The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
23 Apr 2015
Mechanic, philosopher and author of "The Case for Working with Your Hands" and "The World Beyond Your Head", Matthew Crawford, argues that a new frontier of capitalism has been opened (the attention economy), which seeks to dig up and monetize every bit of private headspace. With ever-increasing demands on our attention, how do we focus on what's important? The answer is to stop being passive consumers of manufactured experiences and become people who engage in skilled practices which establish ecologies of attention that can give coherence to our mental lives. Examples include cooking an elaborate meal, fixing or building something or playing a musical instrument.
The remedy to the mental fragmentation that has become the crisis of our time, is to become absorbed in some worthy object that has intrinsic appeal - one that elicits our active involvement where our mental energies are gathered to a point.
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