Horizon

"To acknowledge their existence would be to admit that the "knowledge economy" is a delusion"

Oh dear. A persuasive opening ruined by hyperbole. To acknowledge their existence admits no such thing, though it does acknowledge that the story is (as usual) more complex than the jargon allows for.

Looks like careless imprecision, not exactly hyperbole. I think she's trying to say that if we acknowledge the existence of people who are unemployed though highly qualified, then we have to admit high-tech retraining does not solve the problem of middle-class unemployment.

I'm afraid that after Bait and Switch, Ehrenreich has absolutely zero credibility to speak about the challenges faced by the middle class.

Have you read it then? I haven't. What bothers you about it?

Actually, I haven't read it. I did, however, read every review of it I could get my hands on when it came out. It would be hard to find a one that took her effort seriously -- most of them opined that the title should have referred to the content vs. promise of the book itself, rather than the knowledge economy she purported to cover.

Have you read anything about it? Ehrenreich kind of, sort of, tries to get a job without mentioning any of her qualifications, and when this doesn't pan out, she hires a bunch of motivational speakers and resume coaches who try sell her a load of schlock. This is hardly the everyday experience of corporate America she paints the book to be, and readers familiar with Nickled and Dimed are generally horrified by what they've purchased (check Amazon).

I remember reading an interview with Scott McLemee in which she mentions her angst at all the college students who (gasp!) want to get jobs. She tells them about the horrors of the business world, and tries to channel them into academia and non-profits, instead, saving their souls by dissuading them from actually working for an organization with a bottom line.

The overall problem I have with with Ehrenreich's writing about labor relations is that she's basically a solution looking for a problem. Actually, that's not quite it -- it's while that's indisputably her background, her writing pretends to be investigative journalism. It's like reading a dicussion of the Rwandan genocide written by Jews for the Protection of Firearms Ownership — always fresh, probably insightful, sometimes even correct, but you always know the conclusion they're going to draw.

As usual, there are real problems in the white-collar world that need addressing, some of which (like the disappearance of pensions) are endemic, and some of which (high personal debt rates) should be subjected to the kind of liberal/conservative debate we're devoting to frippery. For all I know, there's a huge gap for an instution like the one your link describes to fill, and I wish it well. But based on my reading of Ehrenreich's perspective on the white-collar workplace, its success will have nothing to do with her investigative skills.

Well, the Nation review said she (understandably) had trouble bringing herself to want the kinds of jobs she was pretending to want, but then isn't that an essential problem facing everyone on a job search? The trouble may simply be that we're taught too much hope in our early years and it's hard to unlearn.

I'll try to scare up a bootleg copy of the NYT review for you in the next couple of days. The Nation review does point out her lack of sympathy for any of the people she's trying to portray as her comrades, but misses the most important criticism -- that a book that purports to show the daily predicament of the working middle class doesn't ever show anyone who's actually working!

I have no doubt that any of us could write something entertaining about hopeful, miserable, out-of-luck people in the waiting rooms for psychics, or signing up for get-rich-quick schemes. But that's not in any sense an inherent part of being out of work, much less an inherent part of working culture.

The trouble isn't in her goal, nor necessarily in her inability to pursue the positions she was qualified for. It's that, having failed to come close to her goal, she published the book as if she had.

That Inside Higher Ed interview. It was her descriptions of the students she was "haunted by" that I found so annoying. Heaven forbid someone want to pay off their school debt before they go chasing butterflies.

Isn't it her intention to show the daily predicament of the unemployed middle class? And of course neither of us has read the book, but why isn't it appropriate for her to describe the way these New Age seminar things peddle false hope to unemployed managerial types?

I'm surprised you react so angrily to the interview. Do you really think it's "chasing butterflies" for a college graduate to practice journalism rather than advertising? It used to be that working news reporters presumed advertising people to be failed journalists. A good job for a major publication represented prosperity and success. Is that no longer true?

I think she's trying to say that if we acknowledge the existence of people who are unemployed though highly qualified, then we have to admit high-tech retraining does not solve the problem of middle-class unemployment.

That's a bit like saying that if we acknowledge that people who look after their own health and have good medical care nonetheless die, then hospitals are a waste of time.

Erm, no, it's like saying that hospitals, despite their virtues, don't cure death.

But I wonder if there's some unease in this book because it's hard to feel sorry for people who have been disappointed in expectations that were impossibly high for most of the world.

There's worse. I've lately met some members of the Mexican middle class who found a (misleading) offer of $9 per hour attractive enough to be worth traveling north as guest workers to process strawberry seedlings. Then again it's sad anywhere to see a member of the middle class trying to adjust downward. It's the pride and lack of practicality that hurt.

Erm, no, it's like saying that hospitals, despite their virtues, don't cure death.

Right, and Ehrenreich is analogously saying that because we can't cure death, all attempts to extend life are a delusion.

I think our metaphors should unionize and demand an end to mistreatment on the job.

