What can you do with Sociology/Psychology/Cultural Studies/Social Anthropology post-grad qualification

[onebatmother]

Apart from pat self on back?

I am thinking of retraining but no idea about jobs. Those are the things I'm considering studying - what REAL ACTUAL JOBS might I get with a postgrad MA/PHD in them?

I mean ones that pay money. Any money. But must be money.

Thanks dearies.

Because selling stuff which you've already sold - which is fundamentally what capitalism/consumerism (at this point - and this point ONLY - i make no distinction) involves lying.

If you didn't tell them that Mk 2 made Mk 1 useless - but crucially without making them angry that you'd previously sold them shit when you lauded Mk 1 - then they wouldn t buy Mk 2.

That's the waaaay of the wooorld.

The obsession with choice in all areas of life is something that seems relatively recent and yet insidious to me - and yet it seems as people believe that there are only two options: a dark and gloomy "communist" style set-up where there's just one state toothpaste, or a competition-crazy market where there can never be enough toothpaste types.

As ever I find myself looking for the sane world in between - surely it's possible?

Onebat, Yes I agree. I would rather gargle with sand than perform a sales function. But I do recognise it as an essential part of most businesses.

PW Yes too much choice. And really it just makes people's lives more complicated and exhausting.

Bumperlicious does this

LOL thready - yes, exactly like that I'd forgotten about that sketch. 'For the first time in human history, people are actually taking orders from their toothbrush!'

If I told you I would have to kill you...

That's great, Threadie. I feel that HE is getting sucked down that route to an extent...

Following OBM's post, I've always found it amusing that by watching ads for things you don't own, you can find out what's wrong with them. So, I don't own a dishwasher - never have - but from observing endless dishwasher tablet ads, I know that dishwashers bugger your glasses and don't deal with burnt-on food. Or that dentures are painful and the glue never holds. It's a public information service, really.

Actually, the M&W sketch also shows the effect of a public which is (in part) scientifically illiterate and yet bizarrely sceptical of science, so that the DM and L'Oreal ads are believed, and WHO advice discounted.

Threadie - LOL at that link.

Conversely - and in answer to Bumper earlier - I have erm.. difficulties with the Public Sector.

Drives me insaaaane that I subsidise those inflated salaries with all those benefits and such huuuge ineptitudes and inefficiencies, who have No Freaking Idea about how people work in the Real World (ie don't stop till the money's earned).

In part.

Eg. My leisure centre staff,.

Quite happy to support Culture Studies secondments

Well some things, like a dishwasher for some people, do actually make people's lives easier. And if you shake your heads I am going to come and take your washing machines away.

Has the private sector not shown itself to share such ineptitudes and massively inflated salaries lately, OBM? I do believe we're all subsiding them atm... I don't think the divide is so great - they're all staffed by people, and the mix of ENTJPIJSs is likely similar.

I think that the stereotypes of both public and private sector are about as accurate as the stereotypes of breast and bottle-feeders on here, and about as constructive.

Lol mirthless simpering: that is one of the things that I'm involved with now - social media and the fact that brands are having to 'reach out to' their customers' dissatisfactions

You would all be shocked and appalled by the extent to which marketing people are simultaneously honest and duplicitous about wanting to suck you in. They call it 'reaching out'.

Doh need to read before posting.

They don't reach out twice. Well they do, but ...

you know.

PW - So when your teeth fall out are you going to resist the painful, ill glueing dentures, in a late spurt of anti-capitalist fervour and just let your face collapse?

Oh I'm not objecting to dishwashers per se, just the New! Improved! Five-in-One Action! advertising.

My mother used to get very cross when Men opined grandly about how certain things were the most important inventions in human history. She used to stand and shout 'Washing machines! Freed up vast amounts of women's time!'

I agree with you to a point Onebat, their is endless bureaucracy in my place that you just wouldn't get in a profit making organisation, there is a lot of dead would that management either have no ability or no interest in getting rid of.

But I'm not sure what you are talking about by over inflated salaries. It really isn't the case for the majority of the public sector, especially people doing really hard jobs or jobs with enormous responsibilities. Even our directors are only making something like 60k which isn't that much for the top of your career. Promotion prospects are poor with lots of highly educated people competing for lower management roles.

No Swedes darling you've mistaken my point. Not objecting to the stuff that's actually useful - objecting to the carnival of confected need that attaches to any truly useful product.

It's funny when they make an 'improvement', and then a contradictory 'improvement' that requires them to damn their earlier 'improvement'. The latest example is the toilet-cleaning goo that sticks to side of toilet without the little plastic cage they invented, which we are now told 'harbours germs'.

PW She was spot on wasn't she? I'm one of four and I have four children and I often wonder how on earth she managed to keep on top of all that washing.

there