Opening up this forum to consider the topic of ‘roles’, which has recently been quite prominent in my own sense making. What are the many ‘roles’ that we have, occupy and lean into in our own lives, consciously and unconsciously, and how might different ‘cultures’ might enable or invite different ‘roles’? In particular, Goffman researches and looks into ‘roles’ as a way to understand the dynamics of social life; and how a lot of our roles are ‘performative’. Confucius as well had a very strong interest in the power of ‘roles’ and how they shape social reality, and why we should obey them to maintain social order. I wonder, how if at all people have considered ‘roles’ as it relates to ‘integral’? In the shift out of ‘postmodernism’, might there be a more community based, playful, and liberating cast of ‘roles’ we might play, and what might that look like? How does this relate to ‘new kinds of social organization’?
Related to this theme, attached below is a brief piece on ‘roles’ in neoliberalism just published. I use the ‘Greek Gods’ as a way to consider roles in a more ‘mythical’ or ‘archetypal’ way and apply it to how I think (roughly) these mythical roles appear in ‘neoliberalism’ or the ‘neoliberal imagination’ (obviously very broadly); ie, what kind of person appears as Zeus, Hera, Apollo etc.