Today’s essay is part of a series on work that includes me, Latham Turner, Bowen Dwelle, Michael Mohr ofSincere American Writing, Dee Rambeau, and Lyle McKeany. You may remember our past series about fatherhood and recovery. This week, all of us will wrestle with what work means to us. These collaborative series are a highlight of my life on Substack, and I hope you’ll keep tuning in this week. Let us know how our meditations on work compare to your own.
It doesn't do justice to such a densely insightful post/essay for me simply to observe that the Office Space/Jack London comparison is both clever and wonderful. But that's what I've got at the moment, so I'll offer it.
Btw, I wish you all (holistic) success with Big Sky Insights.
Glad that connection landed! It does seem that the American love affair with industry has always sparked dissent. It is troubling that higher ed is systematically eliminating disciplines that preserve those cultural memories.
Thanks for the good wishes, too. I'm taking satisfaction in incremental progress.
Like Latham, you are carving out a relationship to work that resists the systems that occupy most people's work life. Your prioritization of being a father is also consistent. You are both giving a great gift to your children, and by forging a close relationship to your children, a great gift to yourself when they grow older. It's an investment that pays off immeasurably when they become adults. (But remember, teenagers are difficult and often nasty, regardless!)
Also, my older son as a child loved to line up cars and animals, usually organized by color. I do think it indicates a very logical mind. But that type of mind can be applied to pretty much anything.
Thank you, David -- this is nice affirmation. I feel that I must make this investment without expecting a payoff, but I certainly do hope that my choices make sense to my kids later in their lives.
A truly excellent discursus. Ever since I left academe I too have struggled to define what 'work' was for me, and what it meant to me. And what once was joy can become work, in the opposite manner as the antique epigram, 'techne loves Tyche' suggests. This was the case for me with teaching, and now, alas, it is beginning to feel similarly for writing as well. The 'next' joy is at present an unknown. But I should add that 'work' too might be abolished in the same way as both God and the author have been in the history of ideas; was this not Marx's intent? If the Protestant Ethic confused work with act in its soteriological desperation, what then are we to think of a workless society, the technocratic paradise of a 'Star Trek', or the nostalgia for a colonial serfdom?
Marx got some things right. I'm not certain that I am a card-carrying Marxist, but neither do I see a bright future in the models offered by Amazon or Apple. The widening wealth gaps concern me, but even more than that I find myself troubled by assaults on freedom. Even those with comfortable employments struggle to balance work life and family life, and modernity in American seems to breed perpetual discontent. I tend to favor Bill McKibben's vision of a "durable" future -- like him, I see durability in local economies, in community, and in other forms of interdepedence. But that is quite another essay. Thanks for your comment!
E. Gordon Gee? His career is checkered and controversial. His actions are a testament to an anti intellectual and materislstic mindset. He primary criteria is monetary.
Gee is certainly a polarizing figure. But he is more representative than not of the prevailing winds in higher ed. The fact that The Chronicle devoted its most recent cover story to profiling him attests to his ongoing influence.
It's been years since I read the Chronicle, but prevailing winds can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on the tide and whether you're sailing up or downwind.
You nailed the conformism angle of work: Being pulled into the sociological game of needing constant external validation from others regarding your own inner sense of self worth. I've always found it strange how in America adulthood and 'goodness' are viewed mainly by financial and external standards, versus emotional/psychologcal/spiritual standards. We seem to reward narcissism and greed over depth and kindness. This, of course, is a natural result of living in a free and open democracy which values (correctly) free enterprise. Such is the nature of the materialist beast.
Yes, and it requires work to maintain independence from those cultural priorities. I'm not claiming any kind of spiritual high ground here or wishing for a spartan life. But I think it will take some acute financial need to push me back into conventional working life.
Very cool, Josh. I’m glad to hear about the LLC! I’m headed in the same direction with The Sustainable Professor. All I can hope is to make things a bit easier for those sticking around in the academy, and to put my kid through college.
Thanks, Liz! I have to admit that your last sentence leaves a lot to discuss. Obviously I want my kids to go to college, but increasingly I'm wondering if that is the only option they ought to have and how I can help them choose wisely, so they don't fall into the debt/servitude trap. Also concerned about the quality of education they'll receive and how much their education will require externalized costs like those that staff, contingent faculty, and even tenured faculty bear. How are you thinking through those things? It is weird, isn't it, to have reached a personal breaking point with the very system that we're going to send our kids into? Maybe this needs to be an edited email exchange that we each share with our readers...
