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ISBN: 9781487011932

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The Age of Insecurity

Coming Together as Things Fall Apart

These days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn’t working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on? In this urgent cultural diagnosis, author and activist Astra Taylor exposes how seemingly disparate crises—rising inequality and declining mental health, the ecological emergency, and the threat of authoritarianism—originate from a social order built on insecurity. From home ownership and education to the wellness industry and policing, many of the institutions and systems that promise to make us more secure actually undermine us. Mixing social critique, memoir, history, political analysis, and philosophy, this genre-bending book rethinks both insecurity and security from the ground up. By facing our existential insecurity and embracing our vulnerability, Taylor argues, we can begin to develop more caring, inclusive, and sustainable forms of security to help us better weather the challenges ahead. The Age of Insecurity will transform how you understand yourself and society—while illuminating a path toward meaningful change.

Contributors

Astra Taylor

Astra Taylor is a filmmaker, writer, and political organizer, born in Winnipeg, MB, and raised in Athens, GA; she currently lives in New York. Her latest book is Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions, and her other books include the American Book Award winner The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. She regularly writes for major publications, has directed multiple documentaries, toured with the band Neutral Milk Hotel, and co-founded the Debt Collective.

Chapter Contributors Pages Year Price
In this chapter, Taylor argues that care and anxiety are inherent to human existence, tracing this idea from the Roman myth of Cura through Stoic philosophy to today.
50 $5.00
In this chapter, Taylor traces the relationship between negative and positive rights, from the Magna Carta and Charter of the Forest in 1215 and 1217 to the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and …
57 $5.70
In this chapter, Taylor examines how postmaterialist values from the 1960s and 1970s counterculture in Canada and the United States were co-opted by consumer capitalism to manufacture insecurity.
55 $5.50
In this chapter, Taylor examines the limits of conventional security frameworks and the humility required to navigate an increasingly complex world.
57 $5.70
In this chapter, Taylor examines how commercial insurance moved from collective security to individual risk, examining Kafka’s early twentieth- century work in Prague, the industry’s …
56 $5.60
This "chapter" is a bibliography.
47 $4.70