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Capiltalist Culture Myth Deprogramming Playground

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The Myth of Historical Neutrality

The past happened without intention, design, or beneficiaries.
Category:
Structural, Narrative, Racialized, Embodied, Labor

The past has no agenda. It’s just a coincidence who wrote it.

History isn’t biased, it's just what happened.

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The Myth of the Perfectible Body

Your body is a product — always improvable through consumption.
Category:
Consumer, Embodied, Narrative, Patriarchal

Your body is a project, and your failure to complete it is moral.

Perfection is possible — if you spend every dollar and hate yourself just enough.

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The Myth of Cultural Deficiency

Inequity results from the failures of marginalized cultures, not structural power.
Category:
Structural, Racialized, Identity

You're not excluded — your culture/class just isn't good enough.

If the nstitutions don’t work for you, it is your fault.

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The Myth of the Natural Provider

Men must work; women must sacrifice.
Category:
Structural, Moral, Labor, Patriarchal

Some people were born to carry. Some were born to be carried.

Service becomes sacred when it's unpaid.

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The Myth of Toil Redemption

Hard work cleanses moral impurity and guarantees future reward.
Category:
Moral, Labor

Your suffering makes you holy. Now get back to work.

Burnout is just the light of your virtue glowing.

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The Myth of Apolitical Life

You can opt out of politics.
Category:
Narrative, Intellectual

You don’t need politics. You have preferences.

Silence is freedom when nothing affects you.

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The Myth of Entertainment as Escape

Media liberates you. Media is impartial.
Category:
Narrative, Consumer, Racialized, Emobied, Patriarchal, Labor, Moral

Freedom is real — it’s just on the other side of that screen.

Digital bliss always awaits… right after your next shift.

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The Myth of Choice as Freedom

Being forced to pick between collapsing options counts as agency.
Category:
Strcutural, Consumer

You can pick any cage you want — that’s liberty.

Freedom means deciding which illusion fits best.

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The Myth of Personalized Failure

Structural problems become individual weaknesses.
Category:
Structural, Identity, Narrative

The system didn’t break you. You broke yourself.

It’s not structural — it’s your mindset.

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The Myth of Deserved Precarity

Your suffering is a direct reflection of your poor choices.
Category:
Structural, Identity, Embodied

If you're unstable, it's because you didn’t earn stability.

Fear keeps the machine running — and your mouth shut.

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The Myth of Corporate Benevolence

Your employer is your family. Coporations do good.
Category:
Labor, Consumer, Narrative

They care because it's good for business.

When a brand loves your money, they love you.

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The Myth of Infinite Time

You will always have more years to sacrifice for long-term success.
Category:
Structural, Narrative

You can do it all.

You can sleep when you are dead.

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The Myth of Middle-Class Stability

The middle class exists and will continue to exist.
Category:
Structural, Narrative

One layoff away from ruin — but with granite countertops.

And in charge of saving society! What a gig!

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The Myth of Upward Mobility

If you climb hard enough, you will leave your class behind.
Category:
Structural, Narrative

The ladder is real. Just ignore the grease.

Climb hard enough and you’ll get somewhere. Maybe.

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The Myth of Good Vibes Only

Negative emotions are failures of mindset, not symptoms of structure.
Category:
Moral, Identity, Structural

If you’re not smiling, you’re the problem.

Toxic positivity is the preferred emotional flavor of late capitalism.

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The Myth of Rugged Individualism

Dependence is shameful; precarity is noble.
Category:
Structural, Identity

You can be self-made. Just ignore the boot on your neck.

Asking for help is weakness. Dying alone is strength.

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The Myth of Consumer Sovereignty

The market reflects your choices, not the constraints shaping them.
Category:
Structural, Consumer

You’re not being manipulated — you’re expressing yourself™.

Capitalism lets you pick which leash you want to wear.

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The Myth of Neutral Technology

Tools are impartial even when they reproduce power.
Category:
Structural, Labor, Consumer

Tools don’t have values. The corporations using them do.

Surveillance is innovation if you call it seamless.

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The Myth of Scarcity

There is not enough for everyone — so compete, not organize.
Category:
Structural, Labor

There’s not enough for everyone — especially not you.

Manufactured lack makes competition feel natural.

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The Myth of Work as Identity

Your job is who you are.
Category:
Labor

You don’t have a job — you are a job.

If you’re not building your brand, you’re wasting your life.

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The Myth of Productive Worth

You deserve to exist only if you produce value.
Category:
Labor, Structural, Moral

You are what you output. Rest is for the inefficient.

Your existence is justified by measurable returns.

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The Myth of Endless Growth

The economy must and can expand forever, even if the world cannot.
Category:
Structural

There is no such thing as too much — until collapse.

If it’s not expanding, it’s dying. So are you.

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The Myth of the Self-Made Individual

No one helped you — therefore you owe no one.
Category:
Structural, Narrative, Moral

A narrative that equates wealth and success with personal achievement and poverty with laziness.

It erases how power creates and maintains mobility.

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The Myth of Meritocracy

If you’re not succeeding, it’s because you didn’t optimize yourself enough. If you are succeeding, it's because you have merit.
Category:
Structural, Narrative, Moral

A story that credits winners for their grit and blames losers for their weakness.

A narrative that conceals the material systems that actually determine mobility.

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