Cruel Optimism, Affect and Academia.

[@AWorldtoWin]

Thanks for putting this together. Found out about you through my comrade @laborkyle. This is an issue I've been grappling with--I finished my BSc in physics last year and subsequently applied to PhD programs in that field, got rejected from all of them, and it has made me do a lot of reassessing what I want to do with my life. From talking to my friends and comrades who have done/are doing PhDs (or grad school more generally), I can see that it's an absolutely Sisyphean task: you have to do it because you simply cannot abide the idea of _not_ doing it, and you have to do it with the full knowledge that falling flat on your face (failing out, experiencing discrimination or harassment, etc) is a very real possibility. 'Cruel optimism' seems an apt term for the sort of desire that capitalist ideology engenders: _if you just get this one thing, achieve this task, shake the right hands and so on, you'll be complete, a more 'fully-realized' person etc_ . Therein lies the challenge: being (to whatever extent one can) self-aware enough to parse the differences between the things you want to do because of some essential, burning, irrational drive within you on the one hand, and, on the other, the things that you want to do because of whatever external conditioning that living in a capitalist society provokes within you. For myself anyhow, I've decided to take the time to explore all of my intellectual curiosities to the greatest extent possible such that I can make a more informed decision on where to take my academic career, if anywhere at all. Anyhow, loved your video, loved the episodes you did on RevLeft Radio, hope to see more of your content soon! (and thanks for highlighting the UCSC struggle! very important for folks to have eyes on that) Solidarity forever, Melody

[@Steerpikey]

You made me understand my former flat mate, the turmoil he was going through, and my cruelty towards him. Wish I could turn back the he clock of time. Thank you

[@comiclover99]

I just got a email for an interview to (possibly) get funding for my PhD in Shakespeare Studies. Then this popped up in my feed. I really can't see myself doing anything else and I know Ill feel like a failure if I don't do a PhD. And now I know why. That promise of "the good life". If I just finish this PhD and then I just get a contract at a uni and then I just get a permanent position and then I just get funding for my research then, and only then, will I have permission to be happy. I need to rethink a lot of stuff. And I have been for a while. But this was really helpful on that journey. Thanks my dude

[@bibliotecalatam2778]

If I'd stayed in Brazil to get a PhD I would've had to get another job on top of school, so I came to the US because the opportunity to get a stipend and dedicate myself entirely to my studies was very appealing to me. Now I'm in my fourth year and I realize that those stipends aren't really everything they're cracked up to be. I'm lucky to be in a very supportive department but looking at the situation across divisions, it's ridiculous the amount of work that other grad students have to do in comparison to the compensation they get. Hopefully all these unions that've been forming in the country will have more bargaining power in the near future. Good luck with the channel, this was great! I wasn't familiar with the concept of cruel optimism.

[@wanda5983]

This means a lot to me, thank you

[@LARASHORRORSOUNDS]

thank you for this video!

[@squidthekidrsatthesquidarm4338]

Excellent video. I'm 18 from Singapore. Though our education system may be different, this issue is extremely pertinent to my society. Thank you!

[@unapologeticfeminine]

I'm glad I bowed out of an academic career when I did. I just felt this sense of precarity increasing and I wasn't up to the challenge. I struggled with the decision--toiled! Especially when I had Lauren Berlant on my dream dissertation committee. I guess our discussions about this at the time when she was writing this work were shaping my decisions to bow out.

[@Kathrin_yt]

Thank you for making this video!! Talking to you on stream and this video has definitely solidified in my mind that a PHD is not for me. If I'm honest with myself there has been a cruel optimism that has driven my dreams to do a PHD. I think to myself that it will give me so much free time to do what I want, and I'll get to research stuff I'm fascinated by, and I'll make loads of friends with like-minded people, and maybe I can become a lecturer and inspire students later in life. But I think the reality is actually very different. Anyways, really interesting video. I had never heard of the concept of cruel optimism before. So glad you're making youtube videos now!

[@Marxism_Today]

Great video! That's a question I've struggled with for years.

[@JonTheLitCritGuy]

thanks so much my friend - delighted to have done the first one and can't wait to make more.

[@MrMikkyn]

I love it. Toxic positivity but a whole book written on it in a philosophical style.

[@baileydemir3418]

Thank you for this

[@humansincages]

Again, a really great video! (I'm part of an artist-led collective who will love your stuff). I returned to do a Masters degree as a mature student, which I finished last year. In some respect, I felt I had answered the questions that I was then being encouraged, by some, to research as a PHD - albeit, questions answered for myself rather than for academic validation. Afterwards, the sheer prelimenary stress caused by the awareness of just how competitive it was to be accepted, be awarded funding, etc, was overwhelming. So I'm pretty confident my mental health wouldn't have withstood undertaking a PHD. You just end up constantly trying to dig for more of what David Smail/Mark Fisher called 'magical voluntarism', often in response to the cruel optimism that abounds from well-meaning people, who are in positions of having to ascribe to this, what can now surely be called a 'liberal superstition'. Like yourself, that's not to say 'don't do one', and I may one day change my mind.

