Summary: The article provides an in-depth analysis of society’s overemphasis on personal boundaries. The author discusses how boundaries have become a dominant metaphor for how human relationships should work and how they have become entrenched in self-care discourse. The author examines the history of how boundaries emerged in popular culture, specific to the early 90s when a wave of self-help literature capitalized on the topic. The article points out the limitations of boundaries and how they are based on property metaphors, leading to the enforcement of relationships that resemble landlord-tenant dynamics.
Personal boundaries”—or often just “boundaries”—are the hallmark of emotional maturity, ethical integrity, and social desirability. (View Highlight)
People use the language of boundaries first and foremost to communicate hurt: the word shows up after something painful has happened, usually as a retroactive narrative to make sense of the damage: a boundary was crossed. Renaming the event this way redescribes the hurt as a violation, a form of emotional trespassing. (View Highlight)
Being a person involves wanting a level of intimacy and security you can never get, and trying to get it through other people. Meanwhile, capitalism ensures that most people’s basic needs go unmet, while people simultaneously develop new needs for shiny new products and experiences. (View Highlight)
