Personal growth

I forgot to add a third thing to the list of most depressing phenomena, namely this:




This is ideology at its subtlest and at its cruelest. It presents itself as humane and authentic, yet it is the perfect perversion of both. So, what's wrong with cherishing "the little things in life", with seeking "true love", seeking "personal growth" and a rich "inner life"? Everything. This type of propaganda presents personal growth as an individualistic endeavor, as something we do alone as we run from others, as we abandon them and set our own interests as the measure of the world. It is what capitalism does to us, there is no need that we should try and bring this curse upon ourselves. It wants to present itself to us as the most tender thing. The worldview that breaks us asunder, that affirms the world as a cold, hostile place, full of pain and suffering and loneliness, is not tender, it is ruthless and inhumane. "Only the roughest would be tender," Adorno once wrote, "the demand that nobody must go hungry." Only radical thought and action can be tender. Radical in that they refuse to accept the world as it is and stubbornly affirm the right to happiness as a universal human right. The vicious propaganda of personal growth reduces individuals to mere objects. They become sources of profit or experiences and little more. Personal growth is then a result of the manipulation of oneself and others as resources. The truth is that we can grow only together by collectively working to improve the world and our relationships among ourselves. This new world is what represents our growth. The new world which we can only build together and that we can enter only together.