[@LustStarrr]

I can't wait for my partner to get home so I can show him this. Having completed his PhD, he was chewed up & spit out by the realm of academia several years ago - worked to the point of exhaustion for several semesters, before being unceremoniously fired when he began to crack under the pressure. Luckily, he's the type of person who doesn't fall prey to mental ill health (unlike myself), so he was able to shake off the negative effects fairly quickly, without any lasting impact, from what I can tell, however his resilience is a very rare quality. I can't imagine how traumatic going through that sort of cruel treatment would've been for someone else, let alone for someone with pre-existing mental ill health already... I'm pretty sure it would have broken me, & probably most other people too, at least to some extent.

[@cassandralynn1277]

Very pleased to see you doing video essays now. I was on the cusp of pursuing a PhD for years but bailed at the last moment. Loved the work - still do -, but the actual working conditions of academia were hell on my mental health and staring down the barrel of a PhD run while already on my last tether put that into very clear light. I know that was the right decision, and my life is much better for having made it - and yet, there's still a sting of regret that I wasn't able to just power through and live up to that expectation for myself. Cruel optimism seems like an apt description of that mental/social pull.

[@tomeskdale2642]

Brilliant.

[@maryamshawaf2920]

Thank you so much. That was well-presented and helpful. It also made me truly think about the grad school question I always have in my mind.

[@Zeddicalex]

Excellent video! As someone with a high number of friends doing phds, I recognize a lot, both on the doubts on my side and the toll it takes on my friends.

[@StarCheat]

lovely, lovely. Can't wait for your inevitable essay series on gothic and romantic marxism. Great to be finally able to put a face to your voice as well.

[@laborkyle]

It begins. Big welcome to my good comrade, great video

[@JonTheLitCritGuy]

thank you so much for the help, advice and encouragement!

[@laborkyle]

thelitcritguy get used to it

[@giancarlobonizzio3975]

Great video! Keep up with the great job!

[@LuizFerreiraBr]

Perfection

[@OdinMMA]

This was really very good and I’m looking forward to your next video

[@MrMikkyn]

Can you do a library tour pls

[@welwitschia]

As someone who actually dropped out of a PhD, this hit hard.

[@ElectricDidact]

Nicely done, my friend! Welcome to the toob.

[@JonTheLitCritGuy]

Thank you for providing so much inspiration!

[@C4s4ndr4]

Great video, but I really just want to rearrange those bookshelves. I mean, is that a second Pratchett under a second Tolkien novel in the bottom right there?

[@Emileigggggh]

Omg the concept of "cruel optimism" is so useful! The oligarchs definitely push it onto us so we don't revolt lol I'm so bummed at the structure of academia (especially as it mimics capitalism) because I've always loved learning, but that structure has been super inaccessible to me for basically my whole life due to disabilities. And while for me it was always about learning and growing as a person, for a lot of professors it was about preparing me for the work place (and i went to film school so that work place would have been the very exploitative hollywood oof) so if I couldn't do things a specific way in class then I wouldn't be able to do it in "the real world" and I deserved to fail now instead of later. And I'm lucky enough to come from a family with enough money that that isn't much of an issue for me, but I wouldn't have been able to work while in school if that was something I had to do and I lost so much money from having to drop classes... academia is rough but learning is awesome and it's part of why I appreciate videos like this!

[@dr.shepard8308]

As a last minute PhD dropout who’s been reading and thinking a lot about this topic as a way to cope with failure and mourn my deceased academic career, thank you. Brilliant video. But my answer to the bloody question is always a clear: NO!

[@TheAndrew1987]

good

[@VioletSadi]

They took my degree off me, threatened me so I could either withdraw "voluntarily" or be terminated and never be eligible for study again. I wanted to teach. I wanted to show how YA dystopian works have s fascinating relation to Genre, conclusions, and reproductive futurism. I was using cruel optimism in part. It's all a cruel joke for me right now to be honest.

[@fierflies]

Watching this video while working on my research masters on pubilic feelings... and trying to apply to Phds... maybe I should reconsider ahaha

[@wp6007]

Lacan moment

[@tammikma]

Nice video! The music is quite distracting to me though. 😊

[@tranquil87]

it was alright

[@hannamakela6989]

PhD=optimism. Postdoc=cruel. ;)

[@nononouh]

8

[@betweenprojects]

Soz. Lose the music.