By Stacey Goguen
This post might be a bit off-topic, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how our work in philosophy is influenced why our larger picture of the field. I swear, eventually I will actually talk about doing work!
Allen Wood recently finished up his series of posts on the Job market at the APA Blog, in which he contributed his time to discuss his observations about the of the job market, some pieces of advice, and a fair amount of gallows-type humor, as well as some biting criticisms of the overall arbitrariness of the market and job searches. Many people have found his posts helpful, cathartic, witty, and an important gesture of solidarity with those on the market. I agree with that, though I found myself interested in hearing more concrete advice. But I deeply appreciate that he took the time and energy to write these posts, and to articulate how he himself approaches candidates’ material. Some of the value I see in his posts is his emphasis on the incentive structures around looking at applications. (“Academic job searches these days are fundamentally conditioned by the hard fact that virtually every advertised position has many, many applicants. The first task of anyone doing a job search has to be to eliminate as many candidates as possible from consideration as quickly as possible” (Part I).)
However, there is another aspect of Wood’s posts that I want to talk about, namely, the way he talks about philosophy, and people’s decisions to pursue a career in it or not. I think that Wood gives voice to a very common model of philosophy here and there, one that I have heard almost verbatim out of the mouths of many people from a number of departments. The model has three parts:
- Philosophy is more than just a job, but really a vocation or a way of life.
- Philosophy requires a certain kind of talent, constitution, personality or [something], which not everyone has or is capable of having.
- Philosophy is something of a meritocracy.
Maybe we can call this the “meritocratic innate vocation” model of philosophy (MIV). In short, philosophy a calling, and it’s something you are either meant to do and good at, or something you simply aren’t cut out for, or don’t love enough to stick with it. And the profession will weed out people accordingly.
I think this model of philosophy is (a) largely inaccurate/unhelpful, (b) cruel on the individual level, and (c) pernicious at the institutional level, in that it masks relevant power dynamics—and thus may count as ideology in the pejorative sense.
And I think a lot of us use and endorse this model without really realizing that we are doing so. So I want to point out how I think Wood’s posts are endorsing this model in places, particularly because I don’t think he would necessarily endorse it explicitly. (And I take it he certainly wouldn’t endorse something he thought was exacerbating issues of unfairness in the profession.) I want to be clear, my fish to fry is the model and its persistence in professional philosophy, not with anyone’s particular unintentional use of it. To emphasize, I myself have used this model when talking about philosophy, though I am now actively trying not to, since I have come to believe it has harmful effects. But some narratives and frameworks are easy to slip into. (If we have a moral duty not to use this model, I consider it an imperfect duty.)
So how does Wood talk about philosophy?
“If all this seems unfair, then that’s because it is unfair. But search committee members have limited time to do their work, and they are also fallible human beings. They are going to use whatever factors they can to winnow out, as fast as possible, from dozens or even hundreds of applications, the very few candidates who will be given serious consideration.”
“My remarks are intended to be sobering, but not demoralizing. I admire all who devote their youth to the study of philosophy, and I wish there were more academic jobs for them. I am angry at the system, and I’m on the side of the job candidates […]. Job candidates should keep in mind that many now successful philosophers—probably some of those now reading your dossier or interviewing you—failed to get a job their first year on the market, or even their second.”
These quotes speak against the innate vocation model, and I think reflect Wood’s explicit endorsements. I think they are in tension with some of the things he says later, but I don’t think that’s idiosyncratic to him.
In talking about writing samples, which are a different beast from what graduate students have been spending their energies on (i.e. a dissertation), Wood writes,
“I must also be brutally honest at this point. Many years spent reading philosophy of all kinds has given me the ability (or at least the belief that I have the ability) to spot a sharp, talented, well-trained philosophical mind rather quickly. If a writing sample, or even its first five pages, is a self-evident exhibition of less than this, then it would be a waste of my time to read the rest of the dossier. It is fortunate for us doing job searches that most applicants betray quite early in their writing sample that they are not outstanding, not competitive. That saves us a lot of time. If this makes those of us who read dossiers sound like jerks, try to think of us instead as limited human beings with limited time to do the onerous work of vetting many, many dossiers.”
