Example of an Essay That Never Uses First, Second, Third, Fourth, Etc., for Transitions But Relies on "Paragraph Links"
Stupid Reasons for Getting Married
People should get married because they are ready to do so, meaning they're mature and truly love one another, and most importantly are prepared to make the compromises and sacrifices a healthy marriage entails. However, most people get married for the wrong reasons, that is, for stupid, lame, and asinine reasons.
Alas, needy narcissists, hardly candidates for successful marriage, glom on to the most disastrous reasons for getting married and those reasons make it certain that their marriage will quickly terminate or waddle precariously along in an interminable domestic hell.
A common and compelling reason that fuels the needy into a misguided marriage is when these fragmented souls see that everyone their age has already married—their friends, brothers, sisters, and, yes, even their enemies. Overcome by what is known today as "FOMO," they feel compelled to “get with the program" so that they may not miss out on the lavish gifts bestowed upon bride and groom. Thus, the needy are rankled by envy and greed and allow their base impulses to be the driving motivation behind their marriage.
When greed is not impelling them to tie the knot, they are also chafed by a sense of being short-changed when they see their recently-married dunce of a co-worker promoted above them for presumably the added credibility that marriage afforded them. As singles, they know they will never be taken seriously at work.
If it's not a lame stab at credibility that's motivating them to get married, it's the fear that they as the years tick by they are becoming less and less attractive and their looks will no longer obscure their woeful character deficiencies as age scrunches them up into little pinch-faced, leathery imps.
A more egregious reason for marrying is to end the tormented, off-on again-off-on again relationship, which needs the official imprimatur of marriage, followed by divorce, to officially terminate the relationship. I spoke to a marriage counselor once who told me that some couples were so desperate to break-up for good that they actually got married, then divorced, for this purpose.
Other pathological reasons to marry are to find a loathsome spouse in order to spite one’s parents or to set a wedding date in order to hire a personal trainer and finally lose those thirty pounds one has been carrying for too long.
Envy, avarice, spite, and vanity fuel both needy men and woman alike. However, there is a certain type of needy man, whom we'll call the Man-Child, who finds that it is easier to marry his girlfriend than it is to have to listen to her constant nagging about their need to get married. His girlfriend’s constant harping about the fact their relationship hasn’t taken the “next logical step” presents a burden so great that marriage in comparison seems benign. Even if the Man-Child has not developed the maturity to marry, even if he isn’t sure if he’s truly in love, even if he is still inextricably linked to some former girlfriend that his current girlfriend does not know about, even if he knows in his heart of hearts that he is not hard-wired for marriage, even if he harbors a secret defect that renders him a liability to any woman, he will dismiss all of these factors and rush into a marriage in order to alleviate his current source of anxiety and suffering, which is the incessant barrage of his girlfriend’s grievances about them not being married.
Indeed, some of needy man’s worst decisions have been made in order to quell a discontented woman. The Man-Child's eagerness to quiet a woman’s discontent points to a larger defect, namely, his spinelessness, which, if left unchecked, turns him into the Go-With-the-Flow-Guy. As the name suggests, this type of man offers no resistance, even in large-scale decisions that affect his destiny. Put this man in a situation where his girlfriend, his friends, and his family are all telling him that “it’s time to get married,” and he will, as his name suggests, simply “go with the flow.” He will allow everyone else to make the wedding plans, he’ll let someone fit him for a wedding suit, he’ll allow his mother to pick out the ring, he’ll allow his fiancé to pick out the look and flavor of the wedding cake and then on the day of the wedding, he simply “shows up” with all the passion of a turnip.
The Man-Child's passivity and his aversion to argument insure marital longevity. However, there are drawbacks. Most notably, he will over time become so silent that his wife won’t even be able to get a word out of him. Over the course of their fifty-year marriage he’ll go with her to restaurants with a newspaper and read it, ignoring her. His impassivity is so great that she could tell him about the “other man” she is seeing and he wouldn’t blink an eye. At home he is equally reticent, watching TV or reading with an inexpressive, dull-eyed demeanor suggestive of a half dead lizard.
