re: that Rebecca Schuman piece

So I don't mean to linger, but I do want to pass along what a little bird told me: despite what you'd think from Rebecca Schuman's piece and from the gleeful comments at Slate, other people from her own cohort at UC-Irvine got tenure track jobs. You can check their recent hires here. Again, that doesn't change the generally bad odds or the general takeaway. There's lots of people without permanent placements in that list. The odds are quite low, for literature, and my general advice is not to go. But most of the comments and Schuman's remarks are so extreme that you'd be forgiven for thinking that literally no one gets hired. Seems relevant. People who entered her program with her got hired, and I know many people who have gotten TT lit jobs in the last several years, and some from schools that are not considered to have top programs. That's not the basis of advice; I'm not suggesting those people should be used to draw attention from the generally terrible numbers. But it is a way to say that there's advice and then there's emotional propaganda.

Of course, as I will persist in saying, both the piece's tone and its place of publication reveal that the point is not to offer practically useful advice, but rather to offer psychic comfort to all the people in our culture who feel shitty about the economy and themselves. It's among the most common and cruel contradictions of our culture: we simultaneously tell people to do what they love and to recognize that their lives are not a dress rehearsal, and at the same time mock anyone who does not make the most mercenary, capitalistic life decisions possible. I'm not sure how all of the commenters at that piece got the idea that people getting literature PhDs are in it for the money. Worse, though, there's the assumption that all of us operate under the same narrow definitions of success, or that all of us are interested in having our life decisions validated and approved by everyone else. I myself am not in literature (I'm actually a quant guy myself), but my life and career choices are similarly mockable to the people passing around that essay. What's interesting is not merely the defensive focus on other people's choices as the assumption that everyone should care about that focus, and not their own values and interests.

And that speaks to why Schuman's piece got published there, and what Slate is for. People always bring up the contrarianism. But contrarianism, for Slate, is a means and not and end. Slate's real business model is the commodification of personal resentment. Think about it: what do they publish that doesn't end up mocking some set of rubes or marks or idiots? It's the most consistent element of Slate. Not defying the conventional wisdom, but rather identifying some people who are stupid. The anti-left wing hippie punching is an artifact of that. Contrarianism is often just a useful means of achieving this judgment. And the commercial value of this focus is plain: in a culture where tons of people spend their days doing something they hate, there will always be an attraction to a publication that can judge others, particularly those who are following a project of passion. For those who hate their jobs and their lives, there is comfort and self-defense in focusing on the failures and petty indignities of other people.

Our economic system, too, benefits from this outward focus. By acting as though individuals are responsible for their bad economic outcomes, blame and attention are shifted away from an economy that has become a thoroughly rigged game. Workers of all stripes and from many demographics are comprehensible fucked in this "new economy." That this general shittiness now encompasses people like Schuman, who come from a particular social and educational cohort, is the reason for a great deal of social panic. That panic might, under the right circumstances, lead to systemic economic change. But when you can slice up the broad groups of fucked people-- that is, people who aren't already rich, people who don't come from familial privilege and wealth, and people who aren't really lucky-- you can ensure that no such broad change occurs. That's part of the purpose of the ever-popular "you're a chump" genre. The truth is that we're fucked because of policy choices, implemented by neoliberal politicians for the particular and intentional purpose of making our economy an instrument for funneling resources from the many to the few. But we're chumps, all of us, because we are busy pointing the finger at each other. That's why we're chumps-- you, me, Rebecca Schuman, the commenters at Slate, all of us.

Update: You want to know how to think about trying to get a tenure track professorship in the humanities? The way you think about becoming an actor, or a musician, or a professional athlete. You've got to understand the odds and the competition in those terms. And you've also got to understand that, while there's the superstars, and the people who just make it to the big leagues, there's another set of options that are less secure, less well-compensated, less respected, and less safe. For many people, finding themselves on that rung is something akin to failure. To some, it's enough. In any event, the odds are bad, and they will always laugh at you if you try. Which means it can only be attempted by those who can think of nothing else. And if you are a friend or family member of someone trying, sometimes it's best for you to tell them to reconsider. But always, do so with love, and recognize that the are only trying to live as the best parts of their culture tell them too: as if they should live their lives like they only have one, as if there is something more than money.