1. Are people in late capitalism, particularly the young, narcissistic, solipsistic, and/or hedonistic ? Why or why not?
Refer to the definitions again.
2. Do you think that the large amount of self-care/self-love media points toward or supports the claims that Baudrillard and Fisher make about late capitalism? Why or why not?
3. Are you trapped within yourself? Why or why not (read the above quote from Curtis)?
There’s no doubt that late capitalism certainly articulates many of its injunctions via an appeal to (a certain version of) health. But there are limits to this emphasis on good health: mental health and intellectual development barely feature at all, for instance. What we see instead is a reductive, hedonistic model of health which is all about ‘feeling and looking good’. To tell people how to lose weight, or how to decorate their house, is acceptable; but to call for any kind of cultural improvement is to be oppressive and elitist.
‘What people suffer from,’ Curtis claims, ‘is being trapped within themselves – in a world of individualism everyone is trapped within their own feelings, trapped within their own imaginations.’
Curtis attacks the internet because, in his view, it facilitates communities of solipsists Links to an external site., (inter)passive networks of like-minds who confirm, rather than challenge, each others’ assumptions and prejudices.
