I’m not sure that it is very reassuring as an indication of career prospects, but that depends greatly on perspective. What I am sure of is that it raises some very important questions. Read:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0910/arts_sciences/philosopher.shtml
it’s worth the time, in my opinion.
Specifically, I think that the Subject hits a few ideas right on the head. Most importantly, to me:
“Too often,” he declares, “the defenders of free markets forget that what we really want is free men.”
and, following close behind:
Rejecting the false dichotomy between thinking and doing …
I’ve got another six months of institutionalized education, and then it’s off to the “real world”. That fact has me thinking about what I want to do, where I want to go, what kind of a person I should struggle to be. (I’m convinced that in a capitalistic system “being” is a struggle.) A mode of thinking that’s always been useful for me before is to look at what isn’t or shouldn’t be – and those thoughts leave me rejecting the corporate rat race. Sure, the money is nice – but the time stolen is irreplaceable. The exploitation is insulting and the alienation nauseating. I’m with Marx on at least one idea, alienation is not good: I want to have a connection with what I make. And I do want to make things. Those things don’t necessarily have to be tangible, but they ought to be perceptible.
There’s something about being a cog that just upsets my very being. The quote on “free men” speaks to me loudly and clearly. It’s hard for me to believe that the idea could ever be received with dismissal. Which leaves me wondering if it ever is, or if the more pressing demands of life (hunger, shelter, etc.) simply push the more philosophical and principal-based ‘necessities’ clear out of the picture.
To what extent must rigorous thought, freedom, and “success” be opposed? Clearly, there are some of us out there who simply reject the existence of the opposition as an insurmountable obstacle, but why is that so rare? (Why does the story usually go like: pick two.)
Food for thought… (foreshadowing my future, albeit in an externally-inaccessible way.)