I’m not sure if Wood is trying to explain the sort of mindset he gets into in order to judge writing samples, which is different from the mindset he takes once he doesn’t need to eliminate 100+ candidates. After Derek Bowman points out how the above quote is in tension with what Wood said in Part 1, Wood replied, “if […] we don’t approach writing samples with the assumption that we have such an ability, we could never do the job that a search committee has to do.” So that is some evidence for this being a more pragmatic attitude that Wood takes when judging applications.
But Bowman points out, “You seem unaware of the attitude your words seem to convey when you say you think you can “spot a sharp, talented, well-trained philosophical mind rather quickly.” The implication of this claim […] is that the candidates that you eliminate during this stage, by and large, do not have “sharp, talented, well-trained” minds.”
The idea that some people simply have “sharp, talented, well-trained” minds, and that this can be spotted from the very first page of a document which is a different sort of animal than the one you have been spending years of your life on, is, intimidating to say the least. And I think it supports the innate vocation model, even with the “well-trained” thrown in there, because of how immediately this fact can supposedly be spotted.
“At this point, the twenty or so really viable candidates have been selected. For these survivors, letters of recommendation and other materials are read more carefully.”
I picked up a sense of tension when I read this quote. On the one hand, “survivors” indicate that we are survivors of an unfair process, not the worthy few who have made it. But, the description of “really viable” indicates that everyone else just aren’t viable—which could potentially endorse the innate vocation model, that look, you just either are viable or you aren’t. Viable means, “capable of working successfully.” So once you aren’t viable, it’s hard to see how you could become more viable in the future, since the word is implying something about your capability overall.
There are also some tensions in Woods post concerning how meritocratic the whole process is, and the degree to which we are justified in connecting our successes in the field to our merit:
“If your application survives and makes it to the interview stage—which usually includes only a dozen or so names out of hundreds of applicants—you may be tempted to feel good about this. By rights, you should.”
(merit 1, sheer dumb luck 0)
“If you are one of the lucky few,”
(merit 1, sheer dumb luck 1)
“Much could be written about the current circumstances, in which many very talented and well-trained young philosophers are applying for jobs at places where the entire faculty are their intellectual inferiors.”
(merit 2, sheer dumb luck 0)
“The point is that most of the time a failed interview does not necessarily say anything negative about you.”
(merit 2, sheer dumb luck 2)
“Careful preparation, practice, and innate talent for interviewing are perhaps necessary conditions for an interview that impresses people, but it always seems to me to be mostly a matter of dumb luck.”
(merit 2, sheer dumb luck 3)
Again, I want to stipulate, I have heard this sort of contradictory, back-and-forth ping ponging between merit and luck from others in the field. I’ve even caught myself thinking it at times. So I think it’s something the whole profession needs to confront.
“Whatever the outcome, you should never take the process, or yourself, too seriously. One of my most successful students, when offered the job at a highly prestigious philosophy department where he has since gotten tenure, said to me, “I don’t deserve this.” I always liked and admired him, but never more than when he said that.”
This felt weird to hear after Wood had said in the previous post that, “you may be tempted to feel good about this. By rights, you should.” Like okay, yes feel good about it, but if you want to REALLY be worthy of admiration, don’t feel good about it loud. …I don't think that is helpful for our psychological well-being.
““Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” If you get a good job, the only thing you have to be glad about is that what you didn’t deserve turned out to be better than what Little Bill didn’t deserve. Hold tight to that thought and you might just hold on to your humanity.”
So again, desert and merit are irrelevant here, Wood says…
“Some of these unjustly disadvantaged people have succeeded, through incredible talent, effort, and good fortune. Congratulate them and give them credit, but don’t cite them as arguments that everything is okay.”
…unless you’re disadvantaged. Then you can totally celebrate your merit. (Again, I have heard this contradiction regarding when to give yourself credit before.)
“No decent person can be satisfied succeeding in an unjust world; nobody should ever want to succeed because the world is unjust. But those who are successful ought always to be vividly aware that their success has probably been due to injustices of one kind or another. One lesson to take away from this, of course, is that we should all be trying to make the process fairer than it is.”
