�The existential vacuum is a widespread phenomenon of the twentieth century. This is understandable; it may be due to a twofold loss that man had to undergo since he became a truly human being. At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal�s behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like Paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development: the traditions that had buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; soon he will not know what he wants to do. More and more he will be governed by what others want him to do, thus increasingly falling prey to conformism.
A cross-sectional, statistical survey ... revealed that 55% of the persons questioned showed a more or less marked degree of existential vacuum. In other words, more than half of them had experienced a loss of the feeling that life is meaningful�. (Man�s Search For Meaning pp. 167-168)
The existential vacuum leads to a neurosis that shows itself as anxiety on individual and on collective level:
�Anxiety is usually called the disease of our time; we speak of the Age of Anxiety. But previous centuries probably had much more reason for anxiety than ours. It is also doubtful whether the relative incidence of anxiety neurosis has increased. The collective neurosis insofar as this term has validity, is characterized by four symptoms which I shall describe.
First, there is the planless, day-to-day attitude toward life. Contemporary man is used to living from one day to the next. He learned to do so in the last world war, and since then this attitude has not been modified. People lived in this way because they were waiting for the end of the war; meanwhile, further planning made no sense. Today the average man says: "Why should I act, why should I plan? Sooner or later the atom bomb will come and wipe out everything." And thus he slides into the attitude of: "Apres moi, la bombe atomique!" This anticipation of atomic warfare is a dangerous as any other anticipatory anxiety, since, like all fear, it tends to make its fears come true.
The second symptom is the fatalist attitude toward life. This, again, is a product of the last world war. Man was pushed. He let himself drift. The day-to-day man considers planned action unnecessary; the fatalist considers it impossible. He feels himself to be the helpless result of outer circumstances or inner conditions.
The third symptom is collective thinking. Man would like to submerge himself in the masses. Actually, he is only drowned in the masses; he abandons himself as a free and responsible being.
The fourth symptom is fanaticism. While the collectivist ignores his own personality, the fanatic ignores that of the other man, the man who thinks differently. Only his own opinion is valid. In reality, his opinions are those of the group and he does not really have them; his opinions have him�
We may thus speak of the pathological spirit of our time as a mental epidemic. And we might add that somatic epidemics are typical consequences of war, while mental epidemics are potential originators of war� (The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy, Bantam Books, New York, p. 236)
In describing the symptomatology of the existential vacuum Frankl calls depression, addiction, and aggression the mass neurotic triad (see The Unheard Cry for Meaning, p. 26 ff). He refers to research that shows a strong relationship between meaninglessness (as measured by "purpose in life" tests) and such behaviors as criminality and involvement with drugs. He warns us that violence, drug use, and other negative behaviors, demonstrated daily on television, in movies, even in music, only convinces the meaning-hungry that their lives can improve by imitation of their "heroes." Even sports, he suggests, only encourage aggression.
These symptoms can be summarized as fear of responsibility and escape from freedom. But responsibility and freedom are inalienable characteristics of human existence, comprising the spiritual dimension of the human being. Denying this dimension, reducing human existence to �nothing else� than result of instincts, inheritance and environmental influence leads to nihilism, loss of meaning of life and finally the denial that human life has an inherent and absolute value. If life is stripped of its special, absolute character, the road is open toward destructive attitudes, called above �gates of hell�, and sacrificing human lives in many forms to special interests, in one word, to a general disease of human society.