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Selling Ourselves Short: Why We Struggle to Earn a Living and Have a Life (Brazos, 2003)

Over the past several centuries, developments in economic organization, in "family values" and in gender ideology have effectively marginalized compassion from its once-prominent place in Western social norms. "Get the most for the least" and "look out for #1" -- the norms of competition -- have replaced "love your neighbor as yourself." Altruism is now dismissed as merely an illusion. These developments place enormous pressure on our sense of ourselves or our confidence in the meaning and value of our individual lives: it has gotten brutally difficult to "have a life. No wonder "the time bind" and work/life conflicts drive us crazy: there is no other sane response. Written with the support of a grant from the Lilly Endowment.

Copyright © 2024, Catherine Wallace. All Rights Reserved.

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