Sublime

That’s why, according to Russell, we should always question the things we take for granted.

We still want collectives such as family, country, and neighborhood. But instead of the self being expected to conform to the generalized pattern, we expect the collective to accept us in our particularity. We want the family, country, or neighborhood to accept and affirm us in our uniqueness.

Inside the new contradiction, your loyalty was obviously not to God, company, or country but to your own most authentic way of being you. You were now your own business, your own project. You needed to work hard, but again, not for God and your covenant election, nor for the eye of manager and corporation, but for the sake of your own self.

Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, and for many years wrote a popular weekly column on psychology for the Guardian, ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Psychologies and New Philosopher.

Authority to define what is right and wrong is now linked to a role, rather than to a powerful personality (as was the case in Red); it’s the priest’s robe, whoever wears it, that defines authority.