As an adjunct professor of architecture with a son at my same university, this rings so true for me. I’d almost rather he go work on a farm, learn how to grow food, other real, practical skills. Especially when he tells me about the quality of education he’s getting in his larger classes — essentially mills taught by mediocre grad students.
Sometimes I would rather transition to something like agriculture! It's a hard life, and a lot of the young farmers I knew in Iowa burned out. But it doesn't have to be that way. I really wish local schools could support local agriculture -- and recognize that those partnerships offer educational value in field trips or class visits, not just cafeteria food.
I'm sorry to hear that your son is getting subpar instruction in some of his courses. This was one reason I enjoyed teaching at a small private university. But there's no way around the factory model at bigger institutions.
Josh, I enjoyed Latham's article yesterday and yours today. It is great to see this type of collaboration. My childhood was similar to yours although I took a different track after high school. However, the lessons related to work that I learned stuck with me. Now that my son is in college I can see quite clearly the issues with academia that you describe. While he attends a flagship university with massive amounts of money it is still very interesting to observe which programs they emphasize and which they don't. We are fortunate that he is on scholarship and so will not be saddled with huge amounts of debt but it is very obvious that the system pushes the students towards degrees that are focused on industry and employability. As I have stated elsewhere, my own career change this year led me to evaluate what this second half of my life will look like. I am looking forward to not working in the traditional sense so that I can focus more on family and creative pursuits.
Matthew, it's great that your son won't be saddled with debt. I am fortunate to have run the gauntlet of college and graduate school without incurring debt and have never held more than a mortgage since then. This is one way to live free and unencumbered. Many other choices are foreclosed by debt.
Josh, this was a wonderful reflection on all levels, both deep and poignant without being angry or claiming a moral high ground. You nailed so much here.
I see Freddy the Frog so regularly, when our teachers are taught how to manage a classroom but never how to nurture a child's curiosity. I've seen it with my own children, at far younger grades than I would have expected. It was one more part of our decision to homeschool. I see it in performance reviews and honors, awards, and the like for adults. It's like we've forgotten that our "extreme behaviors" are not actually abnormal, but its the conformity and game playing that is out of the norm.
We've talked at length about how the military and academia have their similarities, but I didn't really appreciate how the non-economic nature of both was another one. We might have had different missions and motives, but both institutions offered protection from the pressure to make workers that make money. That's a protection that I didn't really appreciate before now.
I've been wondering a lot about the Jack London's of today. Where do the misfits go when the options seem to be industry or influencer. Neither one is fit for someone who doesn't fit in, doesn't want to hustle, or wants to spend their time on something more true. I wonder if this is a US problem (I have only a romantic desire for other countries to not be as industrially focused as my basis for that) or if there are any places left for the misfits, outcasts, and rebels. I know I'm still naively hopeful those spaces exist, but I can't seem to let go.
Thanks for writing this. Grateful to have gotten to collaborate with you on another piece.
Well, academe used to have a non-economic side. It doesn't really anymore. But you're right -- that deep service ethic is a commonality between us. Although I suspect that the chain of command offers its own Freddy the Frog incentives.
Where do the misfits go... Some of us are on Substack, I think? But even this platform is bedeviled by the industry/influencer noise. I see misfits in my Quaker meeting and at the local farmers markets. But I also recognize the danger of embracing that core belief about myself too firmly. It can be limiting and can be a binary insider/outsider construction that isn't necessary.
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Recognized so much of myself in it. This part, e.g. — “I’m struck by how often adults project work stories onto children at play. I fall into this trap myself, seeing a future as an accountant in my son’s sorting of colored pencils, or in the perfect lines he likes to make with his toy cars. His fascination with building must mean that he’ll someday be an engineer. It never seems enough to see pleasure or mastery as the end in itself.” I even think we’re pretty low-key parents, not striving and shrill about achievement. But this culture really gets under your skin and it’s too easy to forget what’s important.
Brilliantly written piece, that is both life affirming and a warning of the threats posed by the industrialist mindset of those at the helm of the education system.
I have struggled with the work question my entire life. I truly believe our purpose is to love one another, hear and tell stories, create and just be. Cramming all that around the edges of a career is difficult and monetizing or commodifying it seems wrong.
It doesn't do justice to such a densely insightful post/essay for me simply to observe that the Office Space/Jack London comparison is both clever and wonderful. But that's what I've got at the moment, so I'll offer it.
Btw, I wish you all (holistic) success with Big Sky Insights.
Glad that connection landed! It does seem that the American love affair with industry has always sparked dissent. It is troubling that higher ed is systematically eliminating disciplines that preserve those cultural memories.
Thanks for the good wishes, too. I'm taking satisfaction in incremental progress.
Like Latham, you are carving out a relationship to work that resists the systems that occupy most people's work life. Your prioritization of being a father is also consistent. You are both giving a great gift to your children, and by forging a close relationship to your children, a great gift to yourself when they grow older. It's an investment that pays off immeasurably when they become adults. (But remember, teenagers are difficult and often nasty, regardless!)
Also, my older son as a child loved to line up cars and animals, usually organized by color. I do think it indicates a very logical mind. But that type of mind can be applied to pretty much anything.
Thank you, David -- this is nice affirmation. I feel that I must make this investment without expecting a payoff, but I certainly do hope that my choices make sense to my kids later in their lives.
A truly excellent discursus. Ever since I left academe I too have struggled to define what 'work' was for me, and what it meant to me. And what once was joy can become work, in the opposite manner as the antique epigram, 'techne loves Tyche' suggests. This was the case for me with teaching, and now, alas, it is beginning to feel similarly for writing as well. The 'next' joy is at present an unknown. But I should add that 'work' too might be abolished in the same way as both God and the author have been in the history of ideas; was this not Marx's intent? If the Protestant Ethic confused work with act in its soteriological desperation, what then are we to think of a workless society, the technocratic paradise of a 'Star Trek', or the nostalgia for a colonial serfdom?
Marx got some things right. I'm not certain that I am a card-carrying Marxist, but neither do I see a bright future in the models offered by Amazon or Apple. The widening wealth gaps concern me, but even more than that I find myself troubled by assaults on freedom. Even those with comfortable employments struggle to balance work life and family life, and modernity in American seems to breed perpetual discontent. I tend to favor Bill McKibben's vision of a "durable" future -- like him, I see durability in local economies, in community, and in other forms of interdepedence. But that is quite another essay. Thanks for your comment!
Jack London is one of my favorite writers, precisely because he was willing to question the society he lived in rather than let it be.
E. Gordon Gee? His career is checkered and controversial. His actions are a testament to an anti intellectual and materislstic mindset. He primary criteria is monetary.
Gee is certainly a polarizing figure. But he is more representative than not of the prevailing winds in higher ed. The fact that The Chronicle devoted its most recent cover story to profiling him attests to his ongoing influence.
It's been years since I read the Chronicle, but prevailing winds can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on the tide and whether you're sailing up or downwind.
"a home on twenty acres above the tiny town of Troy, Montana" Sounds like trout country to this fly angler. I woulda never left : )
My memoir tells the story of why I left, but also why the place has never released its hold on me.
You nailed the conformism angle of work: Being pulled into the sociological game of needing constant external validation from others regarding your own inner sense of self worth. I've always found it strange how in America adulthood and 'goodness' are viewed mainly by financial and external standards, versus emotional/psychologcal/spiritual standards. We seem to reward narcissism and greed over depth and kindness. This, of course, is a natural result of living in a free and open democracy which values (correctly) free enterprise. Such is the nature of the materialist beast.
Yes, and it requires work to maintain independence from those cultural priorities. I'm not claiming any kind of spiritual high ground here or wishing for a spartan life. But I think it will take some acute financial need to push me back into conventional working life.
Very cool, Josh. I’m glad to hear about the LLC! I’m headed in the same direction with The Sustainable Professor. All I can hope is to make things a bit easier for those sticking around in the academy, and to put my kid through college.
Thanks, Liz! I have to admit that your last sentence leaves a lot to discuss. Obviously I want my kids to go to college, but increasingly I'm wondering if that is the only option they ought to have and how I can help them choose wisely, so they don't fall into the debt/servitude trap. Also concerned about the quality of education they'll receive and how much their education will require externalized costs like those that staff, contingent faculty, and even tenured faculty bear. How are you thinking through those things? It is weird, isn't it, to have reached a personal breaking point with the very system that we're going to send our kids into? Maybe this needs to be an edited email exchange that we each share with our readers...
As an adjunct professor of architecture with a son at my same university, this rings so true for me. I’d almost rather he go work on a farm, learn how to grow food, other real, practical skills. Especially when he tells me about the quality of education he’s getting in his larger classes — essentially mills taught by mediocre grad students.
Sometimes I would rather transition to something like agriculture! It's a hard life, and a lot of the young farmers I knew in Iowa burned out. But it doesn't have to be that way. I really wish local schools could support local agriculture -- and recognize that those partnerships offer educational value in field trips or class visits, not just cafeteria food.
I'm sorry to hear that your son is getting subpar instruction in some of his courses. This was one reason I enjoyed teaching at a small private university. But there's no way around the factory model at bigger institutions.
The irony is, it’s a land-grant school, but of course it’s “big ag” aligned for the most part.
Indeed, the irony is not lost on me! I’d love to discuss this more formally, I’ll shoot you an email!
Josh, I enjoyed Latham's article yesterday and yours today. It is great to see this type of collaboration. My childhood was similar to yours although I took a different track after high school. However, the lessons related to work that I learned stuck with me. Now that my son is in college I can see quite clearly the issues with academia that you describe. While he attends a flagship university with massive amounts of money it is still very interesting to observe which programs they emphasize and which they don't. We are fortunate that he is on scholarship and so will not be saddled with huge amounts of debt but it is very obvious that the system pushes the students towards degrees that are focused on industry and employability. As I have stated elsewhere, my own career change this year led me to evaluate what this second half of my life will look like. I am looking forward to not working in the traditional sense so that I can focus more on family and creative pursuits.
Matthew, it's great that your son won't be saddled with debt. I am fortunate to have run the gauntlet of college and graduate school without incurring debt and have never held more than a mortgage since then. This is one way to live free and unencumbered. Many other choices are foreclosed by debt.
Josh, this was a wonderful reflection on all levels, both deep and poignant without being angry or claiming a moral high ground. You nailed so much here.
I see Freddy the Frog so regularly, when our teachers are taught how to manage a classroom but never how to nurture a child's curiosity. I've seen it with my own children, at far younger grades than I would have expected. It was one more part of our decision to homeschool. I see it in performance reviews and honors, awards, and the like for adults. It's like we've forgotten that our "extreme behaviors" are not actually abnormal, but its the conformity and game playing that is out of the norm.
We've talked at length about how the military and academia have their similarities, but I didn't really appreciate how the non-economic nature of both was another one. We might have had different missions and motives, but both institutions offered protection from the pressure to make workers that make money. That's a protection that I didn't really appreciate before now.
I've been wondering a lot about the Jack London's of today. Where do the misfits go when the options seem to be industry or influencer. Neither one is fit for someone who doesn't fit in, doesn't want to hustle, or wants to spend their time on something more true. I wonder if this is a US problem (I have only a romantic desire for other countries to not be as industrially focused as my basis for that) or if there are any places left for the misfits, outcasts, and rebels. I know I'm still naively hopeful those spaces exist, but I can't seem to let go.
Thanks for writing this. Grateful to have gotten to collaborate with you on another piece.
Well, academe used to have a non-economic side. It doesn't really anymore. But you're right -- that deep service ethic is a commonality between us. Although I suspect that the chain of command offers its own Freddy the Frog incentives.
Where do the misfits go... Some of us are on Substack, I think? But even this platform is bedeviled by the industry/influencer noise. I see misfits in my Quaker meeting and at the local farmers markets. But I also recognize the danger of embracing that core belief about myself too firmly. It can be limiting and can be a binary insider/outsider construction that isn't necessary.
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Recognized so much of myself in it. This part, e.g. — “I’m struck by how often adults project work stories onto children at play. I fall into this trap myself, seeing a future as an accountant in my son’s sorting of colored pencils, or in the perfect lines he likes to make with his toy cars. His fascination with building must mean that he’ll someday be an engineer. It never seems enough to see pleasure or mastery as the end in itself.” I even think we’re pretty low-key parents, not striving and shrill about achievement. But this culture really gets under your skin and it’s too easy to forget what’s important.
Glad it landed, Julie! Thanks for reading and sharing your own reflections.
This is beautiful.
Brilliantly written piece, that is both life affirming and a warning of the threats posed by the industrialist mindset of those at the helm of the education system.
Thanks for sharing.
I wish you well in your ventures.
Thank you, Kevin! All the best to you, as well.
Congrats on Blue Sky Insights. Cool new name!
Thank you, Jill!
Rich in time. Rich in experience. The best kind of wealth 🙏
I have struggled with the work question my entire life. I truly believe our purpose is to love one another, hear and tell stories, create and just be. Cramming all that around the edges of a career is difficult and monetizing or commodifying it seems wrong.