Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

In the 19th century you had the same job for life. If you were a blacksmith you stayed a blacksmith and died a blacksmith in the village where you were born. Your surname was synonymous with your skill. Wheeler. Smith. Potter. Even in the mid 20th century people worked for the same company for life. The "corporate" (body) world meant something very different than today. The corporation took care of you. It paid for your health and holidays. If you were unhappy in work, it helped sort that out so you would stay. As late as the 1960s, and still for some people who work in government, and still a culture in Japan, you can get a "job for life".

"Career" means to move haphazardly. It replaced the more stable notions of "vocation" and "calling". Today you might spend a year in hospitality, a few years in sales, then do a diploma in programming, move to California, get into media design, and then open a juice bar on the beach... Everyone is at the mercy of ever swirling markets and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, layoffs and takeovers, new trends. Who here didn't "get into AI" in the last 2 years?

In a way that's a richer better life. It's more challenging. It is also shallower. There are less places to put down roots and grow anything worthwhile. People with active minds and a lust for life naturally outgrow scenes, groups and institutions. Moving on should be an exciting joy. What I see of America and UK now (at least here on HN) is that people are held in place by fear. We've regressed to 19th century ideas about work and life, minus the positive 'belonging'.

What I think people sometimes "grieve" is the sunk-cost spiritual investment in what they thought an institution represented. Or they found themselves in an career that is in decline. or in institutions that have decayed - and it's painful to move on. Those reasons may be emotionally noble; loyalty, fidelity to values etc. You can let go of values and of a dream. Or you can take them with you, by realising that they never belonged to any "institution" in the first place. They're yours.

Academia is definitely that place in 2024. The reality of academic life is the antithesis of human values we traditionally associate it with. If the institutions we inhabit are inflexible, ineffectual, and less than our ambitions then it's time to move on. The problem is not so much that people identify with what they "do", but where and with whom they do it. It's a strong and valuable kind of person who keeps their calling/purpose separate from their employment identity.

This article is from 2014, the year should be included in the title

I've seen similar reactions and I can't help but think she's intentionally communicating provocatively to make people engage their brains.

You shouldn't just "take her seriously", you should take what she says *critically*. Hear the information and opinions, then decide for yourself whether to accept them.

> just how serious should she... be taken?

Very seriously indeed if you value higher education and research.

Lot's of people do. Over a decade ago now, Ben Ginsberg wrote "Fall of the Faculty". Political scientists like Wendy Brown have picked apart not only the evidence, but done deep analytical work on the reasons for the disintegration of academia in the West. Even Peter Thiel (who I profoundly disagree with on almost everything) has given knock-down commentary that I find impossible to ignore on how academia went to seed, and is now unfit for teaching, learning and honest research.

From a personal perspective; I worked in universities for over 30 years. What we have now is unrecognisable from the institutions I started teaching at in the early 1990s. Almost all human values have been expunged and replaced by a puppet show of performative theatrics, led by MBA educated impostors and career administrators. It is fake to the core. I no longer recognise these places as universities. I've seen brilliant colleagues go crazy, retire early, turn to alcohol and drugs, commit suicide, or just wander off to live in the mountains and grow vegetables. I refuse to believe all those smart and dedicated people are/were "weak". Academia is a very toxic place and I would not advise any "smart and sensitive" person to go into that life if you value your health.

When you consider how much it costs a nation to educate someone to PhD level and then look at the churn and attrition, it's a massive bonfire of wealth.

I've written numerous pieces in the Times Higher on specific failings of universities, but one cannot halt a juggernaut of change with words alone. Now I am left only with curiosity at how higher education will change and what will come after.

My response has been to conduct and publish my own research independently outside the "academic system" and to start my own companies for teaching. By my standards, both are successful.

edit: grammar

I think - no, I fear, fear is the right word - that there is much more than just academia disintegrating in the West.

> Almost all human values have been expunged and replaced by a puppet show of performative theatrics, led by MBA educated impostors and career administrators.

Not just academia.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.