Scan barcode
wrycounsel's review
3.0
Interesting. A little bit derailed by Graeber wanting to use his avid sexual interest in BDSM to explain the whole of the world. Dude, no, it is not all BDSM. He even cites hearsay gossip that he has personally heard to say Michele Foucault was nicer to people once he starting doing BDSM. Get the fuck outta here.
He seamlessly and without credit absorbs and regurgitates decades of feminist theory about work and money and yet he won't admit that feminism is the true universal analytical tool ... because he wants to talk about BDSM and safe words and stuff in the middle of quite lucid anthropological analysis.
HOWEVER - many of his observations about working life are fascinating and this book is very fun to read. I would recommend.
The Korean version had a funny mistranslation: The sexual slang Pussy was translated to literally say Pretty Little Cat (예쁜 고양이) and that one sentence turned into utter gibberish before I figured it out.
He seamlessly and without credit absorbs and regurgitates decades of feminist theory about work and money and yet he won't admit that feminism is the true universal analytical tool ... because he wants to talk about BDSM and safe words and stuff in the middle of quite lucid anthropological analysis.
HOWEVER - many of his observations about working life are fascinating and this book is very fun to read. I would recommend.
The Korean version had a funny mistranslation: The sexual slang Pussy was translated to literally say Pretty Little Cat (예쁜 고양이) and that one sentence turned into utter gibberish before I figured it out.
jcoker10's review
5.0
Not sure how I haven’t already read this?? The final installment of my Graeber binge…and boy was it worth it. Remarkable.
skmiles's review
4.0
So much more than what I thought it would be. Though it's a tiny bit out of date, the theory remains relevant for so many different sectors of post-Covid society. I feel like I'm now the annoying person who, every time someone points out an economic problem or whatever, refers back to the same book again and again. It's my go to.
harlando's review
5.0
This was great! I like books that make me think. These seem to come in two varieties: completely novel ideas and the systematic analysis of an idea that you may have had, but never fully developed. Who has not been at work, considered their situation, and said, "this is some bullshit!" There surely are people who have not, but the vast majority of contemporary working America has thought their own work, and the work of many others, was bullshit.
I have worked for the US Army for almost 20 years. The Army afforded me the opportunity to do many different jobs during that time. Some of these jobs were bullshit jobs. The Army itself is not bullshit. Whether you think the US Army produces strength and safety or fear and destruction ("and what is safety but the sound of a bomb falling on someone else's house), it does produce. There has been a steady 'bullshitization' of the Army throughout my career. The Army I entered as a lieutenant was very different from the Army at war a few years later which was very different from the largely post-Iraq/Afghanistan Army of today*
For emergency use only: I was particularly struck by the section where one of your interviewees connected the hostility and discomfort in her workplace to her employers inability to admit that her primary duties were basically on-call. She was given small useless tasks to occupy her time between the irregular phone calls and customer interactions that were her primary duty. The Army is an organization that is almost entirely for use in "emergencies." Despite our recent reputation for war-mongering, for the past several years the bulk of the force has not been engaged in combat. There was a period from 2003 to around 2012 where a lot of Soldiers were deployed for combat operations. The preceding period, from the first gulf-war to 9/11 was largely peaceful. During and immediately after the height of the war one could hear Soldiers grumbling about "garrison bullshit," those things that one only did on an Army base that seemed to serve no purpose. The favorite was the mandatory wear of reflective safety belts for a wide variety of activities or times of day.
Soldiers who are not fighting are supposed to be training and preparing to fight.
* I am well aware that Soldiers are still serving in both countries and that America is fighting in many more locations, which most citizens and many Soldiers couldn't locate on a map, but the US Army is no longer an Army at war. For 5-8years, roughly 2004-2012, everyone in the Army was going to war. That wasn't literally true. Many people served that entire period without going, but they were a small and suspect minority. There was a pervasive feeling that everyone was going to deploy, maybe many times, and that mindset made a huge difference.
Over the past several years I have been becoming increasingly unhappy with Army life. At first, I blamed this on location or on personal problems, but recently I have begun to see that it is due to a transition from clear focus to purposelessness. My happiest years were the years I was at war or preparing to go to war. Those periods had purpose. Much of my work in the peacetime Army seems to lack meaning. I go to meetings, send emails, but often feel that a lot of what I and my Soldiers do is not materially affecting defense.
It could be that I have lived a sheltered life and that outside the Army things will be much different. With retirement about a year away i am looking forward to finding out.
I have worked for the US Army for almost 20 years. The Army afforded me the opportunity to do many different jobs during that time. Some of these jobs were bullshit jobs. The Army itself is not bullshit. Whether you think the US Army produces strength and safety or fear and destruction ("and what is safety but the sound of a bomb falling on someone else's house), it does produce. There has been a steady 'bullshitization' of the Army throughout my career. The Army I entered as a lieutenant was very different from the Army at war a few years later which was very different from the largely post-Iraq/Afghanistan Army of today*
For emergency use only: I was particularly struck by the section where one of your interviewees connected the hostility and discomfort in her workplace to her employers inability to admit that her primary duties were basically on-call. She was given small useless tasks to occupy her time between the irregular phone calls and customer interactions that were her primary duty. The Army is an organization that is almost entirely for use in "emergencies." Despite our recent reputation for war-mongering, for the past several years the bulk of the force has not been engaged in combat. There was a period from 2003 to around 2012 where a lot of Soldiers were deployed for combat operations. The preceding period, from the first gulf-war to 9/11 was largely peaceful. During and immediately after the height of the war one could hear Soldiers grumbling about "garrison bullshit," those things that one only did on an Army base that seemed to serve no purpose. The favorite was the mandatory wear of reflective safety belts for a wide variety of activities or times of day.
Soldiers who are not fighting are supposed to be training and preparing to fight.
* I am well aware that Soldiers are still serving in both countries and that America is fighting in many more locations, which most citizens and many Soldiers couldn't locate on a map, but the US Army is no longer an Army at war. For 5-8years, roughly 2004-2012, everyone in the Army was going to war. That wasn't literally true. Many people served that entire period without going, but they were a small and suspect minority. There was a pervasive feeling that everyone was going to deploy, maybe many times, and that mindset made a huge difference.
Over the past several years I have been becoming increasingly unhappy with Army life. At first, I blamed this on location or on personal problems, but recently I have begun to see that it is due to a transition from clear focus to purposelessness. My happiest years were the years I was at war or preparing to go to war. Those periods had purpose. Much of my work in the peacetime Army seems to lack meaning. I go to meetings, send emails, but often feel that a lot of what I and my Soldiers do is not materially affecting defense.
It could be that I have lived a sheltered life and that outside the Army things will be much different. With retirement about a year away i am looking forward to finding out.