Until a few years ago, I’d never desired to go to business school. And I don’t just mean that I never wanted to enroll in (a) business school, like: I’d never even had the thought, “Huh, I should go into that building over there, which is a business school.” But as I worked through the 20+ years of education that I’ve now accrued — and especially toward the end of it — I have on several occasions wondered what the people in such buildings were doing, and whether, just maybe, I might have something to learn from (or perhaps with) them.
So during the last two years of my PhD I bought a bunch of “business books.” And I started taking “Strength Finders” and “Skill Assessments.” I visited the Graduate Career Center at Notre Dame slightly more regularly than I went to therapy (and slightly less than I went to mass). I started to appreciate the “philosophy of business” (related, of course, to the philosophy of work) exactly at the same time I started to distain the “business of philosophy.” (That’s a much longer post…)
And then, seemingly out of the blue,1 it came:2 An invitation from the Mendoza College of Business to speak at an orientation for business students (!) Without hesitating (I believe the time-stamp on my email will confirm that this took me a total of 37 seconds to read and respond), I accepted this offer. And then, in the conspicuous silence my office takes on after the euphoric rush of responding to a positive email, I started to wonder: What would Aristotle say to these curious souls?
Well, I won’t keep you in suspense. I started with my “Survivor” schtick, and used it to springboard into an activity that I called “One Truth and a Lie” (much like the game “Two Truths and a Lie,” except — you guessed it — for the number of truths I asked each person to tell). I had each pair keep score, and — after they’d played a couple of rounds — I had the “winners” raise their hands.
“Congratulations!” I said, “You just won a game that tests, chiefly, for your ability to seamlessly lie and engage in social manipulation.” I let that sink in. “So how do you feel about yourselves?”
I wish I could say that this is where things got ugly, and where I started in on an uninterrupted Marxist diatribe (I wish this only because it’s a funny image), but, of course, I was joking and we all had a good laugh.
But here’s the thing about philosophical jokes. We often laugh at them to cover over some deep, otherwise un-articulable truth. This was my guiding assumption, anyway, and we spent the rest of the time talking about whether it’s okay to “gamify” one’s career, whether it’s possible to separate who we are at work from who we are at home, and whether the fact that “everybody knows” that some competitive environment encourages various forms of vice (social manipulation, lying, credit-taking) makes it okay to engage in those activities.
The material was all drawn from my upcoming “Philosophy of Work” course (trailer below), which I’m finding connects with…well, almost everyone. And I guess this makes total sense. Work is (as I say in that trailer) a ubiquitous human activity. We’ve all got our work, and — more relevant for my purposes — we’ve all got our work worries, angst, problems, anxiety, hopes, fears, fascinations…we could go on!
In any case, the discussion at business school orientation blew my mind. The thoughtfulness these students brought to the table, the questions they asked, the ideas I came away from the talk with — well, it all reinforced my initial hunch (a hunch had late in my educational career) that, yes, indeed, the business-minded and I had a great deal to converse about…I even scored a small (possibly pyrrhic) victory when the vast majority of students admitted, in a post-talk survey, that my discussion of Aristotle, Mill, and the meaning of work had induced in them a — quote — “Epistemological Crisis” 🤦♂️.
But they let me plug my TikTok, show my course trailer (seriously, you should watch it, it’s just right below this section!), and share a few laughs. So, all in all, a great day. I very much look forward to my next “business endeavor.”
-pb
Deep(ish) Thoughts
What’s that, you say? You’re wondering where the trailer for my work class is? Well, you came to the right place! Here’s a teaser. There’s more on my YouTube channel (link below), and I’ll be putting all the resources that I (legally) can put online onto the internet just as quickly as I’m able. So, I guess: Watch this space for more info about “The Working Life…”
(As always, if you like what you see here, feel free to subscribe to my channel here.)
Parting Recs 🥕
You guys, I accidentally bought myself two presents for Father’s Day (and even after my family gave me several perfect, very thoughtful gifts). These books arrived from Amazon twice, even after they messaged me to say they were “undeliverable” (?)
But my selfish-thoughtlessness is your gain! I already gave away my extra copy of “The Burnout Society.” (Which, as I told the friend to whom I gave it, is a very uneven — amazing / painfully bad — read.)
But if you want the extra copy of “Christ and Apollo” then you just have to engage in some possibly degrading self-commodification (sorry!) — Get a friend to subscribe to my newsletter. Their gift is my newsletter, delivered to their inbox for free on a regular basis — you’re a good friend to get them such a good gift!!
But you already have that. So your gift entry into a drawing to win my extra copy of “Christ and Apollo.” (Well worth it!)
How to cash in?
Get a friend to sign-up.
Send me their initials (via email — pblaschk@nd.edu — or via the comments below).
While you’re at it, tell me why you’re here and what you’d love to see in the next few editions of this newsletter.
And I’ll enter you in a raffle.
The pool is small, people, so your chances of winning, if entered, are likely about as good as the chance that South Bend will have either rain or life-snuffing humidity in the next 7 days…just sayin’!
Here are the buttons you’ll need!
Of course, it didn’t come out of the blue at all. They got my name from my mentor, Meghan, who declined the opportunity and threw it my way (thanks, Meghan!) because that’s how it works in the biz…
Uh-oh, I just realized you can create footnotes in Substack. I’m so sorry, everyone, but your reading experience with this newsletter is about to get way more complicated…