Among the starkest contrasts brought into view in the wake of 2020 (as it has unfolded thus far) can be seen in the struggle to communicate on a meaningful level. The United States in particular has witnessed an increasingly shrill level of debate over the unfolding and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic repercussions arising therefrom, and the widespread protesting in response to various forms of systemic racism. What is most alarming to me about the many related debates and discussions, which I have witnessed both privately and publicly, is the extent to which they appear interminable and incommensurable.1 It is not merely that people disagree, it is that they appear unable to actually communicate meaningfully. Here I wish to explore, in (regrettably) inchoate form, one possible reason for this.2
Continue reading “Theoretical Frameworks and the Limits of Communication”Month: June 2020
The Modern Culture of Achievement
As the concept of a calling became unmoored from its historically religious roots it gradually gave way to the secular concept of success.1 Over time, success effectively became the end-goal or purpose of everyday life and existence.2 This is the framework in which the modern culture of achievement was born. It is not a coincidence that this culture originated, developed, and matured to the greatest extent in America–a country wedded more than any other to the economic system of capitalism. The dream of success became the preoccupation of many and was reinforced in what I have called the “mainline thought” of self-help or success literature as it existed in the early to mid-twentieth century.3 It is within the overlap of the Social and Economic spheres, as well as the particulars of success literature itself that the image of the modern culture of achievement finally comes into view.
Continue reading “The Modern Culture of Achievement”