#114: Ego, resentment, and recognition
Do you struggle to make sense of the jumble of attitudes you have towards your career? Perhaps you feel overlooked despite the fact that you've just been given a job. Perhaps you're striving to do well and hoping to get noticed while at the same time feeling resentful of the whole process, and critical of yourself for engaging in it. And, if you do feel these things, do you also attack yourself by telling yourself that you've got nothing to complain about, or that you're imagining things, or that you're irrational? Friend, I've heard it all before, and despite what you might think, it all makes complete sense. Put your feet up and your headphones on, and prepare for the Academic Imperfectionist low-down on why you feel this way.
Episode transcript:
You’re listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. I’m Dr Rebecca Roache. I’m a coach and a philosopher at the University of London, and in this podcast I draw on philosophical analysis and coaching insights to help you dump perfectionism and flourish on your own terms.
Hello friends, and welcome, from my sauna-like office at the top of my house. It’s 31 degrees outside today (that’s 88 in American), but a lot hotter indoors - at least, indoors in my house. Here in the UK, we only get a small handful of uncomfortably hot days each year, so we don’t bother with things like aircon in our homes, and we choose instead to suffer and complain - or even to record ourselves moaning about the heat and release the recording to the world as a preamble to a podcast episode about something else. Not to worry though, because before I know it I’ll be speaking to you from beneath a blanket while the rain falls on the roof window above my head.
Anyway. A confession, before I begin. I said at the end of the previous episode that I was about to head out to the gym. In the interest of acknowledging and celebrating imperfection, I should let you know that I changed my mind and, instead of going to the gym, ordered an Indian takeaway. I can’t now recall the rationale, but I know that I had somehow managed to convince myself, in that moment, that eating curry - accompanied by side dishes and a garlic naan - counted as an acceptable alternative to a gym workout.
Right then. On with the show. If you’re a regular listener, you’ll have worked out by now that my interactions with coaching clients are a big inspiration for these episodes. It often happens that, if a particular issue comes up again and again in different coaching sessions with different clients, and especially if the field of philosophy offers a potentially helpful framing of the issue, I’ll decide to do a podcast episode about it, in the hope that doing so will be helpful to those struggling with the issue alone. It’s not just about trying to help listeners, though - it’s an iterative process that helps me become a better coach, and helps me help myself too. Because, the process of putting together a podcast episode provides the focus and motivation to delve deeply into the topic and work out some practical ways to solve a problem.
The starting point for today’s episode is a cluster of attitudes that various coaching clients have expressed towards the institution that employs them or to which they belong - usually, but not always, a university. At its core is a feeling of not being appreciated - of not being recognised for efforts and achievements, of feeling somehow invisible, while in some cases colleagues and others are being seen and rewarded. There’s a sense of unfairness attached to that, of course. Resentment. Sometimes bewilderment: a thought of, ‘Why is nobody taking any notice? Why do I keep getting overlooked?’ The people who express these sorts of feelings aren’t always talking about solid, tangible complaints like not getting a promotion when less qualified colleagues do, or not getting invited to speak on topics that they’re very qualified to speak on, or not getting cited, things like that - although things like that often are involved. But sometimes the complaints are hard to articulate. There’s a general sense of being short-changed that isn’t necessarily linked to anything you can point to. Perhaps you just can’t remember the last time someone at work told you you’re doing a good job. Perhaps it just doesn’t seem to occur to people that you’re the one responsible for some positive change that benefits them. Perhaps people don’t seek out your opinion on issues you’re very knowledgeable about. And perhaps - here’s the big one - you just always assumed that when you got to this stage in your career, you’d feel more complete, more whole, more established as a person than you actually do.
Now, those are all unpleasant things to struggle with. But, in our unmistakable trademark style, many of us often make things even worse for ourselves through the way we respond when we realise we have these feelings. I’ve encountered people who gaslight themselves: since they struggle to pinpoint any particular experience that they deem significant enough to justify these feelings, they tell themselves that they’re probably imagining it, especially if they’re actually doing well with respect to the tangible things I mentioned - promotions, grants, publications, etc. They say things like, ‘I’ve just got a publication accepted in this amazing journal, or I’ve just got promoted, why do I still feel like this?’ and instead of taking that question seriously and using it as a starting point to explore those feelings, they decide they’re irrational and that their feelings are baseless.
Alternatively, or additionally, they frame whatever unmet need they’re struggling with as a kind of arrogance: they tell themselves that obviously the reason they’re feeling sidelined and overlooked is because they’re a massive egomaniac who throws a tantrum when those around them aren’t falling over themselves in adoration, and why can’t they just get on with their job? In short, they tell themselves to sit down and shut up, which is an especially painful outcome given that, for whatever reason, that’s the message they’re receiving from the world, too.
