Exactly. The essay meandered, and didn't say much of note. It has vague illusions to personal choice and markets being detrimental. But that's it. Too many people feel entitled the control the choices of others. And yet they rarely accept equal control of their choices.
> "But an emphasis on choice as a form of liberation has occasioned serious resentments in different sectors and geographies, where it can seem a direct threat to other, more communal values and needs."
I think this quote sums it up nicely. Personal liberation is not a threat to mutually beneficial communal values. If you need to force people to behave as part of your community, then it should be voluntary. One should be able to choose to pursue any form of freedom or community they'd like. If you want freedom to be "an act of pure imagination" and live a communal lifestyle, you should have the choice.
Right, it performs exactly what perpetuates the problem the author has with the world, in failing to provide or enact any positive vision for how to make things better, and in projecting their own desires onto others as if they're an objective measure of how things ought to be. When I was a kid, I loved walking down the fucking cereal aisle. I personally don't understand why people are so into concerts and music festivals but my girlfriend loves them, and I don't see why they're any worse than the number of open source web libraries or discord channels that people in my demographic take joy in.
The one thing that truly made a difference for my own personal satisfaction was in realizing that inaction and despairing about society because of my own problems were a defense mechanism to justify what might happen if I tried to actually make things better, and either failed or became something I moralized against. Who gives a shit that there's too much cereal? What's actually making people unhappy is not enough of something else, or something missing in their lives that they can't find. Ultimately you either choose to do nothing or to try to make things better, and accept that inaction is itself a choice.
> "But an emphasis on choice as a form of liberation has occasioned serious resentments in different sectors and geographies, where it can seem a direct threat to other, more communal values and needs." I think this quote sums it up nicely. Personal liberation is not a threat to mutually beneficial communal values. If you need to force people to behave as part of your community, then it should be voluntary. One should be able to choose to pursue any form of freedom or community they'd like. If you want freedom to be "an act of pure imagination" and live a communal lifestyle, you should have the choice.