Plentiphobia : fear of being overwhelmed by plenitude

"Too much information".

Humans are easily overwhelmed - temporarily - by too much.

Too much choice, too many people on a crowded street, too much choice of new clothes in a story - on and on.

They recover by retreating into places with much less choices and decisions - usually their own home.

But , starting in the 1870s , almost all of us in the educated urbanized middle class western world - all the time  and everywhere - felt overwhelmed by too many new scientific discoveries  , too many new immigrants, too many new imports, too much too much.

The un-coordinated activities of modernization/ globalization  had produced the mother of all plenitudes and humanity reacted with a strong case of plentiphobia.

1870s Modernity -- fluid or rigid - or both ?

Modernity: Have we got it Wrong ? Rigid not Fluid ?

The usual claim that Modernity represents an extraordinary degree of change and dynamic uncertainty must butt its head against the co-current rise of hyper-rigid nationalism in the same time and space.