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Understanding Aspirational Culture—Its Foundations and Development

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Abstract

The nature of aspirational culture is first presented in its everyday role in popular culture. Moore then argues that this culture is expressed at all scales within societies, from the deepest level of economic and ecological practices, through the social level to the personal level. He begins by discussing the foundation of aspirational culture on an ultrasocial form of economic life that humans share with social ants and termites through a dependency on agriculture. The argument is made that this has set the scene for the development, over history, of hierarchical societies that are focused on economic growth and which prioritise that growth over the wellbeing of individuals. Moore ends with a discussion of aspirational culture expressed at the personal level through daily experiences and myths

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Moore, K. (2019). Understanding Aspirational Culture—Its Foundations and Development. In: Wellbeing and Aspirational Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15643-5_2

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