On the recommendation: “You have to love what you do”
One of the most common pieces of advice given by professors to their young ambitious students is that they should not pursue a career in academia, let alone go to grad school, unless they find that they are truly unable to desist doing philosophy. It must be more than a mere interest, or even passion: it must be pathological, obsessive, compulsive.
There is nothing innocent about this saying. But its insidiousness is often under-appreciated. This is nothing more than a capitalist ideology that brainwashes its victims into ignoring the fact that they are being exploited and mistreated by an evil workplace. If you love what you do, then you will be less willing to resist exploitation. Loving what you do, especially in this time in history, amounts to a command to be servile.
