I Won't Feel Helpless

Barb: It is hard for me to move from "black and white" as you put it. When I try to, I end up right back where I started. For example, you state that "corporate and municipal clients need real estate contracts, bond financings, bankruptcy assistance" and, from my reading, you are implying that such work is - at worst - morally neutral. I just can't agree with that. You and I and everyone else have a limit to how much time we have in any given day. If we are spending that time helping a company through bankruptcy, that means (assuming we find deep satisfaction in bankruptcy law), we are not using that time to help a working-class family escape from crushing debt through bankruptcy. To me, one is "helping" and one is reinforcing the status quo. I am not (here, at least) making the argument that reinforcing the status quo makes you a bad person or means that you are wasting your degree. I am simply saying that the status quo is a pretty messed-up place and so even seemingly innocuous actions that support it (helping a big box store with a real estate transaction, for example) (1) take away precious time from making real change and (2) further entrench the messed-up status quo, making it that much harder for those working to change it.

Eben: I think that is right. There seem to be many of us, however, who are contemplating doing just what you are cautioning against. For those with a different worldview, there may be nothing wrong with protecting the status quo or further entrenching our unique form of capitalism. I fear that the same argument I make above - which for me means sitting on one side of the courtroom means, for them, sitting on the other side. I guess I am under the assumption that people take jobs that represent who they are and you seem to be implying that quite often people take jobs that are not truly representative of who they are and that is what makes them unhappy. I wonder if it is actually the realization that they are not who they thought/wished they were that causes such unhappiness. If I am right, then more energy should be spent (if you think defending GE is “bad”) convincing folks of your worldview then on convincing them to follow their heart. If you are right, quite the opposite is true. In the end, are you advocating that folks follow their heart, so to speak or that folks change the status quo (i.e. is happiness enough)? I am only advocating the former if it leads to the latter.

-- AdamCarlis - 21 Jan 2008