I loved that this post was very challenging to me, a fellow symbolic capitalist, denying easy answers or validation. And I like that you explained why you're doing that here and in your book. I'm getting tired of the "easy" answers offered in the liberal-progressive discourse. I will be supporting your own work as a symbolic capitalist by buying your book, alongside a healthy sense of irony!
I would add that there's potentially a feasible, non-self-abnegating path out of this dilemma hinted at in the post and the book: "people have ideal interests that often supervene and supersede material concerns" and "the individual is not the scale at which people tend to evaluate their interests." Interests are, indeed, very socially mediated, which means that we can change each other:
I've seen that by moving between different cultures in my adult life. I'm American, but live in Sweden now, a similarly wealthy, Western, individualist, culturally-Christian, consumer-capitalist society. It's the same, but different. Here in Sweden, I don't feel the same "I got mine!" attitude that is so pervasive in the United States. I still feel shame here for being a little too on-the-nose about bouts of indulgent selfishness or conspicuous consumption. I receive ambient pressure to be thrifty, scrupulous, and conscientious in a way that feels very contra Trump Era America. Swedes have their blind spots toward inequality and their own space at the top of the hierarchy of symbolic capitalism and globalization, of course, but there's something a little more hesitant and tasteful about their ambivalence toward the nastiness underneath their society's calm. And it's not just "virtue signaling" or "liberal guilt," this social pressure toward conscience does have some real benefits: Swedes generally have at markedly lower environmental impact, enjoy more social equality, and are far less violent than Americans are. There was a time not so long ago, also, where the symbolic capitalists of Sweden took real risks in advocating for a better society for all.
And this "well-behaved" ambivalence toward one's own inner capacity for craven-ness and advantageous position near the output of a societal wealth pump is not that alien to American culture, really: it's way Americans used to feel, at least if my c. 1910s grandparents were any guide. So, what's in our interests can change in time, as well as in space. Obviously, as lovely as they were, my grandparents also profited handsomely from a society that was rather barbaric at root, whether they were self-aware about it or not. So let me not excuse them (or myself). It's just to say that it's possible to be *better* if not fully and purely *good.*
I loved that this post was very challenging to me, a fellow symbolic capitalist, denying easy answers or validation. And I like that you explained why you're doing that here and in your book. I'm getting tired of the "easy" answers offered in the liberal-progressive discourse. I will be supporting your own work as a symbolic capitalist by buying your book, alongside a healthy sense of irony!
I would add that there's potentially a feasible, non-self-abnegating path out of this dilemma hinted at in the post and the book: "people have ideal interests that often supervene and supersede material concerns" and "the individual is not the scale at which people tend to evaluate their interests." Interests are, indeed, very socially mediated, which means that we can change each other:
I've seen that by moving between different cultures in my adult life. I'm American, but live in Sweden now, a similarly wealthy, Western, individualist, culturally-Christian, consumer-capitalist society. It's the same, but different. Here in Sweden, I don't feel the same "I got mine!" attitude that is so pervasive in the United States. I still feel shame here for being a little too on-the-nose about bouts of indulgent selfishness or conspicuous consumption. I receive ambient pressure to be thrifty, scrupulous, and conscientious in a way that feels very contra Trump Era America. Swedes have their blind spots toward inequality and their own space at the top of the hierarchy of symbolic capitalism and globalization, of course, but there's something a little more hesitant and tasteful about their ambivalence toward the nastiness underneath their society's calm. And it's not just "virtue signaling" or "liberal guilt," this social pressure toward conscience does have some real benefits: Swedes generally have at markedly lower environmental impact, enjoy more social equality, and are far less violent than Americans are. There was a time not so long ago, also, where the symbolic capitalists of Sweden took real risks in advocating for a better society for all.
And this "well-behaved" ambivalence toward one's own inner capacity for craven-ness and advantageous position near the output of a societal wealth pump is not that alien to American culture, really: it's way Americans used to feel, at least if my c. 1910s grandparents were any guide. So, what's in our interests can change in time, as well as in space. Obviously, as lovely as they were, my grandparents also profited handsomely from a society that was rather barbaric at root, whether they were self-aware about it or not. So let me not excuse them (or myself). It's just to say that it's possible to be *better* if not fully and purely *good.*