No Long Term (Critique)

519 Words3 Pages
In “the Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism”, Richard Sennett, a famous sociologist and writer for his studies in cities, labor and culture, is focusing on the effect of new economic system on the society. He is stating that new economic system creates the situation, “No Long Term”, in which people have instable work, home and identities. To illustrate the big gap between “long-term” and “no-long term”, Sennett compares and contrasts a lifestyle of father and a son from different time period. In his article, Enrico, the father of Rico, who lived in the linear time, gained respect from his neighbours, had nice friendship, family and characters whereas Rico, who moved out a lot and changed his jobs frequently, lost confident in his friendships, relationship with his family and characters. Thus by those contrasts, Sennett is arguing that “no long term” weakens the trustworthiness, commitment and loyalty among family and friends. Moreover, Sennett explains that “no long term” has been developed since the country was trying to change its economy into “consumer-driven market”. Sennett mentioned that this “consumer-driven market” makes the credible life spans of business concepts, product designs and etc. shorter. (Sennett 156). So, organizations, works have become more flexible and temporary than permanent. And these conditions of work and experiences enable later generations to have confidence to build their own narrative characters. Although Sennett is demonstrating the negative effect of “no long term”, he fails to give enough evidences to prove his statement. Just by relying on the experience of Rico’s, Sennett cannot say that all American people who are also engaged in “no long term” are like Rico. In order to tell the relationship between the younger generation and the “no long term”, Sennett uses an emotionally loaded

More about No Long Term (Critique)

Open Document