This post is a speech I gave about a year ago as a part of a local Toastmasters group. It’s an introduction to, well, myself. They call it an Icebreaker speech.
For anyone unfamiliar, Toastmasters is an organization for developing and promoting public speaking skills. The first speech you give as a part of the organization is an ‘Icebreaker,’ or an introduction of yourself to the group.
I’ve made some light edits to the icebreaker speech. This includes light copy editing, updating of dates (the speech is about a year old), and minor tinkering to fit the change from spoken to written format.
Finding a Job
About seven years ago, I was standing awkwardly in a massive ballroom in the Omni Hotel in Washington, D.C. The ballroom was packed with philosophy grad students, each sporting zero jobs, one PhD, and the sartorial elegance of Chris Farley. The occasion was a conference held by the American Philosophical Association.
A scraggly-bearded young man with the stench of fear, sweat, and failed aspirations began rapid-firing questions at me. He asked about my dissertation, my philosophical interests, my job interviews. Presumably he asked about other things after I spaced out.
You’ve heard the networking advice:
1. People love talking about themselves. Get people to talk about themselves!
2. ???
3. Job!
I do not love talking about myself. It’s a bit worse than driving in heavy traffic and a bit better than watching Duck Dynasty.
Here’s why I don’t like talking about myself.
A Midwestern Philosopher
One, I’ve lived in the Midwest for 35 years. In the Midwest, we don’t toot our own horns. That’s a normative claim, everyone, not a descriptive claim. Spare me your counterexamples.
The Midwest stretches from Lake Wobegon to northern Kentucky. I’ve lived at both ends, but grew up in the southern part. Our passive aggressiveness is more cheerful than the dour Lutheranism of the Minnesotan. Occasionally it even comes with a “bless your heart.” But it’s distinctly midwestern.
But, two, I was trained as a professional philosopher. That’s why I was in that miserable ballroom. When philosophers do it properly, they focus attention away from themselves and toward the world.
Martin Heidegger once began a lecture on Aristotle as follows: “Regarding the personality of the philosopher, our only interest is that he was born at a certain time, that he worked, and that he died.” After that, he proceeded to give the real lecture. You know, the one on Aristotelian philosophy.
That’s how it’s done. It’s about ideas, not people. Maybe even that’s too much of a biography for me. I haven’t died yet.
So, what’s the deal? Why don’t philosophers like talking about themselves?
Philosophers want to understand the world and perhaps change it. This is cheesy, cringe-inducing stuff. But it’s the truth.
Personality? Charm? Charisma? Money? At best, these things are distractions. At worst, impediments. These are the tricks of the rhetorician, politician, businessperson, and religious leader.
Rhetoricians and politicians forced Socrates to drink poison. Allegedly, a Roman Catholic priest murdered Descartes. Supposedly the priest did it with an arsenic-laced communion wafer. And if you’re the sort of person who reads my blog, I doubt I need to lay out what business people think about Karl Marx.
When philosophers do their jobs well, these people are afraid.
Postscript
Okay, so I’ll admit, people are suspicious when others don’t want to talk about themselves. Especially in an icebreaker. They suspect those people have something to hide.
And Heidegger did have something to hide. He was a Nazi. And not in any metaphorical sense. He was a member of the German Nazi Party in the 1930s.
But Heidegger is the exception here, not the rule. Many others just don’t like to have their lives on display and don’t need the attention. We want to do more important things.
