Europe's Unemployed Intellectuals

A few days ago, I suggested that misfits (meaning clever, unfocussed people who don't find a secure place in society) often develop into pretend entrepreneurs in the U.S., and cited a few examples of people I know in this "line of work."  Now to the European version, the unemployed intellectual. Where do they come from?

Here's my theory. You're a young Frenchman, somewhat like Mr. Dhelft, who we met a few days ago. You dawdle leisurely through university, studying whatever catches your fancy: art history, Chinese calligraphy, recorder, or (as Mr. Dhelft, and thousands like him, did) sociology. There's no rush -- you're living at home or in subsidized student housing, there are minimal or no tuition fees, and few fixed course requirements at European universities. Of course, you take routine vacations from this grueling endeavor. Not package vacations to crowded beaches, interesting vacations: by backpack through the Andes, by bus through North India, or perhaps the surprise vacation: you show up at the airport and buy the next standby ticket, no matter where it takes you.

Don't forget your Erasmus year!  This is the European "Erasmus" student-exchange program, studying at a university in another EU country. Your Erasmus year will be little more than a blur of cigarette smoke, recreational drugs, and fumbling sex in rickety IKEA beds (as seen in Cedric Klapisch's affectionate comedy L'Auberge Espagnole). European universities make few demands on their own students, much less transfer students from foreign countries.

Indeed, before you join the Erasmus program, nobody (apparently) will even check whether you understand your host country's language! The students in the L'Auberge Espagnole all came to trendy Barcelona to study for a year, and found out only when they arrived that the local university held course in incomprehensible Catalan, not I-can-sort-of-understand-it Spanish.  There is only thing less enticing than sitting next to 200 other students in uncomfortable wooden chairs in a gigantic, stuffy lecture-hall while a professor monotonically reads sections of his latest article into a microphone.  That is sitting there listening to the professor droning on in a language you don't understand. Much better to head to the nearest cafe, get some sun, and pick up a local hottie with your adorable phrasebook Finnish. And don't forget, learning how to sit around in a cafe is an important life skill. You will need it later.

Alas, university must end one day. Usually when you're in your late 20s (this is a serious problem for European economies, but not for you!). There won't be any pompous graduation ceremonies like at American universities, because everybody graduates at different times in Europe. One day,you'll just suddenly realize you've got enough credits to apply for your degree.  You'll then go to some university office, and some bored, chain-smoking bureacrat will push your college degree through a greasy plexiglas barrier. Ready or not, you're in the real world.

You're likely to have no job experience outside a few internships. If you've worked really hard, you may have written a good paper, perhaps even a doctoral thesis, on some theme. A cultural or social theme, needless to say. Let's say The Influence of Norse Myth on Conceptions of the Heroic in Sturm und Drang Drama.  No, make that The Influence of Norse Myth on Conceptions of the Heroic in Early Sturm und Drang Drama. Much better!

You then sort of begin trying to find a job. Like Mr. Dhelft, you certainly don't go nuts.  A few resumes per month is probably all you're going to be able to manage. You're very picky: you're not interested in business (nor is it in you, to be fair). There's not much time pressure, because a network of family and government subsidies will ensure your standard of living doesn't plummet.

Unlike many American students, you won't feel pressure to take a well-paying job you don't like. Your education was free and your cultural tradition disapproves of personal debt. All you need is enough to live on and take a few vacations. What's more important than the money is the prestige and having cool, interesting colleagues. You don't need to actually look for jobs that require knowledge of Sturm und Drang drama, although you might luck into one. Much more important is the fact that your wrote your paper on Sturm und Drang drama. That fact is your secret handshake that proves to other "cultural" or "social" people that you're one of us.

If you're lucky, you'll actually find a job: assistant curator for a small museum dedicated to a local 19th-century playwright, "social analyst" for a non-profit organization that studies integration difficulties among local Roma, part-time radio journalist and part-time non-profit event promoter ("Yes, I printed the flyers for Icelandic (Re)-visions -- A Conference on the Exploration of Nordic Femininity in the Independent Icelandic Cinema of the 1960s").

But I don't really want to address the lucky ones here -- the ones who finished their college degree (eventually) and found a more-or-less real job (eventually).  This post is about the misfits.  Take an acquaintance of mine named Max. He hung around at the local university for 8 years, working on his doctoral dissertation ("diss"). His relationship with his professor wasn't very close, and he kept changing the topic of his dissertation, and he saw no reason to stop taking long vacations, and his French classes took research time away from the diss, and the thousand little tasks his professor asked of him took time away from the diss, and female problems took time away from the diss, and, and...  Eventually, his professor had to gently but crisply inform him that there was no longer a place for him at the university, and that he would have to finish his diss within a year.  He couldn't.

Now, in his late 30s, he's joined the tens of thousands of European misfit-intellectuals. You see these people in cafes everywhere. Quite often, they have a history like Max's: highly intelligent, did reasonably well at university, chose a demanding topic for their diss, and somehow didn't quite finish it.  Or did finish it, but simply could not find a job in Europe's youth-unfriendly labor markets. They survive on tiny little bits of money: state unemployment benefits, parental subsidies, a generous partner, occasional paid temporary work, tiny little fees for small articles in the local newspaper, etc.

