Recycling You-Topia. Mark Kingwell has a piece, "The Language of Work," in this month's Harper's skewering this kind of nonsense.
Work language is full of bullshit. The victory of work bullshit is that, in addition to having no regard for the truth, it passes itself off as innocuous or even beneficial. Especially in clever hands, the controlling elements of work are repackaged as liberatory, counter-cultural, subversive: you’re a skatepunk rebel because you work seventy hours a week beta-testing videogames. This, we might say, is meta-bullshit. And despite what philosophers might assert, or wish, this meta-bullshit, and not truth, is the norm governing most coordinated human activity under conditions of capital markets. On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Mike Spencer <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Sally wrote: > > > The Start-Up of You > > By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN > > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/opinion/13friedman.html > > From the article: > > Hoffman argues that professionals need an entirely new mind-set > and skill set to compete. "The old paradigm of climb up a stable > career ladder is dead and gone," he said to me. "No career is a > sure thing anymore. The uncertain, rapidly changing conditions in > which entrepreneurs start companies is what it's now like for all > of us fashioning a career. Therefore you should approach career > strategy the same way an entrepreneur approaches starting a > business." > > That's fine for "professionals". No, wait, it's not fine. It's not > fine but it's sort of okay. Professors, physicians, engineers, > scientists -- those whose "professional" status derives from the > traditional notions of public service and "first do no harm -- as well > as those in the larger array of white-collar occupations to which we > have gratuitously allowed the title of "professional" -- such people > are assumed to have a high degree of education in the broadest sense. > But under Friedman's rubric, they will have to devote increasing > amounts of time, energy, attentiveness, mind-space to, as it were, > operating the business of being a chemist, doctor or accountant. > > The traditional quasi-priestly status of professionals derived from > the principle that, unlike merchants, tradesmen, wage laborers and all > the rest, they put the public's (or client's or patient's) interest > first. Do you want your surgeon to be preoccupied with managing > h{is,er} career or do you want h{im,er} to be acutely attentive, > moment by moment, to the ways in which your coronary arteries or > femoral configuration differ from the textbook norm, to how surgery > interacts with your nutritional status and such technical details? > For that matter, do you want to trust your injured child to a life > support system running on software written by a programmer preoccupied > with career strategy? > > But professionals are supposed to have much better than median > education, intelligence, discipline and dedication. So maybe they can > handle it all. Maybe that's all sort of okay for them. I know a > professor, now approaching retirement, who has done this. In his > office by 7:00 AM, leaves around 7:00PM except 3 or 4 days a week when > he has evening work scheduled. Maintains the professional obligation > of putting his students first while still taking on and diligently > pursuing those tasks and commitments to the university communite > needed to manage his career despite attendant costs in his personal > life. Good for him. > > But what about everybody else? > > One of the factors that blind-sides many entrepreneurs is exemplified > in this anecdote: A friend of many years pursued a career in biology, > then abandoned academe as Not For Him. He was keen on odd-ball cars, > had hand-fabricated a unique car more or less from scratch in his back > yard. But getting parts for odd-ball cars was a problem. So he went > into business selling such parts and servicing such cars. I'd been > working on some really odd cars for a few years (did you ever see a > Panhard on the road?) so I worked for him for a year and got to watch > an entrepreneurship in action. > > My friend never got to even *think* about cars. He spent all his time > thinking about cash flow, delivery times, liability insurance, > landlord relations, tax records, partnership problems.... well, y'all > can make a better list that I can. Yes, he got to go to the races > after he decided to sponsor a race car. Great for his ego but it was a > marketing and public relations exercise, the costs and liabilities of > which were his chief preoccupation. > > Something you love to do? You're good at it? Go into business for > yourself. A year or three later, you'll realize that you're no > longer doing what you love and are good at. > > This is precisely why many people with keen interest or special > talents (in almost anything) avoid any form of entrepreneurship that > would be recognized as such by your friendly neighborhood banker. I > infer (with no hard knowledge) that it's why professional partnerships > -- the very highly paid ones, anyhow -- work well. There's enough > collective income to hire a manager or else senior partners retire > from active practice and apply the wisdom of their years to guiding > and managing the younger partners. > > But, according to Friedman (and even casual observation) this is now > going to be compulsory for more or less everybody. Where is that > leading us? > > > It also means using your network to pull in information and > intelligence about where the growth opportunities are -- and then > investing in yourself to build skills that will allow you to take > advantage of those opportunities. Hoffman adds: "You can't just > say, 'I have a college degree, I have a right to a job, now > someone else should figure out how to hire and train me.' " You > have to know which industries are working and what is happening > inside them and then "find a way to add value in a way no one else > can. For entrepreneurs it's differentiate or die -- that now goes > for all of us." > > Way back in the early days of FW, there were several references to > avoiding a "Bladerunner future". Bladerunner might not be the best > fictional model for comparison because its focus was on the ethical > distinction between "authentic humans" and "robots" that were in all > essential details indistinguishable from humans. > > William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic, his Sprawl trilogy or his Bridge > trilogy paint a more relevant future as does Stephenson's Snow Crash. > What happens when (what we think of as) the modern corporate-dominated > technical and financial structure survives and grows but only a > minority, maybe a smallish minority not necessarily composed of the > best and the brightest and certainly not composed of the most > humanitarian, have a place in it? > > Gibson's Sprawl (the near-future Boston to Atlanta conurbation) is a > pessimistic take. The best and the brightest who can't or won't cling > to a niche in the corporate world turn to anything whatever. Designer > drugs? Oh yeah. Weapons, body parts, hijacking, extortion? Oh yeah. > Data theft? Good stuff. White slavery? Nah, man. Be racist, limit > ourselfs to "white", y'know? Equal opportunity for slaves, y'know? > > His Bridge (the SF Bay Bridge, abandoned after quake damage, built up > with a vast hive of dwellings, squats and micro-biz) is more > optimistic. There's a strong sense of community that permeates the > chaos. Truly vicious people don't last long and the more > sophisticated or able look out, rather informally, for the simple or > less able. But then, one of the most peaceable among them has a > really nasty combat weapon hidden in his wall just, you know, in case. > > What Friedman is describing (albeit with a civilized, journalistic > choice of words) is the Sprawl, the Bridge or, less optimistically, > something like central Asian warlord society translated into the urban > environment of Western Europe or N. America. > > Finally, you have to strengthen the muscles of resilience. "You > may have seen the news that [the] online radio service Pandora > went public the other week," Hoffman said. "What's lesser known is > that in the early days [the founder] pitched his idea more than > 300 times to V.C.'s with no luck." > > Right. If you're a competent tool & die maker, pattern maker, joiner, > musician, entomologist, graphic artrist, millwright and your job no > longer fits the quarterly profit projection, just put together a biz > plan and sell it to the venture capitalists. You know you've got > skills, you know you have good ideas. It's just a matter of good > old-fashioned sticktoitiveness and you'll have a few mil work with. > You and and all 12 million of the other redundant units of surplus > biomass out there. > > Then Mike G wrote: > > > What he is saying is almost certainly true but a human and social > > disaster... > > Same thing. Oy. Why can't *I* manage to write as parsimoniously as > that? :-) > > > - Mike > > -- > Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. > /V\ > [email protected] /( )\ > http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > -- Sandwichman
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