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Hmm, well, I'm a social scientist so perhaps I'm a bit elitist about what counts as seriously understanding the world. It's not that there's no insight in what
by dash2 6y ago
Hmm, well, I'm a social scientist so perhaps I'm a bit elitist about what counts as seriously understanding the world.
It's not that there's no insight in what the guy says. Some of it is quite accurate. I think I would say that (nearly all) the insight was delivered by The Office in the first place. I never saw the US variant, but I LOVE the UK version. We like shows like that because they do speak to us - we do recognize the appalling awfulness of middle managers, or how decent people get stuck in dead ends.
The problem is the attempt to systematize and generalize and make some deep "theory" out of all this. It just isn't worthwhile. There's no sensible theory where everyone at the top is a sociopath, and everyone at the bottom is a realist, and every middle manager is an idiot. I mean, come on. And this "theory" isn't meant to be tested, and never will be... at best, it'll be written down in some kind of fun, pseudoscientific book like Bullshit Jobs.
To sum up, this guy mistakes ∃ for ∀.
- TameAntelope 6y agoOn most points here I’m in complete agreement, the only nit I would pick is that there should be room for fun insights like this. Articles that wouldn’t hold up under academic scrutiny, and woe betide the fool who bases their life outlook on an Office-based theory, but are fun to muse about, and to overthink a little bit, as you say, over beers with friends. How do we allow for work like that to be done? I would hate for this kind of silliness to be lost because it isn’t rigorous enough. Besides, the very people who would take this seriously are the same people who aren’t actively thinking and applying insights on how society interacts in their daily lives anyway.