Footballers' 'lack of loyalty,' for instance, is not an indication of players' moral delinquency. Instead, the... — Mark Fisher

Footballers' 'lack of loyalty,' for instance, is not an indication of players' moral delinquency. Instead, the capacity to move on quickly without forming lasting attachments is a skill that the contemporary capitalist world inculcates and relies upon.

Author: Mark Fisher

Insight: We tend to judge athletes—or anyone who job-hops—as disloyal or greedy. But Fisher's pointing at something more unsettling: the ability to leave without looking back isn't a character flaw. It's actually what modern economies demand of us. When companies downsize without warning, when entire industries vanish, when your skills become obsolete every five years, clinging to one place or person becomes a liability. The system trains us to be emotionally detached from our work, our colleagues, our communities—because that's what keeps us mobile and productive. The tricky part is that this skill leaks into everything else. We get good at treating relationships, jobs, even our hometowns as temporary arrangements. A footballer moving to another club for better pay is just being rational within the rules the system sets. But when that same mindset shapes how we approach everything—friendships, neighborhoods, commitments—we end up both freer and lonelier. We're not failing at loyalty. We're succeeding at what we've been taught: that attachment itself is the real weakness.