Ben Gook

@bengook.bsky.social

1065 Followers 1451 Following

Theory, cultural studies, sociology etc

In the reality principle of rational asceticism and self-command central to the earlier capitalist spirit described by Max Weber and Adam Smith, emotional suppression was required for future goals to be prioritised over an urgent desire.100 Yet those goals, in contemporary crisis times, can be difficult to glimpse or, in the case of climate change, can be outright terrifying. Goals, whether collective or individual, become more challenging to commit to and it becomes more difficult to believe in the worth of self-denial in the present; the desperate spectacles of selfdenying fitness influencers and tech entrepreneurs only attest to the crisis of mass investment in the old mythos. The ascetic denial of satisfaction via consumption recedes with this missing horizon; gratification collapses into the present or near future. Objectively – which is to say, following the reality principle – accumulation and hope through the subject’s denial no longer seem to be wise bets. Agentive futures feel barred. What is the subject’s sacrifice, foresight, industry, application, constant effort and purpose for, if, beyond the passing esteem and recognition of a job well done, or the transient power and recognition of wealth, all are hostages to the fortune of a grim future in which even the wealthy will burn with the koalas, jobs are all gig work and the prospects of economic growth, on which so much is premised, are serially revised down?
The corrected version of a Deloitte report to the Albanese government reissued by the big consulting firm after it was found to include AI-generated mistakes contains new citation errors and other flaws in referencing the academic work it relies on. Two academics have questioned the relevance of citations of their work in the new report, raising concerns that Deloitte merely substituted out false references to works that don’t exist in favour of real works with no or very limited relevance to welfare compliance, which was the subject of the report.