Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Page 18 of 116

Life Coaches?

November 13, 2023 /

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.

A statue of St. Anthony holding Jesus. The statue represents for this article the Catholic Church and its stance on abortion.

The Catholic Church Crossed a Line

November 6, 2023 /

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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Imagine has a group of factory workers entering the factory after being tended by women acting as doctors and healers. A caption reads 'Capitalism also depends on domestic labor.' The image represents social reproduction theory.

Social Reproduction Theory

October 30, 2023 /

In the recent edited collection Social Reproduction Theory, Tithi Bhattacharya and others make timely contributions to Marxist feminism.

Their main message is that rather than commodities, labor plays a central role in both production and the social reproduction of society. Contrary to dual-system theory, Bhattacharya and others see social reproduction theory as offering a unitary account of production and reproduction. Unlike many early Marxists, however, they center labor and class conflict in explaining both.

I’ll take a closer look at Bhattacharya’s introduction to the volume, as well as her essay in the collection. I think her work, in particular, best captures the spirit of the approach.

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Photo of two women arguing in a white-collar workplace.

Working With People You Don’t Like

October 23, 2023 /

I’ve worked lots of jobs in the past 25 years. I’ve also joined, led, followed, and otherwise engaged with many, many activist groups over that same time period. And I can say I’ve met a lot of characters while doing these things.

What I’m saying is that I’ve seen conflicts. I’ve even participated in a few conflicts myself. And I’ve even learned a few tricks for how to handle conflicts.

Part of the background to conflict involves working with people you don’t like. And when you’ve worked in that many jobs and with that many activist groups, you’ll end up working with people you don’t like. I’ve certainly done that plenty of times, both on the job and in activist groups.

I could say lots of things about how to do it. But the first thing I’d say? Standard workplace advice misses the point.

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The cover of the book Chasing Baseball, by author Dorothy Seymour Mills. Intended as the cover photo for the October Reading List 2023 post.

October Reading List (2023)

October 19, 2023 /

I have to admit I love the fall. Readers can probably tell, given that all my reading list posts this time of year praise it. I’m not turning into full Pumpkin Spice Latte Man here. But I do enjoy taking a book to the park and spending an afternoon or evening reading.

What’s on my list now? Read on to find out.

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