Sublime

“wage-based societies” where the central ethic was, “never mind what work you do, what counts is having a job.“

studying the motivations of individuals in isolation: the patterns we see are a fundamentally social affair. More, as Anderson

essence, we are dealing with disgruntled young people who do unexpected or dangerous things under the social influence of their peers and role models—a.k.a. the common adolescent. And yet, only a small fraction of disgruntled young people stumble into behaviors that are significantly more dangerous than making severe fashion statements or partying

In his book Bowling Alone, Robert D. Putnam references

They were at the top of the public housing expertise hierarchy but lower on others.

“fundamental attribution error.”

the creating of social taxonomies is a form of the mythmaking described in the previous chapter. Just as we cannot do without our metaphors and myths, we cannot do without social taxonomies. There are too many people! But we absolutely must remember what those taxonomies are: temporary, provisional intellectual structures whose relevance will not a

Mastery and competence are dramatically devalued at the expense of what Sennett calls “cooperation,” presumably unintentionally echoing Whyte’s far more blatant derision in using this word, but which we are happy to characterize more bluntly as manipulation.