Also, effort as a mental health practice. Yes in a sense you are working toward an external goal (work deadlines, team support, whatevs) but also an immediate internal release from self-obsession and future-tripping.
Preach brother. I think millennials were the worst offenders of this. So many post recession articles on how it’s not your fault you’re hopelessly in debt or overweight or generally unhappy because society, man. Maybe it was good for clicks but the rent is still due on the first, and I think people who took to the doomerism mindset put themselves at a significant disadvantage in career, personal health, and dating arenas.
Nice point. For me it matches with the overall trend of outsourcing feelings. Sometimes it's crowdsourcing, sometimes it's just translating personal issues into systemic ones, sometimes it's medicalizing things. But it's always about not really dealing with your shit. (and of course, a lot of times those things are really really hard to deal with, but yeah...)
Great piece. What irks me is that this is sort of complaint is often paired with the claim that if you are OK, if you are working hard and working towards some worthwhile end, or if God forbid, you're actually thriving, then you must be part of the problem. As if success were enough to make you politically suspect. And no one believes this, because the making these claims the loudest are all desperate to be successful at something.
But I guess the nature of online life today. You're either "anti-work" or you're "hustle culture." Or you're hustling but loudly proclaiming that you're not, so that if you fail, you'll have plausible deniability.
And while all of this is happening, more of the population is getting squeezed in really profound ways: higher rents, lower real pay, lower quality governance, more credentialism, so on and so forth. Being individually successful is suspect in some circles, but the quality of communal life is deteriorating. I wonder, what's going to be left?
It’s not much different than 25 years ago. In college specifically and among 20 somethings generally a certain arty bohemianess is fashionable. But that soon crashes into post college economic reality that working for an arts non-profit isn’t all that great.
This is a great piece and the advice is sound. It worries me how much of the messaging young people hear these days is, essentially, "give up".
People have been railing against the concept of "grit" recently and they seem to be making the same error Freddie points out here: yes, we as a society have a bad habit of asking people to respond to problems that require collective solutions with rugged individualism instead and no, you can't just out-hustle diabetes or depression - we do, in fact, need universal healthcare. But, in the absence of the holistic solutions we seek, the individual does, indeed, need at least a little grit.
The odds are stacked against you; try anyway. The alternative is defeat. Self-selected defeat.
Ironically, I feel even fantasies of better worlds often pushed by younger people who recognize the worst of capitalism's excesses fall into that witless rise-and-grind model. I think of crypto and its "[blank]-to-earn" model: "Don't you wish you were compensated for consuming idle pleasures like watching videos or playing video games?"
The answer these people seem to have for getting fleeced is to somehow convince others that every second of their waking hours is actually valuable and worth real world currency so it must be productively used to earn, which is the real evil of capitalism I guess - the grind stops at eight+ hours. Never mind that the "earning" is of fake digital money that has value only so much as can be inflated and hyped up by the very same people feeding you this tripe.
You write so well, and are so right-minded, Sir, I hate to criticize. The fundamental problem I have with Your views is Your delusions about Marxism. You can out-debate me, no question. But common-sense will tell You what You more-or-less "said" in this fine essay.
"Sometimes this attitude specifically takes the form of complaints about work, meaning the exchange of labor for wages, specifically. And indeed, if you’re a Marxist you recognize that this exchange is inherently exploitative. But work, itself, the act of laboring, is not a vestige of capitalism but of human existence."
If You work, and You *FEEL* like You're being exploited, it can mean a couple (or more) things: You've never worked in a good business. You don't know that most businesses are good. That if the U.S.A. was Marxist, You'd *STILL* be exploited. Doesn't matter who owns the business, if You're in a mood to *feel* exploited, You will.
It's mathematically impossible:
"from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" and
"everybody can get the same outcome, if we're all given the same opportunities." Sorry, but true.
What You, Sir, don't get is that even if the U.S.A. were Marxist, people would still be born on third base. What Marxists seem to count on is that "they'd" be in position to be on third base, more than everyone would somehow end up on third base, right?
"The simple fact of the matter is this: you are embedded in a system in which you do not control your own destiny, yet you must work to achieve better outcomes rather than worse regardless. Adult life, very often, consists of recognizing that you can’t control what happens next, and then setting about to try and control it anyway. Because while you may never be able to exceed the potential that is forced on you by chance and parentage and timing and the system, you can certainly fail to meet that potential."
You see, I read something like that and shake my head. Because there is, mebbe, nothing more outstanding You've written in this essay.
This is a Law of Nature. It doesn't matter *WHAT* the system is. Capitalism? Marxism? This is still true. To me, anyWay, this is a Spiritual (if not Religious) Truth. You do NOT, and canNOT, have complete control over *anything,* let alone something in the future. *Nobody* has that good-a crystal ball, right?
I could reread the article, and quote most-a it as being right on the money. The only other fault I can see in the logic/emotions/intuitions is that You blame the problems on Capitalism. Without considering the problems that will necessarily still be around if Marxism was in placed.
