13 notes · after 10 · from 13 · both 10
- authoritarian regimes engineer desiresboth
Authoritarian regimes win not when they control people’s actions but when they control their desires, teaching prisoners to love their cells.
- cult of expertsboth
For Luke Burgis, the cult of experts sells “Follow These Five Steps” happiness with little respect for human complexity.
- describing core motivational drivesboth
Core motivational drives are enduring, irresistible and insatiable energies that have oriented a life since childhood.
- directed desires kulturnost and consumptionboth
The transition to Soviet Russia came about through directed desires: a subtle campaign to make people want certain things and reject others.
- ideology maturity conflicting desiresboth
Ideology sees everything as good or bad, while maturity can hold two conflicting desires at once without rushing to reject one.
- scapegoats challenge collective psycheboth
The scapegoat, often chosen at random yet always seen as distinct, comes to embody a menace to the unity of the group.
- scientism mimetic gamefrom
Scientism fools people because it is a mimetic game dressed up as science.
- spiral of silenceboth
People fall silent when they believe no one shares their opinion, and their silence deepens the very isolation it springs from.
- tech engineers desireboth
Luke Burgis sees Silicon Valley and authoritarian governments engineering desire, so people want what others want them to want.
- Wanting (2021)from
Clippings from Luke Burgis’s Wanting: we are not atomistic individuals but exist in a web of relationships connected by desire.
- wanting what we already haveboth
Beyond yielding to mimetic forces lies a single greatest desire, and meanwhile something warm to sink our teeth into: wanting what we already have.
- all hipsters look alikefrom
The effort to leave the beaten paths forces everyone into the same ditch.
- sympathy is easier than empathyboth
Sympathy fuses our feelings with another’s, while empathy goes into their experience without losing self-possession.