Triumph of Emptiness Summary

Triumph of Emptiness

Introduction

In his book “The Triumph of Emptiness” Mats Alvesson described today’s society and the workings within through three interlinked theories of grandiosity, zero-sum games and illusion tricks. When people's basic needs like food, shelter and such are met (also referred to as “non positional goods”), then people begin to want positional goods, that is goods that in one way or another has prestige tied to it.

He takes a very critical approach to the way people and businesses interact with each other in order to get the upper hand in various aspects of life, and how people/businesses often present themselves in a way that portrays them as more than they in fact are. He also questions the real worth of higher education, consumption and working organizations, since all of them now promise more than they in fact can deliver, in his opinion.

1. Use the perspective developed by Mats Alvesson in “Triumph of Emptiness” to criticize course contents of your earlier/previous studies in Business Administration (Företagsekonomi). Use examples from your previous courses in Business Administration to describe the phenomena described by Alvesson.

When we applied for university we made the conscious decision to apply to Lund’s University. There are probably as many reasons for that as there are students here. Some of us live nearby, others found a suitable program and few trusted recommendations from their friends and family. Many of us were also aware of Lund’s university’s position in the rankings of best universities and that it is year in year out one of the best in Sweden. This can be seen as an act of grandiosity. Swedish universities are funded by the state and therefore their quality is also supervised. Still we wanted to graduate from “the best university in Sweden” instead of the not so famous but also pretty good –one. There is a reason, in the society marked by the triumph of emptiness, to believe that we will gain from this in the future, not only because we’ve got good quality education but also because it looks good in the CV. Our status and self-esteem also gets a boost when we get into the university. We are selected to be amongst the arguably best of our generation and already a status of a “lundastudent” can be seen as a step up even though we haven’t yet graduated. This also becomes a zero-sum game with other people from other universities. Consciously or unconsciously we compare the status as lundastudent with the statuses of students from other universities. Maybe someone from Uppsala has a perceived similar status to us whereas a student from a relatively newly established “högskola” has a lower status.

Another example of grandiosity in the previous course is also the leadership part of the course. Already at the firsts weeks of our studies we were assigned to think what makes a good leader and if we someday want to be one ourselves. A student who has studied business for an extremely short time and maybe comes fresh off high school would arguably be limited in their views on good leadership and therefore this can be seen as implementing a mindset. We are already at the early stages of the educational program set to think about the future. How we can get our dream jobs and become leaders. The course name itself is an example of grandiosity: it’s called leadership instead of for instance management. It sounds better and more grandiose if we in the future will lead people instead of just managing them. It is more likely that we get into a managerial position, where the job description is more like managing people and taking care of everyday administrational tasks, rather than become the next Steve Jobs.

There are often many events in the economy school’s hall. Often the stands are occupied with people in suits and pencil skirts and they have glossy brochures with them. These people are there often to tell about their company or offer their help regarding recruitment. These can be seen as pseudo-events. The companies are not necessarily recruiting anyone at the point, but making themselves seen. It also makes the university look good; they are a relevant part of the markets and well connected to the actual business world. These events are however usually quite openly pseudo-events. Often the goal is to “network” which is a rather vague term and highlights the mutual agreement between the companies, students and university that the point of for example of an recruitment event is not exactly to sign contracts but to be seen as an attractive company, a capable future employee or a provider of skilled staff.

2. Discuss the view presented by Alvesson. Do you agree or do you find any weak spots in his argumentation? What is your own opinion – do we live in a time of “The Triumph of Emptiness”?

Alvessons book looks at consumption and human interaction in a very negative and critical way in general. His opinions are at times borderline cynical, probably just to get his point across. With that said, we do agree with alot of his viewpoints and we find his dissection of human interaction to be precise and accurate. But at the same time we don’t necessarily agree that grandiosity for example is such a negative thing - at least not incessantly.

On the contrary, one could easily in some cases find great benefits with grandiosity. Titles that may be empty of any real substance per say, still is something that professionals will strive for, hopefully leading to more effectiveness and better results in the workplace, and in the long run also help the economy.

One must also ask himself, what is the alternative? How would society work without any grandiosity? A society where everybody is entirely honest would be destructive and not motivating people to reach higher heights. Imagine a leader of a less than great sports team being completely honest to his team about their chances for victory. There would probably be no upsets ever, and the members of the team would have no incentive to keep on competing. The same could most probably be applied to various businesses.

When analysing higher education, Alvesson