People, as a general rule, prefer to complain than work to improve themselves, right? You're lucky, Sir Freddie, that You weren't raised that Way. In addition to the other lucky breaks You got. Which most people *do* get but pass on by. AFAIK, it's roughly 50% "luck" and 50% hard work. ICBW.
TYTY again for this essay. Sorry if this is too long.
So capitalism sucks because some people are born with advantages, e.g. due to their parents' money. Well, I was born in a socialist country. There, your birth mattered even more. Not only were you and your life chances sorted according to your class origin, but personal connections, whether your parents' or your own, were even more important than in capitalist societies.
Of course, capitalism and socialism aren't the only options. We could go back to feudalism or aristocracy or a theistic society.
"But some people work in the cobalt mines at least part-time under socialism. Luxury cyborg space communism will have to wait." I'd take this even further. The mythical luxury space communism will still need part time cobalt miners.
But for it to feel as "luxury" as people imagine, you'd need to have a hidden class of the population who do all the work.
The closest thing we'd get to that ideal is one where you have one part time job that's just posting or doing market research (aka the type of jobs that wouldn't feel like jobs) and another part time job where you're on a hard clock for 15 hours a week or so working in the cobalt mines, so that your devices can keep functioning.
And in this world, maybe at some point people say "maybe I don't like my screens and internet enough to justify how much I dislike the cobalt mines." Then things get really interesting.
Anyway, I hold that hypothetical in my head as a reminder that the "work-free" future really isn't plausible but workers' democracy (aka socialism) is extremely plausible.
Anyone who approaches life as a vending machine where you put in virtue and get out happiness is just going to get hurt. That's the way of "deserving", and I don't know what that means. Alex Jones doesn't deserve his fantastic wealth, we might say, and those Sandy Hook kids didn't deserve to die, but what does any of that mean? Jones is still rich and those poor kids are still dead.
Myself, I don't expect much from this world in the way of justice, except for what human beings make for ourselves. THAT'S where we can put our virtue.
Great piece! I think one of the fastest ways to hurt our mental health is to get caught up in and ruminate over fairness, because life is not fair. The destructive effects of grudges about fairness are apparent not only in conversations about capitalism, but also in all kinds of privilege talk. Think of the frequent complaint, “It’s not my job to educate you.” But if we refuse to share our thoughts and experiences because “it’s not fair,” how will anyone ever learn, and how will things ever get better? If we choose to focus on our outrage that other people have it easier, instead of feeling grateful for the ways we are lucky, we only hurt ourselves.
Also, effort as a mental health practice. Yes in a sense you are working toward an external goal (work deadlines, team support, whatevs) but also an immediate internal release from self-obsession and future-tripping.
Preach brother. I think millennials were the worst offenders of this. So many post recession articles on how it’s not your fault you’re hopelessly in debt or overweight or generally unhappy because society, man. Maybe it was good for clicks but the rent is still due on the first, and I think people who took to the doomerism mindset put themselves at a significant disadvantage in career, personal health, and dating arenas.
Nice point. For me it matches with the overall trend of outsourcing feelings. Sometimes it's crowdsourcing, sometimes it's just translating personal issues into systemic ones, sometimes it's medicalizing things. But it's always about not really dealing with your shit. (and of course, a lot of times those things are really really hard to deal with, but yeah...)
This is why I subscribe. Thank you. There's more wisdom in this piece than I've seen in a long, long time.
Great piece. What irks me is that this is sort of complaint is often paired with the claim that if you are OK, if you are working hard and working towards some worthwhile end, or if God forbid, you're actually thriving, then you must be part of the problem. As if success were enough to make you politically suspect. And no one believes this, because the making these claims the loudest are all desperate to be successful at something.
But I guess the nature of online life today. You're either "anti-work" or you're "hustle culture." Or you're hustling but loudly proclaiming that you're not, so that if you fail, you'll have plausible deniability.
And while all of this is happening, more of the population is getting squeezed in really profound ways: higher rents, lower real pay, lower quality governance, more credentialism, so on and so forth. Being individually successful is suspect in some circles, but the quality of communal life is deteriorating. I wonder, what's going to be left?
It’s not much different than 25 years ago. In college specifically and among 20 somethings generally a certain arty bohemianess is fashionable. But that soon crashes into post college economic reality that working for an arts non-profit isn’t all that great.
This is a great piece and the advice is sound. It worries me how much of the messaging young people hear these days is, essentially, "give up".
People have been railing against the concept of "grit" recently and they seem to be making the same error Freddie points out here: yes, we as a society have a bad habit of asking people to respond to problems that require collective solutions with rugged individualism instead and no, you can't just out-hustle diabetes or depression - we do, in fact, need universal healthcare. But, in the absence of the holistic solutions we seek, the individual does, indeed, need at least a little grit.
The odds are stacked against you; try anyway. The alternative is defeat. Self-selected defeat.
Ironically, I feel even fantasies of better worlds often pushed by younger people who recognize the worst of capitalism's excesses fall into that witless rise-and-grind model. I think of crypto and its "[blank]-to-earn" model: "Don't you wish you were compensated for consuming idle pleasures like watching videos or playing video games?"
