Quinton

“If we work at individuation, we begin to see the difference between the ideas that come out of our own selves and the social opinions that we absorb from the world around us. We can cease to be mere appendages of a society or a clique of people. We learn that we have our own values, our own ways of life, that proceed naturally out of our inborn natures.

A great sense of security develops from this process of individuation. One begins to understand that it isn't necessary to struggle to be like someone else, for by being one's own self one stands on the surest ground. We realize that to know ourselves completely and to develop all the strengths that are built into us is a lifetime task. We don't need to make an imitation of someone else's life. There is no further need for pretensions, for what is already ours is riches enough, and far more than we ever expected.”
― Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth

“... it is not acceptable to praise democracy and ubiquitous markets as the way to future prosperity and political stability, and then to turn around and blame imperfect democracy and flawed markets for allowing the very incoherencies that are now on such vivid display around the world. Nor is it acceptable to praise democratic market economies as ideal if only their leaders were more honest and acted with better information. These political-economic systems of such constant acclaim cannot be so ideal if, year after year— often for a century or more— they continue to languish in debilitating dysfunction”
― Daniel W Bromley, Possessive Individualism: A Crisis of Capitalism