For Labor

[omorka]

There is a general agreement in classical Greek philosophy and in Catholic theology that one of the important things in mortal life is to take pride in one's vocation, to treat it as a "calling" (which is what that word means). To find it worth doing as an end-in-itself, to take joy in doing it well - that is something fundamentally good (their language) or wealful (mine). As a general rule, I would agree with this, that good and honest work well done is itself wealth in the deep sense of the word.

The Catholic theologians and Luther went so far as to say that failure to seek excellence, or at least broad competence, in one's profession (ah, more religious language for one's proper work) is sinful. I wouldn't go that far, of course, not believing in "sin" per se anymore, but I would agree that deliberately choosing not to be competent is an act of harm. At the very least, it is an expression of disrespect for the G/god who gave you the talents, the world that provided the materials you work with, and the other mortals whom you are serving in your work.

The same idea seems not to appear in Protestantism after Luther and Calvin, though. There is a glorification of work - the old Protestant Work Ethic - in the Puritans, but it seems to be focused more on the idea that working is itself good for you, that "idle hands are the Devil's tools" and that thus one had better keep busy. The importance of the work itself, that it's not about your internal state but about the doing, is downplayed. And in the second and third generations of Puritans in America, the concept gets tied up in the idea that wealth in the shallow sense is itself a signal that you are one of God's chosen. This is a weird USian idea that has polluted our culture all the way down to the Prosperity Gospel churches, burnishing our weird religious veneration of Capitalism; if God is in fact Mammon, then what sign of his blessing is there other than a fat bank account and a big tacky house?

And this is pernicious for reasons other than just theology, because if the worth of the work is not in the work itself - if it is only in the payment received for the work - then there is no pride, no joy, no sense of doing right in doing low-paying work well. It means skimping, skiving, and slacking are understood to be the right and proper responses to working a minimum wage job. And it means that it is morally acceptable for someone in a higher-paid job to disrespect the work of someone in a lower-paid job, because it is by his (or her, though that's less common) definition less worthy - less worth-y - work.

I suspect this is one reason so many of my students have trouble thinking of their future careers as fulfilling in any capacity other than their earning capacity, or their college educations as anything more than job training. This is also why upper management in business thinks that they could run the schools better than educators can; they make more money than we do, so it is obvious to them that they are better, smarter, harder-working people than we are. And it's one of the reasons there is a general deference for doctors in this culture, but not nurses or EMTs; they may all save lives every day, but an opthamologist makes more money than a trauma nurse and therefore is more blessed.

I wonder when the Six Flags Over Jesus fundies are going to realize that half their congregations are Mammon-worshippers, and what they're going to do about it. The strain between the churches of Mammon and the Angry God in the Republican party seems to be getting more visible by the week, and yet the seams haven't come apart yet. (At least the Libertarians are up front about putting Mammon up front and center in their priority list.)

Comments

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

I suspect this is one reason so many of my students have trouble thinking of their future careers as fulfilling in any capacity other than their earning capacity, or their college educations as anything more than job training. This is also why upper management in business thinks that they could run the schools better than educators can; they make more money than we do, so it is obvious to them that they are better, smarter, harder-working people than we are. And it's one of the reasons there is a general deference for doctors in this culture, but not nurses or EMTs; they may all save lives every day, but an opthamologist makes more money than a trauma nurse and therefore is more blessed.

How has the amount of debt that is carried by people leaving college changed the expectations of people going into college?

I had a couple of classes taught by people in industry, and I enjoyed them very much because it answered the "Why do we have to learn this crap?" question. I raised that question frequently, and I was often given more difficult problems because I asked that questions to the point other people groaned when I asked it. I still think it is important to be motivated to learn stuff.

I don't know how much doctors really interact with EMTs. Nursing is a more traditionally female profession while doctoring is more traditionally male. Gender issues seem to play a role in the dynamic between nurses and doctors.

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

I think the doc/nurse ting has more to do with the years of schooling involved in each profession. There are also often racial lines as well as gender lines between those two groups.

