I've gone quiet for the past few months, for a variety of reasons. I've placed a lot of focus on my job search, and I am feeling a little apathetic about the current political situation, but apathetic isn't quite the right word--I still care, but the arguments never change. We are watching a soap opera in which I could stop watching for a given length of time, and come back only to find that the same things are still happening. We only get ever more mired into these stupid debates (Issa's hearing on contraception, for example) with every single half-step toward progress. If something good happens, we fight endlessly over it and break something else. It's World War 1 all over again: we are gassing each other over a couple hundred feet at a time and we have constructed vast networks of ideological trenches in which we encapsulate our inconsistencies. Nobody wins.
Mitt Romney is not even on my radar: He is irrelevant. Even Republicans admit the focus is negative: They are voting against Obama, rather than for Romney; he in himself doesn't mean much to them, either.
Last week, the Affordable Care Act was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, with Justice Roberts carrying the swing vote for the majority. I haven't had time to read up on his reasoning (something about the government's power to tax), but this only galvanized John Boehner to commit once again to the act's repeal. Conservatives are trying to figure out if it was Roberts' epilepsy medication, his respect for the New York Times, his trying to keep up his rapport with Obama, or the possibility of Obama delegitimizing the Supreme Court itself that caused him to experience this supposed extreme lapse in judgment1. This is almost worse for them than Justice John Jones III ruling for the "evolutionists" in Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District (2005). That's twice now that supposed conservative stalwarts have jumped ship in critical cases. Must be something in the water they serve at these courthouses, eh?
I want here to break and talk about something I have never talked about before: The job search. My philosophical self-education is immediately relevant to my own life. I don't like my situation, beyond not having access to the resources required to be a full-fledged member of society. Despite 10-16% unemployment and the still very real recession (only 30% of teens have summer jobs, according to CNN), unemployed people are still looked upon as aliens, primarily because in America, a person's worth as a human being, as a subject, is based solely upon how much money s/he possesses; how productive s/he is; any judge of character, of moral worth, is irrelevant if the person who asks the question, "What do you do [for a living]?" is not satisfied by the answer you give. For example, in my own situation, it doesn't matter at all that I am a youth mentor (something that fills my life with meaning and from which I derive personal satisfaction) because it does not result in making money.
A few weeks ago, I attended a networking meeting, and the presenter spoke about doing something for others "because it feels good," but underneath all of the altruistic language many of these career coaches use is a much darker, and much more selfish truth: The flowery language is merely intended to mask the fact that we are only helping each other so that the other person will in turn be obligated to help us. I may be naive, but I am not comfortable knowingly using another person as a means to an end. I find it incredibly deceptive and disingenuous, and I am not willing to compromise my ethical standard; human beings are not objects for my amusement; nor am I an object for the amusement of others. The coach(es) speak of an ideal relationship between networkers, but such an ideal built upon mutual deception and corruption (on which I will speak of in a minute) is only possible if both parties understand and are willing to accept that they are being used as objects and only feign to care about one another on a substantial level.
Finally, at this same networking meeting, the presenter spoke of the efficiency of his system by writing people off. I brought up an experience in which I was at another networking meeting, and a woman made a sardonic comment about how the piles of resumes were killing the rainforest. The magnanimous presenter suggested that my newfound acquaintance "didn't get it" and should be avoided. I expressed disappointment, and put up weak resistance to his suggestion she be ostracized, but now it really bothers me. I appreciate people who take social risks, and considered her remark as an indication that she would be an interesting person to talk to at a meeting at which I feared everyone would be exactly the same. On a deeper level, I find the presenter's willingness to quickly write people off for the sake of the efficiency of his system not only a complete reversal of his "altruistic" intent, but also extremely Foucauldian: The use of micro-power to enforce social mores in the endless struggle of Us vs Them. This is doubly problematic because we are all unemployed, and it distracts us from the necessity of collective action. Unemployed people, particularly those who have been in the system before but were callously spit out of it largely ignore the greater reality of their situation, and view themselves as individuals with entirely separate experiences, when the fact is that there are millions of us who, if (in an ideal circumstance) gathered together, would be capable of political action to help solve the problem for the greater group. But by willing to so quickly and easily decide not to talk to someone who shares your experiences, especially because they talk funny, you are actually hurting everyone in the long run.
Some people on Facebook might notice that I use the term "Corporate Bogeyman" whenever someone mentions a "professional FB page" with their real name and few (if any) pictures, friends, or posts. I may have even used the term here. In Eastern European folklore, the Bogeyman (popularly known as the Boogieman) is a monster mentioned often by desperate parents that takes away children who misbehave. My "Corporate Bogeyman" describes the people (or phantoms) that supposedly comb job seekers' Internet footprints looking for incriminating material. It is worse than censorship, because it indirectly, through scare tactics, self-imposes silence and limits creative expression; its impact extending far beyond the intoxicated Facebook pictures from that party at your friend's house two years ago. "Careful what you put on the Internet" is an adage I have heard far more than I would like, extends to pages like this that, were my identity ever found out, I would probably be damned to perpetual unemployment for the next decade. It scares me, despite my strong belief that what I have to say needs to be said. What makes it so terrifying is that it isn't the government that is censoring us, but the corporations, which have no accountability and whose impulses are entirely subjective, can discriminate against more or less anyone they please with little consequence. Have you ever called up a company regarding a position you applied for and tried to ask them why you weren't interviewed, (or, if you were interviewed, why you weren't chosen)?
I promised I would discuss the corrupt part of it, and it has been, I believe, more than a few minutes. On the one hand, there exists the job boards, the email addresses, and the myriad accounts created to access them. On the other hand, we have our networks of people who might know other people who might know other people, ad infinitum. You can submit your application to stand among 30 other applications, or you can call your friend who knows another friend who knows another friend who knows another friend who happens to work at the company you're trying to get into and might be able to put in a good word for you. You have skipped the "proper channels" and moved right in. They might have spoken to some of those applicants, but they picked you because you're a friend of a friend of a friend..., perhaps even independent of your qualifications. I am not saying that this isn't something I will have to do, because I know it is. But I also know that it is extremely manipulative and wrong. With the scarcity of full-time--and even part-time--positions, this rotten system is liable to endure because it is easy for the employer: It allows them to quickly select an applicant from the cesspool of unwashed heathens with a minimal guarantee of his or her ability to fit into the company culture and/or fulfill the requirements of the position. It is the law of supply and demand at work. But its existence in actual reality does not preclude me from calling it what it is.
Another unpleasant result of the current economic situation for the unemployed is the mistreatment of applicants by recruiters and actual employers. When you are unemployed, "professionalism" is a one-way street: The burden of professional behavior rests upon the applicant only, and the power ascribed upon employers by virtue of their position grants license to behave as they please toward the filthy masses of lumpenproletariats. This, in my experience, involves behaving relatively callously (such as not returning your phone calls after establishing some mutual interest and suggesting a possible interview, and then making it worse by calling back a week later (you had called several times without answer by this point) and saying that he was busy at a conference and the company is not interested in you), having the interviewer walk out of an interview in order to push a sale upon a prospective customer (and then telling you they hired someone else when you call them back), and blatantly lying about not being interested in speaking to the applicant ("Your application is blocked by Corporate"). I am sure many unemployed people have endured worse than this, but these instances are bad on their own.
1) http://gawker.com/5922416/john-roberts-medication-made-him-stupid-and-other-right+wing-explanations-for-the-obamacare-ruling
