Resilience or learned helplessness? The case of Lebanese adults stripped of their right to health, education, and adequate standards of living

Abstract

Lebanon is in a palliative state. The country is undergoing one of the worst man-made crisis in history, with all of its social, economic, and political sectors crumbling at once. This thesis investigates the nature of this chaos, as well as to the dynamics behind it. The historical/legal content analysis uncovers the way the deep rooted corruption and abuse of power, have been reinforced by the absence of accountability and justiciability. These trends led to the retrogressive realization of the most fundamental human rights in the country, focusing specifically on the rights to health, education, and adequate standards of living. The study also inspects the psychological state of the population surviving this calamity. Through a quantitative analysis, it looks closely into the levels of resilience and learned helplessness of the adults in the country. The results generated exhibit a prevalence in the levels of learned helplessness, with nothing but moderate levels of resilience. This thesis attempts to shed the light on the disastrous living conditions of people in Lebanon that are deprived of their basic human rights. With little room for impactful action, the population is the outmost impacted victim, forced to survive rather than live.