I’ve been sitting on a new version of my ‘The Book I’m Writing’ post for a few weeks because I’m not super happy with how it’s turned out. The guts of the post is that, having read Foucault, I’d like to have each chapter talk about the ‘birth’ (read: contingent construction) of an idea that … Continue reading A review of Melissa Gregg’s “Counterproductive”
Tag: Ivan Illich
Words matter
Both ‘work’ and ‘job’ are key words today. Neither had its prominence three hundred years ago. Both are still untranslatable from European languages into many others. Most languages never have one single word to designate all activities that are considered useful. Some languages happen to have a word for activities demanding pay. This word usually … Continue reading Words matter
Discipline and Governance in the Neoliberal Workplace
My boss recently told me that in order to do my job I’d need to take work home with me. This is not the first time this has happened, but this time was different. I work in sales, and what my boss was trying to tell me was that to generate leads I needed to … Continue reading Discipline and Governance in the Neoliberal Workplace
Is it Bedrock All the Way Down?
I was only a few pages into Max Weber’s influential 1930 work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, when I came across this sentence: “The modern rational organisation of the capitalistic enterprise would not have been possible without two other important factors in its development: the separation of business from the household, which … Continue reading Is it Bedrock All the Way Down?
Two Codas
One of the perils of this sort of blogging is that you don't ever really get to go back and add stuff in, that's less blogging and more drafting, and is as such reserved for the writing process proper. Nevertheless, these two tidbits add some depth to prevous posts. For my post on Graeber's Bullshit … Continue reading Two Codas
Households of One: Shadow Work in the Epoch of Self-Management
My alarm used to wake me up. For some reason of late I haven’t needed it. Every morning I am drawn from slumber well ahead of when I’d like to be by the fact I need to be at work. Every morning, despite the fact I don’t work for two days out of seven. I … Continue reading Households of One: Shadow Work in the Epoch of Self-Management
Performance Anxiety 