All right, so one of the dominant ideological bedrocks upon which capitalism has flourished is the idea of the unique individual,

the sort of underlying characteristic personality that each of us is stamped with

as defining as a fingerprint that supposedly sets us

each apart and is there from earliest life all the way through our adult experience providing a common thread.

And this self is presented to us as something that is you can improve, but you can never wholly

change or escape yourself.

And in fact so many institutions trade upon this currency the idea that there is something remarkably unique that stays with us.

After all, for example, the judicial institution feels permitted to lock people away for a couple of indiscretions early on in life for many many years, the

idea being that this person is dangerous or evil or bad or somehow has a character that doesn't deserve to.

The institutions don't even trust their ability to rehabilitate.

The idea that people essentially cannot change.

And the psychological institutions as well have the diagnosis and to question that diagnosis is to be in denial.

Even in wonderful institutions that I have benefited personally from 12-step programs, the idea that once you're an addict or an alcoholic, you always are and to even question that is to engage in a dangerous form of self-deception

is once again indicative of the grounding belief that there's something in us that follows us a marker, a

self, a personality, a set of traits that are stance and indelible.

And so many of the justifications for the way wealth is distributed and the way ownership happens in this country is based on it, of course,

the other possibility, which is that instead of there being this monolithic homogenous self that defines us, that in fact the human mind is an arena of multiplicity has many different parts instead of having a dominant personality.

In fact, we have different parts and internal play with different characters and sometimes one character or set of

characters comes to the front of consciousness and runs the show and other times

other parts run the show. And the only thing that gives the illusion that we have a single character or identity or personality or self is that unending stream of language that

carves a nice narrative over the top that gives us the illusion of coherence.

But in fact, we are not anywhere near as uniform as we like to believe

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