Against Kant and Consumerism

Gracy Olmstead reviews The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction, by Matthew B. Crawford, at The American Conservative.

"The premise of Crawford’s book is that our distractedness is merely symptomatic of a deeper cultural defect, a misrepresentation of the self that has permeated our society. He traces this back to Enlightenment philosophy, especially the thought of Immanuel Kant. Enlightenment thinkers of the late 17th and 18th centuries presented a view of the person that contrasted drastically with medieval and ancient thought: they put unprecedented emphasis on the rational individual as separate from society or community."

(via Gene Veith at Patheos)