Failure to Cope "Under Capitalism"

Did all these people really experience “trauma?” in a recognizably similar way?

Despite formulaic acknowledgements that of course others have it worse, the basic claim remains the same: “The persistent low grade dysfunction I am experiencing is a social problem.”

When living “under capitalism” becomes a catch-all explanation for what you can’t manage — whether that’s getting on the metaphorical treadmill or stepping off it — it assumes the nature of a complaint to an adjudicating authority.

If you think seriously about the good life and pursue it, you will probably fail in ways large and small. But an imperfect struggle to live well and love a world badly in need of repair is better than staying still because things are terrible, because you might look like a loser in the meritocratic game, because it’s easier.

This is your life. You do not have time to wait for the revolution to begin living it. You will always be able to find someone to give you permission not to live it. But no one is coming along to live it for you.

Capitalism, in this rhetorical strain, is not so much the object of analysis or a concrete historical phenomenon as an all-purpose gesture. “Capitalism” is useful everywhere: as the punchline of self-deprecating jokes about the way we live now, as a perennial-but-distant bogeyman that explains chronic frustrations without ever causing enough pain t... See more

Most writing about burnout (and there has been plenty of it in the wake of Petersen’s original BuzzFeed essay) tends to lean heavily on “we”; it accords with the contention that burnout is a universal ailment. But who is the “we” of pandemic stress?

I think it’s possible that for many, considering the shape of your life and then living it with vigor is so difficult because it cannot be externally validated. Unlike education and work, it offers no socially obvious meritocratic path.

anti-human economies tend to make for bad living on the individual scale. The question is whether, if important causality occurs on the macro level, you have any capability or responsibility for dealing with it at the micro.