Best Of Astra Taylor's "The Age of Insecurity"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together As Things Fall Apart by Astra Taylor

When we are shamed into denying the gift of care that we all need, we turn inward and put up defences, which only makes the world seem more inhospitable and hostile and ourselves more adrift and lost. In reality, other people are our best and most reliable form of security-the security of working with others to create a more caring society.

p. 285

There is no growth, he [Gabor Maté] observes, without emotional vulnerability. While Maté is speaking of individuals, the same also applies to societies. Recognizing our shared existential insecurity, and understanding how it is currently used against us, can be a first step toward creating solidarity.

p.50

When we accept our vulnerability, we can begin to rethink conventional ideas about what security is and how we might attain it, while unlocking a powerful catalyst for social change.

p. 280

 A sensitive and astute observer of emotions, [Adam] Smith believed that the basic human desire for approval and admiration (in his words, "to be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of") is what makes people yearn for material things in the first place. Thus, consumption and capitalism have always been less about stuff and self-interest (let alone efficiency and innovation) than they are about insecurity and self-esteem. Those who envy others wish themselves to be envied in turn, thinking it will bring them happiness and security. It is this social aspiration, Smith thought, not solipsistic greed, that pushes people to truck and trade.

p. 133

Wealth, [Adam] Smith admits, is not a blessing but a curse. Instead of providing security, wealth coexists with insecurity: "always as much, and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to dis-eases, to danger, and to death."

p. 134

Money and things cannot buy happiness. Today many of us would agree with this statement, at least after a certain point-and research confirms that beyond a certain baseline of material security, increasing wealth does seem to have diminishing emotional returns. But it is [Adam] Smith’s view of human motivation under capitalism that concerns us here, for it remains the prevailing wisdom, though few people speak about it in such blunt terms. 

p. 135

[Brene] Brown’s recommendations include practising authenticity, engaging in creativity for its own sake, forsaking conventional measures of status and success, pursuing belonging over conformity, and embracing curiosity. Her enormous audience proves that her suggestions resonate: millions of people feel inadequate, belittled, and unable to measure up, and they desperately want to pursue more fulfilling, nonmaterial goals.

p. 142 

To be vulnerable and dependent on others is not a burden to escape but the essence of human existence, as well as the basis of what I have called, throughout this book, an ethic of insecurity—a potentially powerful source of connection, solidarity, and transformation.

p. 279

The real point of conspiracies, like any article of dogmatic faith, is to avoid the discomfort and insecurity of not knowing by taking shelter in certitude. Conspiracists, then, do not actually question authority or expertise, as they often claim; they discount and reject it. Real questioning, in contrast, involves genuine curiosity and uncertainty and the acceptance of possibly being wrong.

p. 144

You cannot have real curiosity, or creativity, if everything is locked down and you know what comes next. Being open to new ideas means being open to your own limitations; being willing to experiment means being willing to possibly fail, and also willing to learn something that might change you. The radical openness of curiosity makes it anathema to fundamentalists and dogmatists.

p. 145

It reminds me of the words of my late friend David Graeber, the ingenious and mischievous anthropologist who helped us launch the debt resistance movement. "The ultimate, hidden truth of the world," David said, "is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently."'

p. 291

The best organizers are not the most knowledgeable, self-righteous, or even charismatic, but rather those most able to empathize, experiment, and navigate uncertainty.

p. 288

Certainty is not security, it's a snapping shut and a cover-up— an attempt to escape from the insecurity of not knowing. Instead of showing strength, this kind of certainty makes us rigid, brittle, and closed-off.

p. 145-146

[…] knowledge, unlike food or water, can't be used up, and the desire to learn isn't a need that evolved to be satiated. The boundlessness of curiosity is what makes us learning animals; it is what makes us human. Curiosity is something we can safely be consumed by, since consuming knowledge enriches us without creating waste.

p. 152

What we need, instead, is a system of education that is public, universal, reparative, and free. By public I mean funded by public dollars, not by tuition or by debt. By universal, I mean a space for everyone at every stage of life, where all subjects can be explored. By reparative, I mean an education system designed to acknowledge and actively redress past and ongoing social inequalities. By free, I mean in both price and purpose: education must be free in cost and aimed at freedom by unbinding curiosity. Should these conditions be met, education could actually be the motor of equality, opportunity, and learning so many of us want it to be. If we dedicate more public resources to cultivating curiosity, we can all be more secure.

p. 153

I really like the description of Ostrom as an "ardent empiricist," #goals.

