经济学百科 The Economics Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)
In The Republic, Plato described the political and social makeup of an ideal state, which he said would function economically, with specialist producers providing products for the common good.
Instead, they tend to measure your self-concept through therapy, interviews, and questionnaires that ask subjects to describe both how they would ideally like to be and how they actually are.
A recent dating app looked at profiles of women aged 20 to 60 to find out the most common words and phrases women mentioned when describing their ideal first date.
When scientists ask people to describe their ideal partner before going to a speed-dating event or looking at online dating profiles, those traits have almost no bearing on who they eventually end up with.
Suddenly at the end of a sentence that began as an idealized portrait of country life we find ourselves at the beginning of a morality play and of a dissertation on class, labor, and the nature of wealth.