Give Up the Bootstrapping Myth!: Alissa Quart

from Future Hindsight

by Future Hindsight

Published: Thu Jul 25 2024

Show Notes

Alissa Quart is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the author of Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream. We discuss what it really means to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps in America, “the land of the self-made.”

Humans are biologically wired to be interdependent. In fact, achievement is often accompanied with isolation and loneliness. Alissa reminds us that “People who are fighting for democracy shouldn't be leaning into their own self made myth, but instead they should be trying to dispel the myth entirely.” The counter narrative to the self-made myth is that being in community and mutual solidarity feels better than being an individualist.

Follow Alissa on X:

https://twitter.com/lisquart

Follow Mila on X:

https://x.com/milaatmos

Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/

Sponsor:

Thanks to Shopify for supporting Future Hindsight! Sign up for a $1/month trial at shopify.com/hopeful.

Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!

http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=standard

Take the Democracy Group’s Listener Survey!

https://www.democracygroup.org/survey