I have been reading philosophy job descriptions recently, thinking about the hopes for competition that motivate these cattle calls. The pool of candidates contains a lot of folks with high general intelligence: they'd make great cashiers at Super Valu, great stockyard administrators, great intro to logic teachers -- at least for a while. So, in response to these calls, hundreds of people retool and reretool their resumes: "Yes, I an historian" "I am amazingly student-centered" "Of course I'm a serious scholar" "Committee work and collegiality -- no problem" And letters of recommendation go out saying: "Indeed this person is smart and capable and will do this thing well." But something serious is being missed in all this.
There are jobs that fit particular people like gloves. They enjoy the boring parts, even. They wake up each morning eager to go to work. And that is about far more than high general intelligence; it's about the fit between someone's life and a particular set of tasks. If that fit doesn't happen, people end up enduring their lives. Having to endure one's life is the prize one gets for having a lot of generalized ability -- high general intelligence. It's not a very fun prize.
The way out -- to revive thinking on both sides of the application process about the idea of vocation, of good work for a particular person.
We have to all reassert our basic dignity. We are not a bunch of pigs, trying to stuff our snouts into the trough. As Hamlet says, "That way madness lies."
Posted by shea0017 at September 19, 2005 12:02 PM