I just read a terrific article published yesterday in The Guardian, by George Monbiot.
The article discusses the climate of social discordance and intense competition that pervades modern, first-world, civilised (and corporatised) societies. Monbiot sets out to debunk the myths of neoliberalism as a merit-based system which rewards hard work and innovation, and particularly the notion that neoliberalism creates equal opportunities for everyone who adheres to such industrious application.
What I found most interesting is the notion of the cultivation of the individual (as consumer) and how this notion of individual enterprise fundamentally distances us from our fellow citizens and makes us wary of each other.
While it represents a heavily corporate dominated environment (look at Google), the Internet – vis-a-vis blogs and other platforms for community exchange – do offer a popular contemporary platform for us to reconnect outside of the context of commerce or corporate-mediated space. I think this can only be a good thing, if you consider examples that WikiLeaks and most alternative political sites offer as necessary counterbalances to mainstream media (both of these sites much in common with the platform of blogging).
The article ties into much of my other reading at the moment, particularly the notion that neoliberal governance undermines the possibility for collective action, as discussed by Jeremy Gilbert in his book, Common Ground. This economic-centered view of things is also so apparent in much of mainstream reportage and its focus on the quantitive elements of various events (e.g. death tolls, budget forecasts, etc, etc.), which give only the most cursory glance at the affective elements of such events on us as humans. The article took a refreshing qualitative stance and it’s a bit of shame that it was relegated to the lower sections of the The Guardian’s homepage.
If you get the chance, check out the full article here:
References:
Gilbert, J. (2014). Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism.