Monoculture: How Our Era’s Dominant Story Shapes Our Lives | Brain Pickings

F. S. Michaels, Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything.

The Middle Ages was dominated by an ethos of religion and superstition. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution was dominated by an ethos of machines and science. Our age is dominated by an ethos of economics.

Neither a dreary observation of all the ways in which our economic monoculture has thwarted our ability to live life fully and authentically nor a blindly optimistic sticking-it-to-the-man kumbaya, Michaels offers a smart and realistic guide to first recognizing the monoculture and the challenges of transcending its limitations, then considering ways in which we, as sentient and autonomous individuals, can move past its confines to live a more authentic life within a broader spectrum of human values.

via Monoculture: How Our Era’s Dominant Story Shapes Our Lives | Brain Pickings.

Tags: culture, ethos