No Home for You Here: A Memoir of Class and Culture by Adam Theron-Lee Rensch

Author:Adam Theron-Lee Rensch [Rensch, Adam Theron-Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Radicalism, Globalization, Political Ideologies, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781789142624
Google: 987ADwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49693501
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 2020-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

Follow along closely, I want to tell you a story about a man who thought that a college education owed him a job—a man who could have used some advice from Socrates.

Once upon a time, after five years of brain-dead factory work, a man returned to college. He had grandiose visions of a lucrative career, a new house, extra cash to live comfortably. Motivated by those visions, he toiled nights at the factory and attended school during the day.

He persevered, and after three stressful years of papers, lectures and exams, he graduated—an honors student with an impressive GPA. He was so certain of endless job offers he naively quit his factory job, unaware that the storm of economic recession was gathering. Resumes were mailed. Telephone calls were made. Interviews were held. Several encouraging interviews. On more than one occasion he was confident he would be hired for the job.

You know what happened?

He was unemployed for more than a year. Reluctantly, he tucked his tail between his legs and crawled back to the same factory. He hadn’t given up yet, but he did have to feed his wife and two children. More resumes went out, more interviews were held. And more rejections came back. He was beginning to accept his fate on the assembly line when bad turned to worse: It was announced that his factory was a part of a corporate “downsizing.” It would be closing in less than a year.

If you haven’t guessed, that’s my story. I know there are a lot of you out there with similar tales. It’s been reported that some 10 million Americans have lost jobs since 1987. Many of those people had a college education. Judging from the massive job cuts forecasted, the rest of this decade is looking pretty dismal, too.

What’s going on here? I slaved away for three years, working six-day weeks and studying, and all I have to show for it is a diploma hanging on the living-room wall and $500 a month in loan payments? Isn’t that diploma supposed to guarantee me the “good life?” Haven’t I wasted my education if I don’t find my career?

No, an education can’t promise you a job. No, education doesn’t guarantee the good life. Education was never meant for anything but its original intention: to educate and enlighten. If you land a job because of it, consider yourself fortunate. That’s a bonus.

Socrates, who defined the “good life” as one given to the cultivation of the soul, once said to the people of ancient Greece, “. . . Aren’t you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can . . . to advance your reputation and prestige . . . while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry?”

That’s what it’s all about. Truth and wisdom is what education can promise you if you look hard enough. It’s just tough to see it now, because somewhere among technological advance and free-market greed, American education became intertwined with professional careerism.

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