These folks read the most intellectual newspaper available, and ambitious books on contemporary philosophy or social problems. They prefer meditative auteur films to blockbusters. They have complex political opinions. They are often bald, and wear turtlenecks and aggressive glasses. They are likely to be noodling around on a short story or an essay of some sort. They're every inch the intellectual -- they're just not recognized by society as such. They have no office in a publishing house, they don't go to any conferences, nobody but their friends is interested in their opinion -- and sometimes not even their friends. There have been novels written about these marginally-employed intellectuals, among them Eckhard Henscheid's funny Die Vollidioten (G) ("The Morons").

Please don't imagine that I disapprove of these people. Some of my best friends fall into this category. I sort of do myself. I like these people as much as I like people with regular careers. In fact, I like them more than I like people with regular careers, because people with regular careers make me slightly nervous. Unemployed intellectuals fulfill many important roles in society. They create superb documentaries and radio features, when you give them the chance. They buy and write odd magazines, ensuring that these odd magazines are there for us all to read. And finally, at their best, they are like living symbols of a society that still values time more than money, depth more than irony, and understanding more than achievement. Next time you see one in a cafe, buy him a drink!

Comments

[Dirk]

Unfortunately I don't share your lighthearted assessment on these unfortunate beings. Just like you I have friends who were uninformed enough to study subjects that will pretty much guarantee you in either a career as a taxi driver, postman, waiter or construction site worker and are now living their adult years in a limbo of financial disaster and continuous frustration. Unfortunately nobody tells these poor, misguided souls before they choose their academic degree that with a large number of qualifications from the philosophical faculty comes almost guaranteed unemployment.

Sad.

[Anderl]

I'd say there are probably fewer people around in Germany with regular careers, than there were ten or fifteen years ago. Even in Germany, things are becoming more "flexible". It will be interesting to see, whether the influence that these developments exert on the national psyche will see a rise in the number of "pretend entrepreneurs". After all, it's not really a question whether we need pretend intellectuals/entrepreneurs. There will always be intelligent misfits around. Many will end up in some sort of niche, a niche that is not claimed by the rest of society, rather than being offered by society to outsiders.

Having had the "chance" (by virtue of my personality) to become one of the pretend intellectuals myself, I now feel slightly ambivalent about this lifestyle. It is true, they can do amazing things if they get the chance. But it is also true that in Europe at least, many simply never took the chances seriously that were available to them. And that is rarely a consequence of them being hindered by difficult social circumstances, illness, or the like (although some are).

I might be a little harsh, partly because I realise that nowadays I don't relish let's say independent auteur films as much as I used to (but haven't got into blockbusters either). Nowadays, I'd even have to file away most of them as "pretentious crap". Intellectual speculation can definitely go overboard, particularly, if there's nothing else to tie you back to other people's realities, like a regular job.

As for adverts, things might just work a little bit differently here in the UK. Although not watching a lot of telly, I can honestly say that trying to advertise your product by referring to intellectuals, whether real or pretend, would equal commercial suicide. Here, the most coveted (male) group of consumers seem to be lads. And these ad-lads definitely have money, enough to spend it on booze, travel, cars, the like.

So while I don't disapprove of the probably not even that large class of pretend intellectuals in Europe (after all, who am I to say their lifestyle is wrong), I don't think they are anything special either. In fact, I believe that in most societies, whether rich or not, you find some sort of misfits, who somehow never quite made it into the "mainstream" and probably never cared that much. That might make some of their views unusual, but this lifestyle can be pretty much as limiting as any other if you overdo it.

[n.e.]

That sentence: "they are like living symbols of a society that still values time more than money, depth more than irony, and understanding more than achievement." is put SO beautifully. You also could add "experiencing more than consuming". Close to home indeed, as the longer I think about it, the more uncomfortable questions arise about myself. I currently try to get my stuff together to get my degree with not much overtime and NOT become like them, although that way of living has a bit of Zen master or mendicant to me. I agree, we probably need unemployed intellectuals. And should pay them better. :o)

[David]

Ouch! A bit too close to home.

[Amtsleiter]

Very funny...i like both articles about the "misfits". But I feel slightly nervous around these unemployed intellectuals. They do nothing and just sit and talk...makes me feel unfomfortable. And as soon as I leave my home I see hundreds of them sitting in cafes and reading imtellectual stuff.

Suddenly I realised they are an important economic factor. They keep a high density of coffeeshops, bookstores, clothing stores and much much more alive. They are a focus group for advertisers. Although they can't buy much....many people with regular careers like to pretend as if they were intellectuals. They buy some alternative looking clothes, read (better glanc at) some high class newspaper and drink a coffee latte macchino or wathever they call it just to feel that lifestyle in their 30-minute lunch hour. Many want to be an unemployed intellectual if it wasn't for the low income...so their world of cafes and bookstores help normal people to escape their daily routine. Without our misfits, this infrastructure would not be there.