Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Hidden Conspiracy Against Self-Discipline
The Hidden Conspiracy Against Self-Discipline
There is a subtle conspiracy against self-discipline, means that the challenge to conquer yourself is
further complicated by living in a culture antagonistic towards that aim.
There is a subtle conspiracy against self-discipline because society itself is structured in ways that
sabotage and impede your attempts to attain it.
We can think of this as conspiracy because the ways in which it does so are both widespread and
systematic, yet also subtle and obscure.
The same way a person can be biased in favor of an idea, or a game can be biased for a particular
outcome, our modern environment itself is biased in favor of these particular trends.
There are three subtle ways in which society modern culture undermines the sense of personal resolve
and undermines the ability to attain and sustain willpower.
Three key ways, three main embodiments of this dynamic:
(A) The culture bias towards entertainment.
(B) The culture bias towards distraction.
(C) The culture bias towards superficial thinking.
-Take some time to think about all of this, think about how you can prevent and inoculate yourself from
these dynamics, trends, and ideas.
Ironically, whereas the society tradition once centered around an ethic of industriousness, it is now
mutated into a culture of sloth and indulgence.
So becoming privy to this trend devising means to prevent its poisons from developing within you is
as critical to building discipline in the digital age as any of the more personal, internal dynamics
involved.
--
The average mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
-References:
[1] Bryan Ogilvie. How to Conquer Yourself: Discipline & Willpower for the Conscious, Creative Thinker.
[2] Chris Hedges. 2009. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.
[3] Lucy Jo Palladino. 2007. Find Your Focus Zone: Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction & Overload.