place to Belong

Perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects of human life is the need to belong.

Not only socially.

But existentially.

Human beings need places where they may experience:

recognition,
respect,
safety,
and meaning.

For some, this is found in family life.
For others, in work, friendship, faith, or community.
For some individuals, the therapy room may become the first place where they dare to be themselves.

The modern individual is therefore not only a free individual.

It is also a searching individual.