It seems to me that modern culture and technology has provided something notably different from the past. Essentially, our tools have made it less costly to self promote and emote individualism. Unfortunately, even selfless acts of good have suspiciously taken on a self-promotion element. It also seems that all the efforts at creating unique identities have resulted in an aggregation of soulless self's. I miss the time when selfless acts of courage, valor, and honesty are done for the sake of what is right and we could all agree on their rightness. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil, neither do they spin."
Really looking forward to reading this book. Burton's "Strange Rites" was one of the best things I read last year.
I find it interesting that no one can decide whether this kind of self-making is a good or a bad thing. Arguably, people have been doing this less publicly since the beginning of time; it's only in recent period that we've been able to do it on such a public stage. So if we've been self-curating in private for millennia — not sharing our unflattering opinions of our close friends, trying to "act nice" at a parties even if we're in a bad mood, sweeping up the house when relatives are coming over — is there a qualitative difference between that, and doing it publicly for strangers on the other side of the phone screen?
I have a million thoughts about this ambivalence. I think the issue behind the issue is the corrosive nature of a individualism—but we live in an individualistic culture. And it’s not a recent development. Our cultural source code going back to the Greeks and Hebrews is laced with individualist strains. We are individualists, happily so, and yet we lament the impact of individualism on community cohesion. We benefit but would prefer to forgo the costs. As I said, I have a million thoughts on this. I may run a followup essay. Thanks for jumping right to the meat of the difficulty.
As advised, depression requires an initial familial forthright acknowledgment of the condition followed by continual quietness on the subject except for occasional reminders when someone asks what’s wrong. It can be a lifetime’s work, ongoing pretense and acting out the normal. Attentiveness, cheer, goodwill, closet praying, all that. “Get the hell back here Lord Jesus!” ;-)
My next book is almost done. Thirty years in the process but looking to see the light of day soon.
I have some other book projects after it, but the big one (about twenty years in the works) is a major book on Ralph Waldo Emerson and his Transcendentalist friends. Probably five years out, but one of the reasons why I gladly received a review copy of Burton's Self Made!
It seems to me that modern culture and technology has provided something notably different from the past. Essentially, our tools have made it less costly to self promote and emote individualism. Unfortunately, even selfless acts of good have suspiciously taken on a self-promotion element. It also seems that all the efforts at creating unique identities have resulted in an aggregation of soulless self's. I miss the time when selfless acts of courage, valor, and honesty are done for the sake of what is right and we could all agree on their rightness. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil, neither do they spin."
Yes, that’s true: Our tools do allow unprecedented scale of self-projection and self-promotion. And that conditions/distorts our expectations.
Really looking forward to reading this book. Burton's "Strange Rites" was one of the best things I read last year.
I find it interesting that no one can decide whether this kind of self-making is a good or a bad thing. Arguably, people have been doing this less publicly since the beginning of time; it's only in recent period that we've been able to do it on such a public stage. So if we've been self-curating in private for millennia — not sharing our unflattering opinions of our close friends, trying to "act nice" at a parties even if we're in a bad mood, sweeping up the house when relatives are coming over — is there a qualitative difference between that, and doing it publicly for strangers on the other side of the phone screen?
I have a million thoughts about this ambivalence. I think the issue behind the issue is the corrosive nature of a individualism—but we live in an individualistic culture. And it’s not a recent development. Our cultural source code going back to the Greeks and Hebrews is laced with individualist strains. We are individualists, happily so, and yet we lament the impact of individualism on community cohesion. We benefit but would prefer to forgo the costs. As I said, I have a million thoughts on this. I may run a followup essay. Thanks for jumping right to the meat of the difficulty.
As advised, depression requires an initial familial forthright acknowledgment of the condition followed by continual quietness on the subject except for occasional reminders when someone asks what’s wrong. It can be a lifetime’s work, ongoing pretense and acting out the normal. Attentiveness, cheer, goodwill, closet praying, all that. “Get the hell back here Lord Jesus!” ;-)
Hey Joel,
My next book is almost done. Thirty years in the process but looking to see the light of day soon.
I have some other book projects after it, but the big one (about twenty years in the works) is a major book on Ralph Waldo Emerson and his Transcendentalist friends. Probably five years out, but one of the reasons why I gladly received a review copy of Burton's Self Made!
Congrats on your project! I bet you’ll love Burton’s book.