Alissa Quart is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the author of Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream. We discuss what it really means to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps in America, “the land of the self-made.”

Humans are biologically wired to be interdependent. In fact, achievement is often accompanied with isolation and loneliness. Alissa reminds us that “People who are fighting for democracy shouldn't be leaning into their own self made myth, but instead they should be trying to dispel the myth entirely.” The counter narrative to the self-made myth is that being in community and mutual solidarity feels better than being an individualist.

Follow Alissa on X: 

https://twitter.com/lisquart 

Follow Mila on X: 

https://x.com/milaatmos 

Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/

Sponsor: 

Thanks to Shopify for supporting Future Hindsight! Sign up for a $1/month trial at shopify.com/hopeful.

Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey! 

http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=standard 

Take the Democracy Group’s Listener Survey!

https://www.democracygroup.org/survey

Want to support the show and get it early? 

https://patreon.com/futurehindsight 

Check out the Future Hindsight website! 

www.futurehindsight.com

Read the transcript here:  

https://www.futurehindsight.com/episodes/give-up-the-bootstrapping-myth-alissa-quart 

Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Alissa Quart

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis