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FORA.tv Series: An Honest Labor Day's Work

Alain de Botton on the Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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m0nkeybl1tz Avatar
m0nkeybl1tz
Posts: 9
Posted: 06.05.09, 06:11 PM
This guy's my new man crush.
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Bashful320 Avatar
Bashful320
Posts: 27
Posted: 06.10.09, 01:20 PM
The reason offices are so popular in pornography is because it is not allowed and it creates an excitement of breaking the rules, duh lol
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Chris Ivory Avatar
Chris Ivory
Posts: 2
Posted: 08.06.09, 07:27 AM
Alain is wrong about academia and academia is right to be suspicious of him. Academic credibility does not come from having the 'key' to unlocking particular texts it comes from having done the hard graft of reading and assimilating those texts - lots of them. The academic earns the right to draw a salary by 'knowing the field' and being able to add a little to it - something which requires time and effort. Its a slow, painstaking and humble processes - very different from the grand generalisations and free-floating insights Alain allows himself. Its not mystification or a con and Alain should resist characterising academics as just another profession defending their income against the 'threat' of being demystified. Besides, whats to defend? Alain might like to try living on an academic's income.

I remain a fan (I will often turn to Alain at bed time when Zikek gets a bit hard ;-) but i do wonder how great Alain's work could be if he had been bothered to spend some time with the existing literature on work ,travel and other subjects that interest him. In many ways Alain's work is wasted. Its just ideas knitted together with memories of other work and conversations about it. Its not reliable or rigourous. I can't use it - by which I mean I can't reference it. If Alain's work can't meet academic standards it won't be referenced and it will eventually just go out of print and be forgotten. As a result he would have earned a good living but made no impact, not really addedd to the flow of ideas that underpin how we know ourselves and our world. Perhaps this is dawning on him (hence the anxious vigour of his dismissal of academe and its ways?). Maybe its time to come back Alain?
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wsoutherland Avatar
wsoutherland
Posts: 25
Posted: 11.10.09, 05:10 PM
This topic is most relevant now because of the "economic turmoil" and the recent massive layoffs. Even those that haven't been cut have to recognize their own vulnerability and ask themselves if their pain and effort is really worth it. "What do you do?" is usually the first question anyone asks when they meet someone, thus it is tied heavily to someone's identity. Some people work so they can make money to use to do the things they really want while others work because that really is what they want to do with their time.

For some, work is an escape from their home life. Why else would you take your Blackberry on vacation? Because you are bored. People left at work think you are awesome, dedicated and a bit weird for responding, though on the other hand they don't really get the chance to miss you or figure out they can get along just fine without your constant presence. Work is a rare place where someone can feel needed.
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Cobalt Blue Avatar
Cobalt Blue
Posts: 1
Posted: 12.06.09, 05:13 PM
(Chris Ivory)I agree with your statement that," the academic earns the right to draw a salary by 'knowing the field' and being able to add a little to it - something which requires time and effort". However, the following claim is unwarranted: "If Alain's work can't meet ACADEMIC STANDARDS it won't be referenced and it will eventually just go out of print and be forgotten. As a result he would have earned a good living but made NO IMPACT ...."

I have nothing against specialization but you are clearly presenting an ACADEMIC point of view here where people don`t really make a significant IMPACT in knowing ourselves and our world unless they publish in a prestigious scientific journal... Well, perhaps you are living in that world ...
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Chris Ivory Avatar
Chris Ivory
Posts: 2
Posted: 12.09.09, 11:11 AM
CB

"If Alain's work can't meet ACADEMIC STANDARDS it won't be referenced and it will eventually just go out of print and be forgotten. As a result he would have earned a good living but made NO IMPACT ...."

Yes I guess I am defending the academic point of view. In academia you have to do the work - read the literature, do the research then comment. Alain on the other hand thinks its’ OK to draw on the literature which suits him, ignore the swathes of less exciting material, and then wax lyrical. Had he done his homework he would have known, for example, that Braverman talked about many of the issues raised by Alain on work yonks ago. So he had not done his homework. That annoys me – especially when he is unfairly characterising the profession to which I belong to as surviving only because it is able to ‘mystify’ what it does; which is rubbish. I understand that as a businessman he needs to construct a clear product identity (in this case by differentiating himself favourably from academics by crudely caricaturing them as something they are not) but in this case his claims are incorrect. Storm in a tea cup I know – but that’s academia for you. If I could write like him I dare say would not be sitting here in front of a pile of marking – or perhaps I would, I don’t know.
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celine Avatar
celine
Posts: 2
Posted: 02.01.10, 09:32 PM
i like the proposal...but maybe already 25/30 if you wanted to
would have been so great to specialize in the stuff i was into with 12.
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