I have no beef with this; I want to highlight that I appreciated hearing this from a tenured professor.
“The fact that they didn’t hire you is usually a sign that you wouldn’t have wanted the job anyway. (This is not “sour grapes”; it’s usually true.)”
Similarly, this is a nice counter-point to the MIV model.
“There are also worse things than not getting any academic job at all. They include getting the wrong job—a job at a place where they mistreat you, demoralize you, or strangle or snuff out your interest in philosophy altogether, turning you into a bad philosopher or an imitation-philosopher. Some people who get such jobs go on to make a living by leading empty, despicable lives. (They should have gone into something else—anything else, as long as it is useful to people and they have a talent for it.) Others are gutsy enough to stay in philosophy and look for a better job, one where they can flourish. I admire those who have such guts, but I do not think less of those who leave academic philosophy altogether. If you are wise, you want to be hired at an institution and a department that won’t mistreat or exploit you, where you’re likely to have colleagues who respect you for good reasons and whom you can respect in turn, where you will enjoy teaching, and where your own thinking will flourish.”
This is a mixed bag. It is attempting to construct a counter-narrative to something like MIV, but I think the talk of talent and virtue backfires. It implies that people who leave philosophy are less gutsy than people who stay. But for one, it takes money to stay in philosophy, which Wood doesn’t acknowledge here.
But again, I think the emphasis on professional flourishing is really great here, and not something we hear a lot in the profession!
“At its best, an academic career can be just about the best life anybody could hope for.”
“But not everyone is cut out for an academic career.”
These two quotes together are rather devastating. I think they undermine a lot of what Wood is working towards in these posts: supporting people on the job market, even the people who might not end up staying in philosophy. He has acknowledged that the job market is horrendously unfair. But now he reminds us, “but succeeding is pretty damn awesome,” and then suggests, “and maybe if you don’t succeed you weren’t cut out for it.” You weren’t meant to have it. It wasn’t in you.
As I mentioned in my last post, when things are tied up with our self-identity, this can make them doubly hard, because the stakes for messing up or failing out are that much higher. So the prospect of leaving philosophy is, for many people, not just potentially admitting failure for a 5-10+ year endeavor, but also, a potential threat to our very integrity as a coherent self.
I think suggesting that some of us aren’t “cut out” for philosophy or academic life is a huge endorsement for the MIV model, and one that can seriously fuck with people’s heads. And this is a phrase I hear All. The. Time. regarding graduate school and academia.
“Some people trained in philosophy find their training valuable for doing more worthwhile things. If I had the talents such people have, I might have chosen to do something else. But in my case, philosophy is the thing I do best, simply because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at.”
“My own life, for instance, though hardly perfect, has nevertheless been pretty much one of working hard at the only thing I’ve ever been able to do at all”
This is a riff on a common refrain I have heard, which is, “I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life besides philosophy.” And again, it messes with our heads are graduate students to be told that we are irresponsible if we don’t have a plan B for our career, but then we hear successful people say that they just could never bring themselves to even consider a plan B.
It makes having a plan B look like you just aren’t as dedicated to philosophy, or don’t belong here. Like it’s not really your vocation.
I am going to repeat what a colleague of mine pointed out once:
'When people say they can’t imagine themselves doing anything other than philosophy, I don’t take that as a sign of their dedication to the field. I take that as a sign of their lack of imagination.' (paraphrasing)
I will qualify, I take it as a sign of some people’s lack of a need for such imagination (if they are already successful in the field), or pride in stipulating such a lack of imagination (in accordance with the MIV model).
I hope this post helps to point out the way that we often endorse the MIV model, even unintentionally, and why this is a bad model to endorse.
I've tried to talk about a lot here, and I recognize that I've glossed over some nuanced points and further issues in places. So please feel free to point those things out and talk about them in the comments! I think I've also conflated a few different claims about philosophy being meritocratic in practice, it being ideally meritocratic, and philosophy requiring talent. So also feel free to pick apart those threads more carefully than I have done so here.
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