Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us | Paul Verhaeghe. We tend to perceive our identities as stable and largely separate from outside forces. But over decades of research and therapeutic practice, I have become convinced that economic change is having a profound effect not only on our values but also on our personalities. Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative. If you’re reading this sceptically, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism favours certain personality traits and penalises others. There are certain ideal characteristics needed to make a career today. The first is articulateness, the aim being to win over as many people as possible.
It’s important to be able to talk up your own capacities as much as you can – you know a lot of people, you’ve got plenty of experience under your belt and you recently completed a major project. This description is, of course, a caricature taken to extremes. Psychologists Have Uncovered a Troubling Feature of People Who Seem Nice All the Time. This week, a Texas mother pointed out that a high school geography textbook was painting a misleading picture of slavery — and the publisher acknowledged she was right and immediately moved to correct the text. Mother Roni Dean-Burren was surprised to learn McGraw Hill Education's ninth-grade textbook World Geography seemingly lacked any reference to the brutal conditions endured by black people captured and sold in the Atlantic slave trade, BuzzFeed reports.
Her concerns were subsequently mirrored by tens of thousands of Facebook users. The questionable section of the textbook, titled "Patterns of Immigration," reads "The Atlantic slave trade between the 1500s and the 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations. " In a video posted to Facebook, Dean-Burren explained precisely what was wrong with that section — the term "worker" omits mention of the vile, coercive nature of slavery. The Story Behind the Story: Blurred Lines, Project Unbreakable and Going (Moderately) Viral | Zuzu's Petals. Two weeks ago I was in one of the darkest and deepest pits of despair and depression I’d ever felt in my life. The previous time I felt so utterly distraught was also the last time I lived in the USA in 2002 and it resulted in an ugly hospital stay. Approaching October is always a hard time of year, being itself a trauma trigger, but repatriation to the country that caused the breaks in my life was making it all the worse.
Being in such a dark place is an out of body experience. You drift and look down at yourself all pathetic, but with no way to lift yourself up. You also see the people around you — namely my husband — and all the things they’re doing to try to help, but none of it works. In the midst of that horrible time I watched the 2013 MTV Music Awards, which became my introduction to Robin Thicke and his song Blurred Lines. Writing the piece was like pulling teeth. Lisa warned me not to read comments as rape apologists come out of the woodwork like nobody’s business. P.S. P.P.S. Broncos lineman cites Chomsky as reason for quitting NFL. A Denver Broncos lineman is quitting the NFL — and walking away from an additional $1 million he would have made if he’d stayed through the end of his contract next year — because he’d begun reading the works of liberal linguist Noam Chomsky and the Dalai Lama.
Guard John Moffitt called the Broncos from his home in Seattle last week and said he wouldn’t be back. Unlike Miami Dolphins offensive tackle Jonathan Martin, who famously quit the team amid allegations that he was being bullied and harassed by teammates, Moffitt told the Associated Press that he was simply no longer all that thrilled to be playing football. “I just really thought about it and decided I’m not happy,” he told AP. “I’m not happy at all. And I think it’s really madness to risk your body, risk your well-being and risk your happiness for money.” “Everybody, they just don’t get it and they think it’s crazy,” he said. “The purpose of those media is just to dull people’s brains,” he said. Moffitt shrugged it off.