The primary modern manifestation is what I’ve previously labeled waldenponding — a fearful retreat from the technologically mediated modes of rich connection that would enable such maximal collectivization. The fetish object of the waldenponder is the individual brain doing “deep” work, with minimal collectivization, and maximal egoism.

As the individual experiences an ever-growing sense of acceleration provided by technological developments (new media and the “speeding up” of the infosphere) alongside a general decrease in security of past provisions and expectations (read: precarity, freelance positions, housing shortages, and increasing wealth disparities coexisting with rhetor... See more