I have made up a bunch of words (smugosphere, emotacycle, egofodder etc) to try to label phenomena that are easily missed if you don’t have the vocabulary (I missed them for decades, until the penny dropped).
I am going to make a video for each and – ideally- put them on Twitter. But at the moment, well, youtube.
What do you think of the video itself? How could it be improved? Commments also welcome on the concept too, obvs.
marchudson.net 
Marc, I am not sure I fully understand where you are coming from, but this is as I see it.
“Decruitment” is a cultural and western phenomenon, not experienced in third world or impoverished countries. We have life handed to us on a plate, “she’s right mate”, “don’t you worry about that”.
Participation in any form of service club, or political one for that matter, is left to others, remember, life’s sweet, just don’t get involved.
Hi John,
that’s a really good point, about the context in which decruitment happens. Yes, membership/involvement in “abstract” causes like “shall we destroy the conditions for life on earth a bit slower than we are now” is pretty much voluntary in the West. The issues on which there has been progress have tended to be life and death stuff (basic health and safety at work, gay rights, feminism). And so people can stop being involved and their material conditions won’t change – it’s not like they will be labelled as a “scab” and ostracised (to be clear, I am not saying they SHOULD be – I am just saying that there are no consequences in the way that in other places there might be). So there is pathology on both sides – on the part of the would-be involved person, but also the organisers never have to think “really, what do we have to do differently to retain people, because nobody – not themselves, not anyone else – expects the group/movement to endure, to succeed. Moral hazard all round…