I’ve noticed that this sort of self-policing, where the inner critic considers how we’re feeling and then tells us that, for whatever reason, we shouldn’t be feeling that way, is linked to some basic assumptions about the sorts of things we’re entitled to feel bothered about. I’ve seen these assumptions emerge in coaching sessions, as people describe the way they feel and then naturally move on to critiquing it. They describe their sense of frustration and of being short-changed and then say that obviously they shouldn’t be feeling this way because they have a secure job, or because they earn enough to pay the bills, or because they have a partner who loves them, or because they otherwise tick the right sorts of boxes with regard to things like finances, security, family, freedom, and so on. It’s usually at this point that many people wheel out that trusty old classic catch-all answer to anything anyone might ever dare to complain about: But there are people much worse off than me.
To get a sense of what’s going on here, let’s begin by noting that throughout history, many hugely positive changes have been driven by people who - according to the logic of your inner critic - didn’t have much to complain about. Nelson Mandela was instrumental in dismantling the apartheid system in South Africa, but he was born into South African royalty. Many of the suffragettes, who fought for women’s right to vote in the UK, were well-connected middle-class ladies who led pretty comfortable lives. Sir Ian McKellan, who last year was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Stonewall for his decades of campaigning for LGBTQ+ equality, has a huge platform of success and security. What is it that people like this, people who are far from being the worst off, fought for and continue to fight for? A promising answer, which has its roots in the ideas of the 19th century German idealist philosopher, Hegel, is: recognition. Recognition is an important concept politically, but it also has a place in our more mundane interpersonal interactions. It’s important to us to be recognised in certain ways, which vary with context: as moral equals, as peers rather than subordinates, as experts, as fellow citizens. We’re recognised, in this sense, when certain other people acknowledge that we have a certain quality, and this recognition often has implications for the moral obligations they bear towards us. Nelson Mandela’s struggle for racial equality wasn’t merely about making life more comfortable for himself and other Black people; it was also about the importance of having the State recognise Black people as the equals of white people. The suffragettes didn’t merely want more political influence for women; they also wanted women to be recognised as citizens on an equal footing with men. Sir Ian McKellan’s campaigning over the years hasn’t merely been about improving the way that LGBTQ+ people are treated, but also about recognition; about ensuring, in various ways, that LGBTQ+ people have the same opportunities to flourish as non-LGBTQ+ people.
Recognition matters on a smaller scale, too. If you’re a PhD from an under-represented group who is fed up with constantly having to say things like, ‘Its Dr, actually, not Miss’ while their white male colleagues are able to take for granted that they’ll get addressed appropriately and respectfully, you’re experiencing a struggle for recognition. If nobody seems to hear when you make a great point in a meeting, but when your colleague says the same thing a few minutes later everyone falls over themselves with enthusiasm, you’re struggling with recognition. If you’re a trans person or a non binary person who finds they have to work harder than most to get people to use the right pronouns, this too is about recognition. If your colleagues’ successes always seem to get celebrated more than your own in your department, this - you’ve guessed it - is about recognition. If you’re struggling to articulate your feeling of being low-key overlooked, professionally, then recognition may be the concept you’re looking for.
Now, you might be wondering what the point is of this talk about recognition. Doesn’t it all just boil down to wanting to be treated with consideration and respect, and to be treated equally alongside others? Well, yes and no. Certainly, those things are important. But what recognition adds is that it matters to you how you’re perceived, and what underpins the consideration and respect you get from others. It’s great to be praised by your employer, but it feels very different to get praised for that fantastic talk you just gave rather than for how well you washed up the coffee cups after the seminar. You want not just to be appreciated, but to be viewed in a certain way - as an intellectual equal, say. And, while official forms of recognition - getting promoted or winning a grant or a scholarship, say - are hugely important, in some cases they can fall short of the mark. Perhaps you’ve noticed more surprise than you’d like in your colleagues’ reactions when you tell them you’ve just been promoted. Yes, you’ve got an official stamp of approval, but you’re finding that that’s not filtering through to the everyday, interpersonal interactions you’re having with others in your community. That can really trigger your imposter syndrome. You’re already worried that your recent success was down to luck rather than merit, and when those around you are less than celebratory about how well you’ve done, that’s got to hurt.
Another benefit of viewing these feelings through the lens of recognition is that it makes them more difficult to dismiss. Nobody is going to claim that your disappointment about your colleagues’ lack of enthusiasm about your promotion is on a par with Emmeline Pankhurst’s sense of injustice about not being allowed to vote, but it matters that both are about recognition. And since concerns about recognition matter enough to drive civil disobedience and major overhauls of political regimes, then maybe you can see your way to accepting that your inner critic is wrong when she tells you to sit down and shut up. You’re allowed to be upset about this. Recognition matters.
