What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society

So, instead of consumers, we need once more to become citizens. If we want politics to be governed by the public interest — and that is more necessary than ever — we ourselves must promote that public interest, rather than private concerns.

The care that an individual shows towards his or her body and those of others derives from the way in which a community collectively formulates answers to existential questions.

The obligation to both succeed and enjoy has turned postmodern consumers into clones of each other’s exclusiveness, without the advantage of mutual solidarity. Hence the strange combination of excessive individualism and a collective consumerism in which we all cherish the illusion that we are unique.

The system creates an underclass who regard themselves as failures, are ashamed, and seek to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. The old silent majority has now become an invisible majority of isolated groups who try to hide their difficult situation from the outside world. This also has the effect of undermining solidarity just whe

Strikingly, every single one of today’s ‘right’ characteristics has to do with contemporary professional identity, and the same applies to the interpersonal characteristics we are expected to possess.

Alongside these influences is another equally important pillar: our professional identity. In both cases, relationships with the other determine our self-respect. In the best-case scenario, mastery of professional skills is added to the mix. Our self-image and sense of wellbeing are greatly affected by our workplace and our relationship with collea

we live in an extremely controlling society in which authority has disappeared.

Every time we walk down the street, turn on the television, or open a magazine we are told how to behave and how to attain the perfection expected of us. We all have to jump through evaluation hoops; we are forever being ‘invited’ to participate in health checks, audits, screenings, tests, and so on; and on top of that we are expected to carry out

In the process, we lose sight of a fundamental truth: we have gradually all become neo-liberal, in both thought and deed.