Modern inequality’s pain comes from knowing dignity that feudalism-era people lacked

Evidence

We now have the tools to grasp the collision in all of its destructive complexity: what is unbearable is that economic and social inequalities have reverted to the preindustrial “feudal” pattern but that we, the people, have not. We are not illiterate peasants, serfs, or slaves. Whether “middle class” or “marginalized,” we share the collective historical condition of individualized persons with complex social experiences and opinions. We are hundreds of millions or even billions of second-modernity people whom history has freed both from the once-immutable facts of a destiny told at birth and from the conditions of mass society. We know ourselves to be worthy of dignity and the opportunity to live an effective life. This is existential toothpaste that, once liberated, cannot be squeezed back into the tube. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 137

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The core insight — that present-day anger arises from the collision between feudal-scale inequality and modern self-conception — is the emotional engine of the whole book’s argument.
• XREF: connects to: Inequality lost its historical justification once material abundance made poverty abolishable — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 193; Pity presupposes inequality while empathy requires equal standing — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 518; Feudalism’s narrow circles suppressed both collective spirit and individual freedom — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 647 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Humanizing societies do not simply expand which pains they deem unacceptable #qualifies (0.80)
• Pity presupposes inequality while empathy requires equal standing #qualifies (0.75) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 518
• Feudalism’s narrow circles suppressed both collective spirit and individual freedom #qualifies (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 647
• Victims of inequality can unknowingly adopt beliefs that perpetuate their own disadvantage #exemplifies (0.70)