Anxiety as a Moral Concept

Do we think closely enough about anxiety, I wonder? Anxiety is doubtless a contemporary fixation. If anything, we think too much about it. We’re told of a deepening anxiety “crisis.” We’re even anxious about our anxiousness. But thinking about it frequently doesn’t mean we are thinking about it carefully. Can we name it when confronted with it, or has it become shorthand for any and all presentiment? Does the elasticity of anxiety as a concept make it easier or harder to assess? Has the narrowing of emotional vocabulary over-endowed it with significance? How willing are we to accept anxiety as a permanent fixture of human spirit?