Saved by Keely Adler
The Individualism Myth | #241
As our economy grows steadily more unequal and unforgiving, many of us have doubled down on our fantasies, hoping that in ceaseless toil, we will find whatever it is we are looking for, become whoever we yearn to become. This, Malesic says, is a false promise.
The Baffler • The New Neurasthenia
our individual whims and wants have become fetishised, with ever more ludicrous business models evolving to meet and raise our Consumer desires and expectations. Many of us are working ever harder, while having ever more debt and fewer savings. What is more, this process has intensified even as our actual needs – for healthy ecosystems, coherent so
... See moreBrian Eno • Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us
The postmodern individual suffers from a strange type of dissociation, a new form of split personality. We condemn the system, are hostile to it, and feel powerless to change it. Yet at the same time we act in a way that reinforces and even extends it. Every decision we make — what to eat and drink, what to wear, how to get about, where to go on ho
... See morePaul Verhaeghe • What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society
We live in an increasingly anxious and depressed society, subject to unprecedented psychic misery at a time of unprecedented prosperity. The psychologist Martin Seligman explains this paradox with two parallel forces, which he calls 'the waxing of the individual and the waning of the commons'. On