Professionalism and the American Soul

My computer says I started writing this on 10/26/07. That's quite a while ago, but the subject matter was compelling for me then, and it remains so today.

I haven't published it because the writing is far from complete, and I'm not sure it's entirely clear what I'm driving at- the place of emotions in professionalism when the profession itself is based on emotion. But that's my concise 2008 version. Please post if you have something to contribute. Would welcome any feedback or elaboration.
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This one's going to be a work in process, the thoughts not yet completely formed. Would welcome input from readers as you are inspired.

(In my (extremely brief) research for this article I discovered that there exists a word - metempsychosis. Man that sounds like fun. . .)

So the crux of this has something to do with my fascination with "prodigious" youth, their exploitation, and the challenges of alienation and anxiety endemic in (and perhaps inherent to) American culture.

My first thoughts were in the course of a recent massage course I was participating in. In the course of my (growing more extensive) studies, I have worked on many different people, all shapes and sizes, and most genders. By and large I get excellent feedback from people and am pleased to bring my best to the table when I approach any new client. However, there instances when, well I just don't like the person. Sometimes it's personal, like the person rubs me (excuse me) the wrong way, but often it's because the person is so disconnected and lacking in presence that I feel that my best work will simply not be appreciated.

In these last instances I have wrestled with a question that plagued me during my musical career- does one dial down the energy one puts out to meet expectations of the situation at hand? My answer then was a resounding no- bring it no matter who is there, at the very least out of respect for the potential that person has to appreciate what you are offering. While difficult to execute, this was in many ways a very easy answer- absolute, lacking in fluidity, and predictable. However in looking down the road at a potentially new career path, I chose to re-examine my attitude towards what I would have to label "professionalism."

In short, Professionalism I define as being able to bring it even when you don't feel like it. In fairness to me as a younger man, I don't feel my attitudes were really professional in this sense- in a way they were more transcendent-professionalism (I would have liked the sound of that). For classical musicians, professionalism was really just that- getting it up night after night at least outwardly to play the right notes with an adequate display of feeling to convince the proverbial blue-hairs that you were the real deal. My feeling at the time was that this pretense of feeling in an art form based almost entirely on feeling was a sham. So my version of professionalism was that one had to whip oneself genuinely into the emotion one was intent on transmitting to the audience. By and large I'd say it worked pretty well. . .but there was a byproduct of resentment that was undeniable- the exchange rate between giver and receiver could become way out of whack and leave one feeling drained and exhausted (NB- let me say here that my audiences were generally amazing and a delight to perform for, but during those dead-hall performances I recall feeling this imbalance poignantly.)

But at the root of this was my then concern with professionalism in fields (such as music) in which feeling was essential. Professionalism is being able to sell the car, flip the burger, convict the defendant with complete disregard for one's personal feelings about the matter. But if one's job is to access feeling directly (such as in music, dance, theater, or massage), how can one be honest with one's own integrity and still deliver the real thing- or worse, if the fake is accepted as reality, then what does it say about the valuation of one's own subjective experience which is at the core of the work- am I making myself clear? If people are happy to clap for the Emperor with no clothes, then why devote any energy to design anyway? I would say that these questions plagued me endlessly during my career as a young musician.

And there's the rub (again)- a young musician. A young musician has not yet her or (especially) his emotions to the point where such detachment is really healthy. So premature professionalism, i.e. detachment is degrading to the individual's health and development. Strangely, classical music and other art forms such as ballet, are some of the only careers that young people can engage in legally in America, and yet they are the ones that require the most emotional dexterity (or sinisterity perhaps). What generally comes across, though, is that highly passionate, over intense sensitivities of children are channeled through adult emotional frames. This is similar in a way to the way that many porn stars who were victims of childhood sexual abuse exude an extraordinary sexuality that would seem to be the channeling of youthful feeling through prematurely activated adult sexuality (and I would say that the similarities between adult film stars and classical musicians do not end here- more later).

However, regardless of their twisted origins, both fields produce performers that can be hugely compelling. Of this there can be no doubt (except maybe in classical music, just kidding).

So I hope I've made that point clear.

Looking at bodywork as a career in which real intimacy, sensitivity, and personal touch are at the core of quality work, how does one exhibit detached professionalism? Anyone who has received many massages has somewhere experienced the spa-style, 10-minute oil change style of massage: impersonal, formulaic, and generally unhelpful if not actually stress producing. But this is what is required of certain professionals in this field. Hopefully massage recipients will have, over the course of their lives, experienced exceptionally attuned bodywork from highly sensitive practitioners. These experiences are incomparably superior in almost every way.

But how does such a practitioner "pay the rent"? Does he turn into a Carlos Kleiber Massage Therapist, performing one or two massages per year for half a million an hour? It's an intriguing thought really. . .

But this profession-aversion that the most sensitive artists, performers, and healers have - almost as a rule - seems to be directly connected not to the execution of their craft - or even the earning of money for their crafts - but to this concept of professionalism itself. So let me look at it a little further. Because this goes beyond simple Capitalism, which itself demands the subjugation of personal feeling to market efficiency. It has to do with an attitude of systematic denial in the very showing up to work. Bad mood, unhappy, fight with girlfriend- these are all the motivators of art - particularly for the young who have not yet worked out what these feelings are about - and their direct subjugation risks leaving one without the font of what makes one a professional in the first place. No wonder artists are so willing to give away their work for free so as to avoid the whole process of destroying what makes them who they are.

But much of this is capitalistic in argument. What is it about American Professionalism that is so particularly itself? It helps, I think, to compare it with European modes of professionalism.

Anyone who has worked or lived in Europe can not but be struck by the general lack of professionalism- willingness to serve the customer to his satisfaction, willingness to achieve a high level of expertise above and beyond what is called for, and general efficiency. This is largely due to culturalism there and the general homogeneity of the individual European nations. The American system is open to anyone to compete, whereas the European system is mainly open only to people who are already more or less like you. It's as if you could only work with people you went to high school with instead of anybody from anywhere in the country. If your colleagues were limited to your high school group, the pecking order would be pretty clearly established, and people would have no real reason to strive for excellence outside of their own pre-fab cultural niche. This is how the work system appears in Europe- a sort of fraternity-style working environment in which the mammalian comfort of place takes priority over achievement - what we in America would call working for the greater good of which there need be no concept in a closed system.

And that's America- cold hearted, sink or swim, and there's always somebody nipping at your heels to make you irrelevant. So that's the obvious part about why we're so fierce in our professionalism, it's at the very heart of our non-culture.

But what are the perks of Professionalism for us, besides competence, consistency, and quality? Well on a social level in a culture where we supposedly have no class system and in which we are all equal under the law, that leaves a pretty enormous social circle to have to deal with. Other cultures have ways of discriminating between people like me and people not like me- people I want in my circle and people I don't. A formal class system (such as used-to-but-still-sorta-does exist in England) is one way to maintain these distinctions. A formal and familiar 2nd person helps as well- It is hard to appreciate as an American what a difference it makes when you call somebody Sie rather than du in German. A "Sie" can be a lamp post, someone about whom you couldn't care a lick and still sleep well at night. A "du" is likely a friend for life. But for Americans, we are perpetually bombarded with each other without any great barrier other than, Hello sir, how can I provide you with excellent service today?

Class systems and social systems are themselves based on emotions- that primitive pecking order business which is pre-verbal, pre-intellectual. So by shutting that level down through dead-pan professionalism we can somehow "relate' to one another in a consistent way. . .


Emotionally prepared for capitalism. . .