For Ostrom, exposing Hardin's fallacy was no some progressive crusade."" She was a capitalist-the kind who drew on neo-liberal economic theory, no less--but she was also an ardent empiricist, one curious to learn what real people actually do.

p. 204 

Instead of looking back nostalgically to the twentieth-century welfare state, which was predicated on assumptions of limitless economic growth and ecological extraction, and marred by racialized and gendered exclusions, we should aspire to a forward-looking vision of a state that provides security for all in a way that is sustainable, a state that is both decarbonized and democratic—what I like to call a solidarity state.

p. 218-219

As Anishinaabe linguist and lawyer Lindsay Borrows has said, nature needs rights, but humans need a "bill of obligations." Above all, we need the obligation not to take anything from nature unless we also take care to replenish it, so that we honour ecological limits. 

p. 219

This random debunking of the alpha wolf theory made me LOL so hard.

We'll never be the confident all-powerful alpha wolves of the animal kingdom that petro-masculinists want us to be-which is fitting, because the idea of alpha wolves is a misconception that came from studying animals in captivity. In the wild, there are no wolf hierarchies that the animals fight to climb.

p. 220

Not poignant but a good summary that I personally find Taylor's book very valuable for.

Beginning in the 1970s, the corporate sector mobilized to undermine working-class gains: slashing taxes, crushing organized labour, deregulating the financial sector, and shrinking and privatizing essential social services. This shift of risk, Hacker argues, has coincided with a revival of the old discourse of personal responsibility. An individual should strive for success-but if they fail, it is their fault. Today, both the US and Canada rank low on the list of overall social spending among wealthy industrialized nations.45 Ordinary Americans and Canadians are more exposed to the hazards of unemployment, dis-ability, and old age than they were a few decades ago.

p. 245 

Shame is a key ingredient of debt's oppressive power. While conducting her research, [Katherine] Aske learned that farmers were happy to talk about their neighbours financial struggles but were far more tight-lipped about their own—a stoicism that only serves the status quo by keeping people isolated and unable to recognize their common struggles

p. 255-56

When we extend trust and support to others, we improve everyone's security-moving from a culture of fear and scarcity toward one of abundance, generosity, and stability. For [Simone] de Beauvoir, this interconnected approach is the path of true liberation: "freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others."

p. 289-290

We can't police and imprison our way out of poverty, mental health dis-orders, and addiction, or a lack of secure housing and opportunity. A carceral approach to social problems doesn't solve them, it only deepens insecurity.

p. 258

Another good, if not particularly poignant summary.

Just as urgently, we need to reject the idea that ordinary peoples security is something to fear-an idea that flies in the face of both morality and evidence. In The Affluent Society, John Kenneth Galbraith argues that the impact of losses from "shirking" and other such supposed moral hazards is trivial compared to the overall economic and social costs of promoting generalized insecurity. Highlighting the hypocrisy of conservative economic dogma, he notes that the powerful always push insecurity on others, not themselves, claiming it will spur productivity and innovation. But the data tells a different story. "The most impressive increases in output in the history of both the United States and other western countries," Galbraith writes, "have occurred since men began to concern themselves with reducing the risks of the competitive system. Labour productivity and material security, in other words, are not at odds-they have a reciprocal relationship. This means, he continues, that eliminating uncertainty in economic life is possible if we can muster the political will to do so.

p. 268 

Of course, our species existential insecurity has long been the focus of nearly every venerable spiritual and philosophical tradition. Buddhism, for example, recognizes that life is suffering and counsels compassion, for how can attachment to a fixed state of being provide security in a world of impermanence? The Stoics of antiquity sought tranquility, or securitas, by letting the future be what it will be. As Seneca proclaimed, quoting Hecato of Rhodes, "Cease to hope and you will cease to fear."

p. 273

Where some insist that the real risk lies in taking care of others, I see a moral and political opportunity. As the Dauphin experiment illustrates, having a baseline of material security is about more than money-it increases people's dignity and autonomy. The fact is, most of us do not want to be spurred to work and scramble to earn until we die. Even Americans, steeped in a culture of competition and striving, wish they could stop the chase. When the Pew Charitable Trusts conducted a poll asking if people would prefer financial stability to upward mobility, more than nine out of ten respondents said they would eagerly abandon the pursuit of wealth for security.

p. 276-77 

Acknowledging our ignorance and being inquisitive about the unknown can help us navigate inevitable perils.

p. 277

Rehabilitating damaged ecosystems, paying reparations for slavery, returning land to Indigenous peoples, closing the wealth gap, cancelling unjust debts, and honestly recounting our tangled and troubling his-tories-these reparative acts will help our ecology and social divisions begin to heal by addressing, at last, the root causes of what makes each of our lives so full of stress and desperation. Though often tarred as unrealistic or threatening, reparation, in fact, ensures our own salvation. These are not acts of charity but rather acts of solidarity and self-preservation.

p. 278