Regarding journalism, I could not in good conscience recommend that a college senior without a trust fund in their back pocket pursue journalism as a career. From what I understand, like academia, professional athletics, drug dealing and publishing, journalism is what economists refer to as a tournament system. In such systems, the top ranks enjoy substantial economic and social rewards, but outside those ranks it's a poorly-remunerated dog-eat-dog world.

What's the median salary of a starting journalist, who's covering school board meetings in small towns? What are the chances that person will still be employed in journalism in five years, much less earning a decent salary? And how do those numbers square with the average student debt load?

As you say, a good job for a major publication represents prosperity and success, but what are the chances of landing one, versus those of declaring personal bankruptcy along the way?

She cringes at students settling for remunerative employment -- and joining a class she's already developed an unflattering Marxist theory about -- rather than persuing careers she approves of. I got similarly bad advice in college from faculty comparing a caricature of the modern workplace against their own tenured experience.

And is the money worth the time spent earning it?

Umm, by which you mean? I fail to see how a student who dreams of being the next W&B is better able to acheive their dreams covering the Podunk little league scores for pennies versus doing technical writing and being able to move out of their parents basement. Dunno -- maybe you find little league schores more soul fullfilling than I do, though.

Let's try a different question: what would you tell a smart, hardworking high-school student who was one of the top players on their basketball team when they told you they expected to play for the NBA?

To do something useful like go into journalism.

Figures.

It does seem odd, after all this harping on the precariousness of today's middle-class life, to extoll the virtues of entering a profession which is far riskier than most.

No, not odd really. It's tragic once when someone goes into work like advertising that's well paid because the worker's soul is part of the bargain, and it's tragic twice over when the bargain goes bad and the soul gets remaindered back to its owner with reduced resale value due to slight damage and some fading.

So yeah, yeah, I know, cue violins... but really it is sad.

Not that things are pleasant for an unemployed engineer. Unemployment sucks for anyone.

But the old Willy Loman story is so especially awful because it's about the Organization Man who gives his heart to the Organization before it jilts him.

It's tragic once when someone goes into work like advertising that's well paid because the worker's soul is part of the bargain

Oh, what patronising nonsense. How do you know that people in the advertising business don't find their work perfectly worthwhile and stimulating? This is snobbery masquerading as conscience.

But surely you're not snob enough to imagine that advertising executives are shallow enough to develop private personal faith in the moral imperative of spreading their product's gospel?

Not everyone conceives their career in millenarian terms, you know. Why does it have to be about spreading anyone's gospel? Why can't it be about the satisfaction of doing a creative and effective job?

Sure, the practical satisfaction of marketing isn't in spreading any sort of gospel -- it's the hunter's or fisherman's pride in bagging a lot of unsuspecting creatures and bringing them home to the table. But is that any way to treat your fellow human beings?

I suppose if you take the view that all human transactions are zero-sum contests in which one must lose for the other to win, then I can see why you might conclude that.

Although this talk of selling souls is meant to be metaphorical, the metaphor is apt. What you're demonstrating here is essentially the religious calling of a need for a Higher Purpose, though directed through unbelief to secular ends. It may be a source of great personal disatisfaction to some, including yourself, for which I am genuinely sorry. But most people have never thought about their lives in that way, and would I think regard your pity as rude and unwanted. There is nothing shameful about taking pride in a job which has no great ends, though it may produce innumerable small pleasures; and I would certainly include the honorable profession of advertising in that.

There is, I think, a touch of arrested adolescence about the contempt for the workaday existence. I used to share some of it myself, but since I became a father I have learned (amongst other things) a great deal about the pleasure of simply living a happy life. You might recall that Gordon Comstock comes to much the same conclusion; and yes, while that's supposed to be a partly ironic closure to his story, it's only partly ironic.

I was about to recommend *Aspidistra*. I don't think either of you really believe that conscience outside one's family circle is a luxury or a weakness. I've met people who do think that -- corporate lawyers and rich Amherst College alumni -- but they're richer and more evil than you'll ever be.

A friend of my parents, an old-school newspaperman and Orwell devotee, worked much of his life as an unhappy night city editor. Late in his career he got a job in advertising. To his friends,he seemed finally happy and fulfilled and appreciated and well-paid. Everything seemed to be going well for him. Then, not long into the advertising job, he had a heart attack and died. I do wonder if that advertising work made him happy or not.

I don't think either of you really believe that conscience outside one's family circle is a luxury or a weakness.

Thank you, Martha, but I don't need this kind of condescending assurance any more than I need to be consoled that criticism of affirmative action doesn't make me "exactly a racist". I think you share with Ehrenreich the problem that Ben identified; you claim to be in solidarity with white-collar workers, but you have no understanding or sympathy for what most of them want to do with their lives. I met a photographer yesterday who specializes in still shots of products for marketing ads. He certainly has concerns about his future livelihood, but he clearly enjoys his work and expresses no regrets about the career he has chosen to pursue. Who are you to tell him that he's a victim of false consciousness and that he ought really to be in a loft writing bad poetry?

If you really believe in making money without sympathy for society or posterity, why don't you throw over this history-writing racket of yours and go work for Halliburton?

If you really believe in making money without sympathy for society or posterity, why don't you throw over this history-writing racket of yours and go work for Halliburton?

