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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3011 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 26, 2026

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What replaces them is a culture of "self-invention", consumption and signaling. You are expected to construct an identity, advertise it and constantly update it. Nothing is simply inherited or taken for granted. Everything has to be chosen, announced and turned into a statement about who you are. This makes the culture exhausting and unpleasant to almost everyone outside it, and probably to many Americans themselves.

Maybe this is, in part, due to how the labor market developed. We (I'm not American, but everything you describe is pretty similar in my country) are expected to offer up and advertise ourselves and all our real and ostensible qualities, to employers and others we need attention from. The societal group as a whole is not working towards any common improved future. It does not seek out the talent. The talent is supposed to discover itself, advertise itself, show up to each of the countless buyers of labor themselves. Most Americans are not unionized, which probably contributes to atomization and individualism. The self-invention and embroidered resumé culture fits into a mostly automated sorting mechanism for hiring.

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