Our culture often seems to combine the promotion of and prurient interest in hedonistic behavior alongside a puritanical mortality -- we live in a puritanical world, we could say. In other words, on the one hand, we are encouraged to have fun, to be completely selfish and pleasure-seeking, but, on the other, if we make a mistake, or become the target of others, there is no limit to the social punishment that can be melted out.
Nina Power, “What Do Man Want?” (2022).








