White Coat, Black Hat

Real employment

Dear Ethicator,

Once upon a time I told your brother that I was thinking about applying to philosophy graduate school. He told me that if I got a Ph.D. in philosophy I’d probably be fated to checking bags at the airport. I disregarded your brother’s bullshit comment and entered a philosophy Ph.D. program, only to find that he was kind of right; it’s darn-near impossible to get a job in philosophy. Your brother has been very successful in philosophy, but now we all know that this was only because he had a brilliant younger brother whose ideas he could plagiarize. I don’t have any siblings. Is there any other way to become a successful philosopher or am I doomed to work at the airport?

Thanks, Ethicator!
Possible future TSA employee

Dear employee:
I am not sure how I am supposed to reason with someone who admits to drawing career inspiration from my brother.

Nonetheless, if you are an academic parasite like Carl, and are looking for an intellectual host to feed on, you would do well to get one of those airport bag-checking jobs you’re dismissing. I know a few people in that line of work. Most got unionized jobs right out of high school, have pensions, and maybe even air passes that let them fly out to see Lakers games on long weekends. If you’re like most philosophy PhDs, I’m guessing that your last vacation was in a ’94 Sentra, driving to some airport hotel over Christmas holidays to interview for a six-month job grading freshman logic exams.

So what am I saying here? Spend some time working with the airport folks, and start stealing ideas from them, because they are clearly smarter than you are. Then you can impart to your colleagues lots of ideas previously unknown to academic philosophers, such as basic labor market supply-and-demand.

Happy feeding,

The Ethicator

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