The first modernity suppressed the growth and expression of self in favor of collective solutions, but by the second modernity, the self is all we have. The new sense of psychological sovereignty broke upon the world long before the internet appeared to amplify its claims. We learn through trial and error how to stitch together our lives. Nothing is given. Everything must be reviewed, renegotiated, and reconstructed on the terms that make sense to us: family, religion, sex, gender, morality, marriage, community, love, nature, social connections, political participation, career, food…
