Tuesday 21 June 2011

The Church of Jobology

This post will be a work in progress, for now I want to make this first point in response to the third (and I presume final) episode in the televisual bullshitathon that is the Fairy Jobmother. That point is this: watching Taylor interact with that group of damaged young people/young adults was like watching a scientologist. I bet there'd be mileage in sending Derren Brown in to debunk this as he would NLP.
To ask the question 'how does being unemployed make you feel' seems an innocuous or perhaps even obvious question, but it's deeply pernicious. Not surprisingly none answered as I would, which is to say that I don't really have a problem with it (beyond the propaganda war that brainwashes people into believing that the unemployed are scum with idle hands motivated by the devil). Of course there are issues with being unemployed, but there are issues with most life circumstances. Quite why I should feel bad about myself for being unemployed is beyond me. It's a product of capitalist western society.
So of course the candidates all respond the same 'it makes me feel crap, i can't provide for me bairn' or 'i can't have the nice things the magazines and tv shows tell me i should have'. This is bullshit. It's the sort of knock 'em down psychology cults use ffs. Of course some will think that an extreme reaction, but i think it's extreme to film a conversation with a young man and tease out of him the most deeply personal revelations to an audience of complete strangers, including his sexuality! Where the hell is Taylor qualified to deal with that? (Of coruse behind the scenes there's probably a ton of vetting and setting up of such scenes, she's not a counsellor and they aren't going to chance their arm that the young lad might secretly be self harming or barely able to stop from suicide, for instance.)
She tells us, repeatedly, that the unemployed aren't doing enough; that there are jobs out there if only we'd just make the effort. Then she says 'ooh I know it's hard luv'. That's a mixed message and it hints at the show's fake self help premise. If it's hard then why does the show not portray this? Instead we are shown nothing about the actual reality of finding work or dealing with the harsh labyrinth of despair that is the JC+ and the difficulty some damaged kids have in dealing with the reality of their life experience, which has nothing to do with working and paying taxes!

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