The answer these people seem to have for getting fleeced is to somehow convince others that every second of their waking hours is actually valuable and worth real world currency so it must be productively used to earn, which is the real evil of capitalism I guess - the grind stops at eight+ hours. Never mind that the "earning" is of fake digital money that has value only so much as can be inflated and hyped up by the very same people feeding you this tripe.
You write so well, and are so right-minded, Sir, I hate to criticize. The fundamental problem I have with Your views is Your delusions about Marxism. You can out-debate me, no question. But common-sense will tell You what You more-or-less "said" in this fine essay.
"Sometimes this attitude specifically takes the form of complaints about work, meaning the exchange of labor for wages, specifically. And indeed, if you’re a Marxist you recognize that this exchange is inherently exploitative. But work, itself, the act of laboring, is not a vestige of capitalism but of human existence."
If You work, and You *FEEL* like You're being exploited, it can mean a couple (or more) things: You've never worked in a good business. You don't know that most businesses are good. That if the U.S.A. was Marxist, You'd *STILL* be exploited. Doesn't matter who owns the business, if You're in a mood to *feel* exploited, You will.
It's mathematically impossible:
"from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" and
"everybody can get the same outcome, if we're all given the same opportunities." Sorry, but true.
What You, Sir, don't get is that even if the U.S.A. were Marxist, people would still be born on third base. What Marxists seem to count on is that "they'd" be in position to be on third base, more than everyone would somehow end up on third base, right?
"The simple fact of the matter is this: you are embedded in a system in which you do not control your own destiny, yet you must work to achieve better outcomes rather than worse regardless. Adult life, very often, consists of recognizing that you can’t control what happens next, and then setting about to try and control it anyway. Because while you may never be able to exceed the potential that is forced on you by chance and parentage and timing and the system, you can certainly fail to meet that potential."
You see, I read something like that and shake my head. Because there is, mebbe, nothing more outstanding You've written in this essay.
This is a Law of Nature. It doesn't matter *WHAT* the system is. Capitalism? Marxism? This is still true. To me, anyWay, this is a Spiritual (if not Religious) Truth. You do NOT, and canNOT, have complete control over *anything,* let alone something in the future. *Nobody* has that good-a crystal ball, right?
I could reread the article, and quote most-a it as being right on the money. The only other fault I can see in the logic/emotions/intuitions is that You blame the problems on Capitalism. Without considering the problems that will necessarily still be around if Marxism was in placed.
People, as a general rule, prefer to complain than work to improve themselves, right? You're lucky, Sir Freddie, that You weren't raised that Way. In addition to the other lucky breaks You got. Which most people *do* get but pass on by. AFAIK, it's roughly 50% "luck" and 50% hard work. ICBW.
TYTY again for this essay. Sorry if this is too long.
So capitalism sucks because some people are born with advantages, e.g. due to their parents' money. Well, I was born in a socialist country. There, your birth mattered even more. Not only were you and your life chances sorted according to your class origin, but personal connections, whether your parents' or your own, were even more important than in capitalist societies.
Of course, capitalism and socialism aren't the only options. We could go back to feudalism or aristocracy or a theistic society.
"But some people work in the cobalt mines at least part-time under socialism. Luxury cyborg space communism will have to wait." I'd take this even further. The mythical luxury space communism will still need part time cobalt miners.
But for it to feel as "luxury" as people imagine, you'd need to have a hidden class of the population who do all the work.
The closest thing we'd get to that ideal is one where you have one part time job that's just posting or doing market research (aka the type of jobs that wouldn't feel like jobs) and another part time job where you're on a hard clock for 15 hours a week or so working in the cobalt mines, so that your devices can keep functioning.
And in this world, maybe at some point people say "maybe I don't like my screens and internet enough to justify how much I dislike the cobalt mines." Then things get really interesting.
Anyway, I hold that hypothetical in my head as a reminder that the "work-free" future really isn't plausible but workers' democracy (aka socialism) is extremely plausible.
To coin a phrase “first, tidy your room”
Anyone who approaches life as a vending machine where you put in virtue and get out happiness is just going to get hurt. That's the way of "deserving", and I don't know what that means. Alex Jones doesn't deserve his fantastic wealth, we might say, and those Sandy Hook kids didn't deserve to die, but what does any of that mean? Jones is still rich and those poor kids are still dead.
Myself, I don't expect much from this world in the way of justice, except for what human beings make for ourselves. THAT'S where we can put our virtue.
Great piece! I think one of the fastest ways to hurt our mental health is to get caught up in and ruminate over fairness, because life is not fair. The destructive effects of grudges about fairness are apparent not only in conversations about capitalism, but also in all kinds of privilege talk. Think of the frequent complaint, “It’s not my job to educate you.” But if we refuse to share our thoughts and experiences because “it’s not fair,” how will anyone ever learn, and how will things ever get better? If we choose to focus on our outrage that other people have it easier, instead of feeling grateful for the ways we are lucky, we only hurt ourselves.