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{"id":17080,"date":"2015-03-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1905"},"modified":"2015-03-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T00:00:00","slug":"making-selves-without-straw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/03\/making-selves-without-straw\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Selves Without Straw"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

The late Jock Young observes in his\u00a0Vertigo of Late Modernity<\/a> that our period is characterized by \u201ca combination of factors, some long existing yet unique in their combination, others pre-existent yet transformed in the present period. The impact revolves around three axes, the disembeddedness of everyday life, the awareness of a pluralism of values, and an individualism which presents the achievement of self-realisation as an ideal\u201d (2).<\/p>\n

The combination is poisonous. Disembedded from institutions and corporate habits that sustained people in earlier times, we don\u2019t really have the resources to create our own reality. But self-realization is presented as the ideal, but we need the resources of work, family, and community to construct the self. Which is precisely what we lack, being disembedded.<\/p>\n

Young puts it this way: \u201cthe bases of identity are less substantial: work, family, community, once steadfast building blocks, have become shaky and uncertain. At no stage in history has there been such a premium on identity, on constructing a narrative of development and discovery, yet where the materials to construct it are so transient and insubstantial.\u201d<\/p>\n

He goes on to point out that \u201cit is not merely the instability of work, family and community which make the writing of such a narrative difficult, it is the nature of the building blocks themselves.\u201d The various sources of identity work fail: \u201cWork in particular is a locus of disappointment \u2013 it is the site of meritocratic ideals, of notions of reward and social mobility commensurate with effort, which very frequently it fails to deliver. It is the supposed font of self-realisation yet all too usually a mill of tedium. It is the workhorse of a consumerism which evokes self-realisation and happiness, but which all too frequently conveys a feeling of hollowness, and neverending extravagance, where commodities incessantly beguile and disappoint. Even the real thing seems a fake.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the various bases of identity are often at cross-purposes with one another. Work is supposed to sustain family, but it erodes family: \u201cWork does not merely sustain family life, it manifestly intrudes upon it. It is the long commute which cuts into both ends of the day, and where the family becomes the place of tiredness and worn nerves\u201d (3). Working two jobs makes it hard for the working poor to devote any time to neighbors, or to children.<\/p>\n

Young doesn\u2019t think our lives are joyless wrecks: \u201cNone of this should deny for an instant the perennial human joys of companionship of work, marriage and partnership, raising children and the comforts of neighbourliness.\u201d His point is \u201cthat it is precisely these parts of human fulfilment that suffer most \u2026 the shoe pinches where it is needed most\u201d (4).<\/p>\n

We are told to build monumental selves. We are to make bricks without straw.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"