Sublime

Meritocratic thinking now shapes almost every aspect of life and, with it, our identity.

Social Darwinism and neo-liberal meritocracy create the impression that they favour the individual who is naturally the best. He or she would have made it anyway; we are just giving nature a helping hand to speed the ‘fittest’ up the ladder. But the reality is somewhat different. Both social Darwinists and meritocratists themselves determine who is

This matters, argues economist Robert Frank, because ‘our beliefs about human nature help shape human nature itself’.

Syndicate.

it is all about understanding mindstates and what motivated your behaviour.

But it isn’t as though depression completely has no source. Rather, Ehrenberg argues that its source is late modernity’s demand to create and continue to curate your own self. This task is taxing and deeply fatiguing. The speed of late modernity, its frantic pace of life imposed on us by the blitzing social and technological change since the 1970s,

that this age trend reflects shifts in social priorities.

even the ever-meaningless “consultant”—each

MASTER: