Liquid Life
Being regarded as authentic is a function of others’ evaluation of your performance. But if everything is in upheaval, then those others doing the evaluating have few points of reference. Because the network society is global in character, identity is constantly being contested and threatened from all sides. The freedom of the paranoid, just like t
... See moreDavid A. Banks • The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America
While industrial capitalism had melted away much of the structures of social life (traditional loyalties, customary rights, and obligations), advanced capitalism has, in Bauman’s view, melted any relationship between individual actions and those of political collectivities.92 The language of New Age literature renders this liquefaction as not only
... See moreMicki McGee • Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life
Here is where culture enters the picture. I mean“culture” in its anthropological rather than artisticsense. What values and practices can hold people to-gether as the institutions in which they live fragment? My generation suffered from a want of imagination inanswering this question, in advancing the virtues ofsmall-scale community. Co
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