What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society
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NOTES
In the interests of readability, I have confined bibliographic references in the text to a minimum. When mention is made of an author, the relevant book or article can be found in the bibliography under the author’s name. I only use footnotes for very specific references.
Introduction
1 The best known is the 1963 experiment by Stanley Milgram, in which, after a certain amount of prompting, ordinary people gave dangerous electric shocks (or so they thought) to individuals taking part in what they had been told was a ‘learning experiment’. Around ten years later, Philip Zimbardo carried out his Stanford prison experiment, in which students took their roles as guards so much to heart that it became an Abu Ghraib avant la lettre.
Chapter Three: The Perfectible Individual
1 Kołakowski, 2007. Two quotations: ‘… and the possessors of universal truth know that they have access not only to inviolable (“scientific”) knowledge of all essential human affairs but also to the precepts of a perfect society’ (p. 45); ‘Many have pointed out that the principles of empiricism are not themselves empirical propositions. They are norms, injunctions, and we can question whether they are justified; they should in no way be taken for granted. Empiricism is not the same thing as empiric theory’ (p. 154). (The quotations are translated from the Dutch text.)
Chapter Four: The Essence of Identity
1 Kahneman et al., 1986.
2 Langford et al., 2006.
3 Singer et al., 2006.
4 Freud, 1953a.
Chapter Five: Enron Society
1 Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010, p. 67.
2 Lorenz, 2008.
3 Young, 2001.
4 Verbrugge, 2004, p. 240.
5 van den Berghe, 2008, pp. 173–177. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of eugenics and social Darwinism against the background of the Enlightenment. The (Dutch) text can be accessed free of charge via the author’s website.
/> 6 ‘We shall suppose that a creature, possessed of reason, but unacquainted with human nature, deliberates with himself what rules of justice or property would best promote public interest, and establish peace and security among mankind: His most obvious thought would be, to assign the largest possessions to the most extensive virtue, and give everyone the power of doing good, proportioned to his inclination … But were mankind to execute such a law; so great is the uncertainty of merit, both from its natural obscurity, and from the self-conceit of each individual, that no determinate rule of conduct would ever result from it; and the total dissolution of society must be the immediate consequence.’ (Hume, 2010, section III, part 2.)
7 Sutherland, 1992, chapter 8.
8 Swierstra & Tonkens, 2008.
9 Jeremy Bentham, 18th-century British philosopher and social reformer, the founder of utilitarianism (‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’). He designed the Panopticon, an ideal prison in which a single guard could observe all prisoners from a central tower while himself remaining unseen. (Achterhuis, 2010; Sennett, 2005.)
10 Bauman, 1999, p. 26.
11 Sennett, 1998, p. 70.
12 Westen et al., 2004. For a detailed discussion of the consequences, see Verhaeghe, 2009.
13 Pels, 2007.
Chapter Six: Identity: Powerless Perfectibility
1 Hermanns, 2009.
2 The contributions by Jan Masschelein, Maarten Simons, and Bart Pattyn were particularly inspiring, along with the opening speech given a year earlier at University College Ghent by Frank Vande Veire (2006).
3 De Standaard Magazine, 21 April 2012.
4 NRC Handelsblad, 19 September 2011.
5 Sennett, 2005, pp. 32–34 and pp. 38–39.
6 Babiak & Hare, 2006.
7 Sennett, 2003, p. 46 and pp. 102–107.
8 Lacan, 2002, p. 81, and 1978, p. 214.
9 Sennett, 1998, p. 29; see also p. 132.
10 Foucault, 2004, p. 253.
11 van den Berghe, p. 244.
12 For a discussion of this see Kołakowski, 2007.
13 Dehue, 2011.
Chapter Seven: The New Disorders: Rank and Yank
1 Overviews that collect as many empirical studies as possible and assess their methodological correctness are a goldmine for any aspiring critical thinker. For essential reading on ADHD and autism respectively, I recommend Timimi & Leo (2009) and Timimi, Gardner & McCabe (2011).
2 In the case of Belgium, the figures come from the National Institute for Sickness and Invalidity Insurance (RIZIV); in the case of the Netherlands, from the Foundation for Pharmaceutical Statistics (SFK).
3 Lederbogen et al., 2011.
4 An account of this study can be found in De Standaard, 9 June 2011, in which P. Bracke concludes:
We in the West set ever greater store by personal success, individual competence, and authenticity. We have come to regard setbacks as evidence of personal failure rather than the consequence of environmental factors. We are becoming more helpless: we are that failure. We want to lead ideal lives instead of being satisfied with the lives that we have. We buy smartphones, which makes us briefly happy, but a year later we hanker after the latest model … Medicalisation and therapeutisation play a role, potentially causing younger generations to define their own feelings and problems differently. The distinction between normal emotions and serious problems is becoming increasingly blurred. Of course medication can help in individual cases, but the huge consumption of pills in our country isn’t curbing the increase in depression. If anything, it’s having the opposite effect.
Clinical psychologists are better off taking advice from sociologists than neurologists — that much is clear.
5 Fisher, 2009, p. 21. His book is a mere 81 pages in length, but it taught me a great deal.
6 Revolutionary Road (2008) is a film by Sam Mendes, based on the eponymous novel by Richard Yates (1961), which revolves around the American Dream.
7 NRC Handelsblad, 26 January 2011.
8 VRT news item, 22 February 2012.
9 This is the central theme of Foucault’s oeuvre. A few years ago Lisa Appignanesi (2008) particularised this; as her historic overview shows, power is systematically wielded by man, with woman as object.
Chapter Eight: The Good Life
1 Vanheule et al., 2003; Pink, 2009.
2 Wilkinson, 2005, p. 75.
3 The quotation comes from an interview in De Standaard, 7 January 2012.
4 The opinion piece can be found in De Standaard, 7 June 2011.
5 This data and more information on the German model can be found in John Vandaele (2011).
6 Interview with Wallraff in De Standaard, 29 May 2011. The works of his predecessor are much more powerful, but are unjustly neglected these days. George Orwell experienced the underside of life in London and Paris, and later, in the coal mines of Wales. The books that resulted, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) laid the basis for participatory journalism.
7 De Standaard, 14 April 2012.
8 Crompton, 2010.
9 De Standaard, 4 April 2012.