Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
I read an article in The Guardian recently about this thing called Race2Dinner.
It’s not a new article, nor, indeed, is it a new program. But I think Race2Dinner captures something critical about the neuroses of certain professional class liberals and progressives.
Let’s talk a bit about that.
As we head toward the end of the year, we have something of a transitional reading list. There’s still a little baseball on it. But, at the same time, I’m also reading a few things that are a bit cozier.
Read on to find out what. And, as always, let me know what you’re reading these days!
When I got the latest issue of Current Affairs in the mail in August, the article on life coaching by Ronald Purser stood out to me.
I’ve never hired a life coach. Nor, thankfully, have I ever desired to become one. But I’ve flirted a few times with the idea of working with a therapist – or even a coach – around career issues. Why not hire an impartial professional to talk through these issues with you? It seems like a good idea.
That’s all to say that a person who starts a blog about, among other things, alienation and corporate ennui might have a few issues in those areas with discussing with a professional. Who’d have known?
In his article, Purser makes all the criticisms of the life coaching industry we’d expect. The issues Purser raises are the same ones that keep people like me from seriously considering getting into life coaching, as either practitioner or client.
What are those issues? There are no meaningful standards or regulations in the industry. Various grifters use life coaching and related marketing campaigns to make quick money. Even Silicon Valley has gotten in on the game by investing that sweet, sweet VC money.
So should we celebrate our victory after exposing the life coaching industry for its shortcomings? Not exactly.
More than anything, I think we should feel a sense of disappointment or missed opportunity. The issues people bring to life coaches are real, even if the coaching isn’t. And people should have access to what they need. In short, life coaching fills a real niche, however badly.
There are many things we deserve in a socialist society. A ‘life coach’ worth having is one of those things.
I grew up in a Catholic family in the rural Midwest. This was a mostly Protestant (or “non-denominational Christian,” which, in my book, just means “Protestant”) part of the country. Part of growing up Catholic in rural Protestant country meant listening to all sorts of anti-Catholic sentiment. Maybe that’s gone now, but it survived well past the integration of Catholics into the U.S. following the JFK presidency.
I’m no longer a Catholic.
Formally, I haven’t been a Catholic since my late teens or early 20s. That is to say that I haven’t gone to church regularly or engaged with the Catholic Church since then. But, really, I haven’t been a Catholic believer since my mid-teens. Like many young people, I kept going to church until I moved away for college.
But my attitude toward the Catholic Church has changed quite a bit in the last year or so.
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