This essay reconstructs the normative core of the recent European riots, when young rebels reacted to the disregard for their civic claims to equal treatment. Referring to the available data and facts, the essay uses the example of the two biggest riots in contemporary French and British history to show that prevailing analyses only grasp certain aspects of these events: these riots were primarily neither ‘race riots’, ‘issueless riots’ nor ‘riots of defective consumers’. Nourished in particular by experiences with the (...) police and the school system in the urban districts from which the rioters recruited, rage was directed against the symbols and embodiments of a state that has failed to live up to its promise of equality. It is the everyday undermining of the principle of their equality as citizens and the physically experienced violation of minimum constitutional standards that best explain the motivations of those participating in the riots. (shrink)

Im Beitrag wird ausgeführt, wie Krisensituationen wie die Coronapandemie Zirkel der Entgrenzung von Misstrauen, Projektionen und Spaltungen in Gang bringen können. Im Zuge dessen werden dann auch individuelle Pathologie und psychische Desintegration, wie sie sich zum Beispiel in Verfolgungsängsten zum Ausdruck bringen, kollektiv neu gerahmt und damit normalisiert. Anhand von Befunden einer Pilotstudie werden entsprechende Dynamiken nachgezeichnet, und es wird aufgezeigt, welche psychosozialen Funktionen der Triumph des Misstrauens erlangen kann.