Moral Ecosystems: My Big Idea

brands do not succeed only because they codify certain product benefits to the consumer, but also because they signify of point to the lifestyle and its meanings

The Ethics of Authenticity

Since 2016 I have been exploring this idea and have made many attempts to explain it in different essays. None of these attempts have fully captured it, but I think the idea is so important and so explains certain features of our world that I keep trying again and again. In this piece I want to briefly outline how I arrived at this idea and develop... See more

Charles Taylor’s work. I was aware of his book A Secular Age

Alasdair McIntyre’s book After Virtue , which would provide a better framing for the moral notion in a lifestyle.

engagement with an activity or theme or way of life that is taken up wholeheartedly—not necessarily without reservation but without any holding back, without *avoidance* or ironic distancing and also without facade or artifice. Brand values are not sincere; a hiker’s love of hiking and pursuit of the outdoors is.

Brands gesture to these ideas of excellence, but they are only lived out, or fulfilled, by the lifestyle participants themselves.

Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation in Communities of Practice .

Naomi Klein in No Logo