Whatever this reptilian man lacks as a social animal is made up by the fact that he is docile and is therefore non-threatening, a condition that everyone, including his wife, prefers to the passionate male beast whose strong, irreverent opinions will invariably rock the boat and deem that individual a trouble maker. The Go-With-the-Flow-Guy, on the other hand, is reliably safe and as such makes for controlling women a very good catch in spite of his tendency to be as charismatic and flavorful as a cardboard wafer.
A desperate marriage motivation exclusively owned by needy, immature men is the belief that since they have pissed off just about every other woman on the planet, they need to find refuge by marrying the only woman whom they haven’t yet thoroughly alienated—their current girlfriend. According to sports writer Rick Reilly, baseball slugger Barry Bonds’ short-lived reality show was a disgrace in part because for Reilly the reality show is “the last bastion of the scoundrel.” Likewise, for many men who have offended over 99% of the female race with their pestilent existence, marriage is the last sanctuary for the despised male who has stepped on so many women’s toes that he is, understandably, a marked man.
Therefore, these men aren’t so much getting married as much as they are enlisting in a “witness protection program.” They are after all despised and targeted by their past female enemies for all their lies and betrayals and running out of allies they see that marriage makes a good cover as they try to blend in with mainstream society and take on a role that is antithetical to their single days as lying, predatory scoundrels.
The analogy between marriage and a witness protection program is further developed when we see that for many men marriage is their final stab at earning public respectability because they are, as married men, proclaiming to the world that they have voluntarily shackled themselves with the chains of domesticity in order that they may be spared greater punishments, the bulk of which will be exacted upon by the women whom they used and manipulated for so many years.
Because it is assumed that their wives will keep them in check, their wives become, in a way, equivalent to the ankle bracelet transmitters worn by parolees who are only allowed to travel within certain parameters. Marriage anchors man close to the home and, combined with the wife’s reliable issuing of house chores and other domestic duties, the shackled man is rendered safely tethered to his “home base” where his wife can observe him sharply to make sure he doesn’t backslide into the abhorrent behavior of his past single life.
Many men will see the above analysis of marriage as proof that their fear of marriage as a prison was right all along, but what they should learn from the analogy between marriage and prison is that they are more productive, more socialized, more softened around his hard edges, and more protected, both from the outside world and from themselves by being shackled to their domestic duties. With these improvements in their lives, they have actually, within limits, attained a freedom they could never find in single life.
"The Consequences--Undoing Sanity" by Louis Uchitelle
One. Is it enough to say unemployment kills self-esteem?
No, it's not. That's an understatement. Unemployment kills the former self. We become a ghost of our former self. Stacy Brown missed her husband, the one who had a job. The new one was insufferable.
Erin suffers from learned helplessness, the sense that he is trapped in a cycle of futility that compels him to give up on getting a job, himself, his wife, and Life.
Studies show after three years without a job we become unemployable.
We read that for men especially, but women also, "incapacitating illness" takes over the mind and soul.
We further read about a close correlation between unemployment and suicide rates.
Even in the face of being a good person and a good worker, the unemployed take a "blow" that "erodes human capital" and eats away at them like a pernicious, ongoing disease.
You've heard the cliche: "I'll define you not how you fall off the horse, but what you do AFTER you fall off the horse."
But for the unemployed, falling off the horse is easy compared to the shame and self-loathing that follows. How do you get back on the horse again when you're hit with a "blow" to the guts?
Two. What happens to the stay-at-home dad?
Rather than connect with his family, a huge barrier separates him and his family as he withdraws into his world of shame and depression.
We read that men don't communicate their feelings of depression well, so they just suffer a slow rot in isolation.
The American Psychiatric Association has officially declared being laid-off has dangerous to your mental health.
The disease spreads from the laid-off parent to the children who too are overcome by shame, depression, and low self-esteem.
Lexicon
- Anhedonia: you reach a state of unhappiness from which there is no return. Once you wear this quality on your sleeve, you become unemployable.
- What’s harder on a man, begging for love or work? Work. Humiliation results in anhedonia.
- Inertia (resistance to change); paralysis that feeds on itself.
- Male vs. female hardwiring and their different effects in the workplace: Women are more adaptable, take more risks, and seek change. In contrast, men like routine, comfort, and stability.
- Unemployment is referred to as the “acuteness of the blow." One person in the essay is so traumatized he cannot face the anxieties, the rejection, and the sense of insignificance all over again, so he sabotages future prospects.
