Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing

The liberatory spirit of our age has helped us tear down bad institutions, but it hasn’t helped build up new ones. It has helped avoid some tragedies, but it hasn’t built global peace. It has helped diagnose the maladies of our time, but it hasn’t figured out a cure.

Thomas Merton

Caught between liberation and dedication, we are glad to not be rigid, and yet we pine for a more solid life amid the dizzying flow.

At its core, much of commitment is about taking control of our time. Death controls the length of our days. But we control the depth of our days. Commitment is about choosing to pursue—in the face of our limited length—boundless depth.

The Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman has a great phrase for what I’m talking about: liquid modernity. We never want to commit to any one identity or place or community, Bauman explains, so we remain like liquid, in a state that can adapt to fit any future shape. And it’s not just us—the world around us remains like liquid, too. We can’t rely on an

“What the son wishes to forget the grandson wishes to remember.”

from the bad—for a morality of indifference. It’s a culture that educates for advancement—résumé building and the ladder of success—over attachment: to crafts, causes, and communities of competence.

But this Culture of Open Options is not a neutral holding pattern. It’s a culture that arranges our economy against loyalty to particulars: particular neighborhoods, particular people, particular missions. It’s a culture that substitutes a morality of honor—guiding people toward the good and away

People want to be held accountable, because accountability gives us meaning.