Let’s go back to that idea I mentioned a moment ago: that even when you get promoted, published, awarded grants, and other important markers of success, your need for recognition might still end up unfulfilled if those around you don’t respond in the way you wish they would. What’s going on here? Are you expecting too much? Well, you might be. Not everyone is going to do an excited dance whenever something good happens to you - some people aren’t demonstrative like that. And, as Kate Ahl remarked in episode #104: What academics talk about in therapy, academia in general is a bit light on things like praise and cheerleading. But there might be something else going on. If there’s a pattern of small slights, if you suffer from them more than your colleagues do, and especially if you’re a member of a disadvantaged group, then you might be dealing with microaggressions. With microaggressions, it’s the sheer number of slights that cause the problem, even if any one them, taken alone, would be easy to dismiss. So, one colleague reacting to your promotion with bemused surprise can be chalked down to rudeness, jealousy, or plain weirdness. But if five of your colleagues react like that, you probably have reason to be annoyed. Here’s where you need to be on guard against gaslighting yourself. Saying to yourself, ‘I just got promoted, I’ve got nothing to complain about!’ might overlook subtle things like the dynamics of your interactions with colleagues - things that really do matter to the way we experience the world.
One more observation about the recognition-related struggles that my coaching clients have. I’ve noticed that a lot of the time, they’re linked to feelings of resentment and contempt, sometimes in ways that leave people completely confused about why they’re feeling the things they’re feeling. So, suppose, for example, someone might be putting a lot of effort into trying to get promoted while also complaining that the process by which decisions about promotion get made is deeply flawed and unjust. Or, someone might be working hard to publish in a journal that, although highly respected, reflects a skewed conception of what counts as good scholarship. Things like this can lead people to think, on the one hand, ‘Please pick me! Please approve of me!’ and on the other, ‘I hate everything you stand for and I’d burn you to the ground if I thought I could get away with it’. And that combination of attitudes can lead to a kind of self-loathing, because people end up feeling that they’re debasing themselves for striving to conform to a set of standards that they despise. In coaching sessions, people who have these feelings often struggle to make sense of them.
But recognition, again, can help us make sense of what’s going on here. Some writers, including Althusser and Sartre, have pointed to a problem with the idea of recognition. Recognition is important for us, but to achieve it we need to buy into a set of standards about how we ought to be, and sometimes those standards ought to be rejected. So, striving for recognition requires a sort of conformity. For example, suppose you know that your best chance of getting promoted is to publish an article in a particular journal which you happen to hate, and you think your discipline would be much better off if that journal wasn’t so influential. You’d prefer it if recognition didn’t require you to send your work to this journal, but since it does and since you care about recognition, you push your concerns aside and publish in the journal. You get your promotion, but you feel you’ve compromised yourself, and you feel anger and resentment towards the system that is forcing you into this mould. You think back to the innocent hopes you had when you started out - and you feel disillusioned about the fact that you ended up drinking the kool aid.
If this resonates with you, be kind to yourself. It’s a real bind. Fulfilling your needs for recognition can require submitting to a flawed system of values. Maybe those values can be changed, and maybe you can help change them - but, in a painful catch 22 situation, it’s often easier to do that if you get the recognition first. This is another thing that people often mention in coaching sessions: they care about success in their field in part because they want a voice or a platform - which is another way of saying: recognition - because that will give them the power to make a difference in the world.
I don’t really have any top tips in this episode, I’m afraid - no suggestions for a quick fix to your recognition struggles. My aim here was more to validate a potentially confusing and confused set of attitudes you might have towards your career. You’re not crazy or irrational or egotistical for feeling the way you do. If I could offer just one piece of advice here, it’s this. Next time you find yourself saying to yourself something like, ‘I have no business feeling this way!’, stop, and instead of using that thought as a stick to beat yourself with, take it as a starting point for some reflection. What might be missing from your life that’s leading you to feel the way you do? Are you overlooking an important need that’s not being met? What might your frustration be trying to tell you?
Catch you next time, friends.
I’m Dr Rebecca Roache, and you’ve been listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe on whatever podcast app you use. I want to help as many people as I can with these episodes, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d share the podcast with any friends who you think might find it useful, and if you’d leave a review on your podcast app. If you’d like to support the podcast financially, you can do that at patreon.com/academicimperfectionist. For more information about me, the podcast, and my coaching, please visit the website - academicimperfectionist.com. You can find me on Medium too, as AcademicImperfectionist. If you have an idea or a request for a future episode of The Academic Imperfectionist, please drop me a line, either via the contact form on my website or via Medium. Thanks for listening, and see you next time!
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