- The double hit of unemployment: The feeling of being worthless coupled with self-blame. Let's add a third hit: You lose your medical coverage.
- “Finessing layoffs”: The attempt to “finesse” a layoff is futile.
- The layoff is followed by a breaking of emotional bonds with others; it has a rippling effect. The person withdraws into depression.
- Despondence and apathy set in.
- Ennui (the cycle: despondence, apathy and inertia, ennui, and then anhedonia)
- Husband’s unemployment devastates the wife: She has to carry her soul, and his, up the mountain. She can't do it forever. Eventually, she gives up. Divorce is the common result.
- “Going postal”
- Unemployment spreads shame through the entire family. We read that the rippling effects spread in unforgiving fashion. Children lose confidence that they can achieve. They fear they will fail like their parents.
- Shell-shocked: You become so traumatized that you build a defensive wall that is worse than the problem that made you shell-shocked in the first place. (describe the student with the scowl on her face)
Summary of Unemployment Effects
1. family withdraws from one another
2. children are "emotional sponges" and internalize and absorb their parents' emotional trauma.
3. alcoholism increases
4. divorce increases
5. suicide (murder-suicide in Wilmington)
6. long-term stigma
7. long-term low self-esteem and self-blame
8. long-term physical ailments including hypertension, ulcers, chronic fatigue, etc.
9. women reach out for social support more than men so women tend to fare better.
10. Vicious cycle of unemployment: You become depressed, which makes you less employable, which makes you more depressed, and so on and so on. "Layoffs deplete life."
Writing Prompt from Page 352
Some of the psychological or emotional effects of being laid off that Uchitelle lists are low self-esteem, nervousness, inability to form close bonds, and fear of trying new things. Do you think it is reasonable for employers to consider the emotional costs of layoffs in determining whether to let workers go? How might an employer address the criticisms that Uchitelle is making? Ultimately, is a company responsible for the emotional well-being of its employees? Why or why not?
McMahon's problem with the above prompt from the book is that while I agree it would be great if employers followed the prompt's recommendations, it's doubtful it would ever happen, so what's the point of writing the essay?
Your Government Owes You a Job from The Nation
Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should be Fighting For
The above probably won't happen since we live in a corporatocracy.
Chapter 5: How We Work Typed Essay Options
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way Louis Uchitelle (342) and Matthew Crawford (368) explore the emotional life of work and how work affects our happiness, contentment, and self-esteem. To what extent does Uchitelle's argument about the psychological damage wrought by unemployment recall or help reinforce Crawford's claims about the emotional satisfactions afforded by working with your hands?
Sample Thesis
Reading Crawford and Uchitelle, we must face the terrifying fact that our sense of self is so inextricably linked to our job that failure to choose a job compatible with our personality can result in alienation, self-loathing, crippling depression, and even death.
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, write a review of DePalma's essay that you think Uchitelle might offer. To what extent would Uchitelle's review find parallels in the social and economic hardships profiled here and his argument regarding the emotional costs of unemployment?
Sample Thesis
Uchitelle's tragic view of unemployment would compel him to see DePalma's essay as a complement to his own as DePalma's essay reinforces the learned helplessness, depression, stagnation, and family dysfunction rendered by low-income work and unemployment.
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, write an assessment of how the messages in Catherine Rampell's essay (388) and Matthew Crawford's (368) compare with one another. Does Rampell's attempt to explode the myth of the "slacker generation" remind you in any way of Crawford's desire to rewrite the boundary between white-collar and manual labor? Do these writers challenge such stereotypes in order to say similar or different things about the meaning and value of work?
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way DePalma (353) profiles immigrant workers with the way Ehrenreich (380) explores the working poor. Based on the argument she makes here, which specific aspects of DePalma's essay do you think Ehrenreich would find most persuasive? Why?
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, show how McClelland's examination of the psychological pressures she experienced on the job (394) compare to the portrait of the unemployed Louis Uchitelle (342) presents? Do you find any similarities or parallels in the ways each essay explores this issue?
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses whether it is appropriate, or not, to use the business model described in Hochschild's essay (418) as a way of making the "mutually beneficial transaction" between parents and a surrogate mother. Consider Barbara Ehrenreich's essay (380) about how the experience of being poor complicates this business model.