Since the whole premise of that question is based on a series of lazy cliches, I'll pass, thanks. Instead of patting yourself on the back for your pious tolerance ('father, they know not what they shill for'), why not try subjecting your preconceptions to a bit of self-scrutiny? Or would that open up too many uncomfortable possibilities?

[This comment deleted on second thought.]

Mr. Allport, sir, I wish you joy of all the moodily lit tubes of toothpaste available to you in this fine world of bountiful consumer choices. Have yourself a wonderful weekend in this best of all possible worlds, and don't worry your little head about bringdowns like poverty or or the demise of habeas corpus. People may be dying of preventable diseases or getting tortured in basements but it's not happening to anyone you know, so why should you be one of those dreary busybodies who worry about strangers? Be a good family-focused citizen, carry out your patriotic duty to go shopping, worship at the sanctuary of your choice, watch "Family Guy" and "American Dad," and whatever you do, don't try to be one of those childish narcissists like Gandhi or Lincoln who delude themselves into trying to make the world a better place. It'll only end in tears.

As I said, arrested adolescence.

Is this 1957?

Martha said, [A] worker's soul is part of the bargain

You know, the last time I read that phrase, it was a description of "public work" -- jobs that were not farming.

Alan said, Who are you to tell him that he's a victim of false consciousness and that he ought really to be in a loft writing bad poetry?

I'd add that said photographer is guaranteed to know far more about his workday existence, the moral compromises he does or doesn't make, the emotional and intellectual satisfaction he gets from the rest of his hours, and the value of his work to society than Martha does -- or any Marxist theorist pretending to be an investigative journalist, for that matter.

Other than that, what Alan said.

If this photographer guy has made peace with his own compromises, good for him. He's a lucky exception. The rest of us have a right to the dignity of our quiet desperation.

Martha, if you ever visit Planet Earth, be sure to look us up, won't you?

The rest of us?

But Martha, I thought your own vocational choices would pass review by any of our fourteen-year-old selves -- or are you still terribly ashamed that you gave a moment's consideration to your own personal interest? I think that "greedhead" was the word you used.

Seems like your world is divided into three kinds of people: victims, oppressors, and advocates. Oppressors do nasty things like drawing salaries for honest work in fields other than charity or advocacy. What they do with their ill-gotten gains or time outside their day jobs is irrelevant, as is any public good that may result from the roads they build or goods they haul during those jobs. It's a zero-sum world, so every penny in their paychecks came from exploiting some victim somewhere.

Advocates work in charity or political activism, but are always perilously close to being oppressors. They must avoid even the appearance of oppression by impoverishing themselves on purpose. If their poverty does nothing to actually assist the victims, so much the better -- it's a holy and pure sacrifice.

Is that accurate? Probably as close as that Secret Persuaders caricature of a marketing job.

Not sure where this rant came from. To criticize the intrinsically dishonest profession of advertising isn't to criticize the world of work generally. There are plenty of decent professions that don't hurt or deceive people.

I for one would be genuinely curious to see you develop this claim that advertising is "intrinsically dishonest" as something more than a Self-Evident Truth That Anyone With a Brain and a Conscience Surely Knows By Now (Sigh). It's a presumption that has unfortunate similarities to the moral certainty of the 14-year-old, and which doesn't do your intelligence justice.

I'm willing to launch a defense of the profession of marketing based on personal experience, but it would rest on two fundamental assumptions I'm not sure you'd accept:

1) Building things people want or need is a positive good, even if it results in profit for the builder.

2) Trade is not a zero-sum game -- exchanges can be mutually beneficial, leaving both parties better off.

Let me know if I should continue, or if we need to hash those out beforehand.

Erm, this is some kind of world in which maturity is achieved by abandoning one's moral standards?

Look, I'm not proud of everything I do professionally. I write trade journalism that entails not criticizing the advertisers. But at least I know when I'm making compromises.

....

Not sure which way this cuts in the discussion, but there's a profile of Annie Leibovitz in today's SF Chron. The last three paragraphs discuss contrasts in her recent book between "powerful and engaged" personal work and "the artifice, theatricality and visual tropes of her celebrity portraiture." The difference being between work done for herself (or herself and Susan Sontag), and work done on assignment. Then she says she's interested in more assignment work.

Would it be OK to agree that human beings are complicated?

Erm, this is some kind of world in which maturity is achieved by abandoning one's moral standards?

Martha, refusing to ever question one's own preconceptions isn't a sign of strength, let alone moral fortitude, it's a retreat into solipsism. The reason why, for all your brilliance (and I mean that quite ironically) you will always remain a bit of a teenager at heart is that I think you regard self-examination as a weakness. I think that's a great shame.

Unironically! Unironically!

Doesn't self-examination involve considering whether one has lived up to acceptable moral principles and (generally) resolving to do better? Surely you're not saying it's more responsible to give up trying to do better?

Martha, I've tried to explain this to you in maybe half a dozen different ways at one time or another, and you don't or won't get it, so I'm going to gracefully stop trying. Perhaps someone else will have more luck one day. Perhaps not.