To 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' is central to the story of the American dream and yet today leaves us with shame and self-blame for our condition. Here is how to become free of self-defeating narratives.
In a wide-ranging 230 pages, Quart challenges our nation’s obsession with self-reliance ... One of Quart’s sharpest points is that administrative burdens force disadvantaged people to repeatedly prove their worthiness ... Although Quart primarily criticizes such policy failures, she also shows how widespread the tendency is to overemphasize individual responsibility ... Just as important, Bootstrapped urges readers to rethink their narratives of accomplishment. Quart encourages us to stop shaming others, and ourselves, for needing assistance and to acknowledge the ways we are all interdependent.
Quart picks at the threads of the American dream to reveal a richer tapestry ... Bootstrapped asks readers to begin by simply questioning the dominant narrative of the go-it-alone American success story.
Against these harsh realities, which she reports on cogently and without rancor, Quart proposes a more meaningful safety net of cooperative work and mutual aid ... A provocative, important repudiation of gig-economy capitalism that proposes utopian rather than dystopian solutions.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
