What is there new in what we say to the isolated or despairing individual?

The Future of Networking by Theodore Zeldin

The growth of interest in networks is responsible for one of the principal changes in work today. Our research has confirmed its importance. But we think the idea of networking needs to be greatly expanded. Successful networking so far have been the privilege of a minority. But what about all those who have boring jobs, authoritarian bosses, sexist and racist colleagues, and who feel powerless in organisations paralysed by bureaucracy? What do we offer those excluded from the achievements and the networks which we have celebrated? What is there new in what we say to the isolated or despairing individual in search of courage? Or to all those who feel that they are bores?
It is not enough to repeat the old refrain: Model yourself on those who have succeeded. Failure is more common than success, and imitation often ends in parody. Traditionally, we have tried to blot these painful facts from our memories. Our method has been either utopianism (but utopianism is now discredited, because it has always ended in disappointment) or cynicism, which protects against disappointment and can pretend to be humour (but it means we can have no purpose in life) /yes/.
So I wish to describe a different approach, which rejects complacency and which tries to cope with the element of failure inevitable in any enterprise. There is a way to avoid being disheartened by the superficiality of many forms of success. Let us take a specific problem, networking, to see what a new attitude can do.

//okay.  tell me.

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