Also, you skip over the weirdly malformed modern versions of 'pride in a job well done': home improvement and the domestic arts. Martha Stewart and Bob Villa each push gender appropriate versions of taking pride in hard work that has little to do with one's daily job - although both clearly appeal to upper class folks wishing to 'connect to their roots'.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I think the doc/nurse ting has more to do with the years of schooling involved in each profession.

That's why doctors are paid more than nurses, but I don't think it has anything to do with the level of esteem that they are held in. My father has many more years of schooling than my uncle, and they have the same honorific in front of the same last name, but the one who spends his days peering at other people's earwax and snot (and, yes, to be fair, occasionally saving someone from a slow death by throat cancer or preventing a six-year-old kid from going deaf) gets invited to all the good parties and the one who trains the next generation of programmers, computer animators, and researchers into artificial intelligence is lucky if he gets to go to anything more classy than the church social. If anything, this culture is skittish around anyone who has too much education; it might mean they're an intellectual, after all.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Why should you take pride in work you don't want to do- which is pretty much the definition of most minimum-wage jobs? People working minimum wage are almost always looking to do something, ANYTHING else, and are only surviving until an opening comes in the field they want to pursue.

When that something else opens up, what loyalty should they show their minimum-wage employer? After all, that employer would drop them in a heartbeat if it got the manager a bonus to do so, or if profits declined. The working conditions are usually miserable, morale nearly nonexistent, and incentive to improve things utterly absent.

If you work hard and do your best, you don't get paid more, you might even get reprimanded, and no difference is made. You don't even get the satisfaction of a job well done, because it's not a job you ever wanted to do. In short, there is no incentive to do anything more than the absolute minimum required to not get fired.

I've always thought the work ethic was a method the rich used to keep the poor from realizing just how shitty things were for them. -Right- work- the work you love, the work you seek out to live on- is good for its own sake, but not work done for someone else merely to survive.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Why should you take pride in work you don't want to do . . . ?

Because it needs to get done, and no one else is doing it. There is a nobility in a row of crops weeded, a bale of hay put up for winter, a ditch well dug, a wall in a new apartment set and properly fastened. There is even some good done in helping a customer find exactly the blouse/toy/book/shade of paint s/he wanted and explaining how to put it together/use it/mix it, in whatever joy or at least satisfaction you can give to that other person. Granted, it's much, much harder to find in a crappy service job than in one that has tangible results like a building, a ditch, or a row of crops. But that doesn't mean it's not there.

You don't even get the satisfaction of a job well done, because it's not a job you ever wanted to do.

And that's exactly the attitude that I'm talking about here. Working hard and doing your best is something one should be able to do because of the work, not because of the level of one's pay. That this culture is structured in such a way that people often have to give up vocations that they're good at, that they find satisfaction in, and that benefit other people so that they can take one that pays more, just so they can survive, is one of the nonsexual things that I find deeply broken about it. And that we have an awful lot of jobs - not careers, not professions, not vocations, just out-and-out jobs - that are soul-crushing, stupid things that no one really wants to do and that don't need to be done is just ridiculous. Worse, it encourages people who are in actual careers to treat them like jobs and take no pride in their work, either.

I'm not sure whether it's done for someone else or not makes that much of a difference. For me, work is inherently more meaningful when it's not just done for myself; my own work is done for 70 kids a day and for the Imperatrix Mathematica, and it's serving them that makes it worthwhile work. Most, although certainly not all, of those kids are lower on the socioeconomic ladder than I am, and this was even more true at Ramton. Then again, the people I work for are not the ones who pay me, either.

[northwall.livejournal.com]

i ended up in law school because i was afraid of the real world when i graduated college. i never really wanted to lawyer. there's a very strong implication here (at my school) that the only legal work worth doing is trial work. those of us who don't care about that are sort of the stupid children, the disappointments. i've developed an attitude that whatever i do for work is just a job, and the life i have outside of it, family and friends, is what i'm really around for. i realize this plays directly into the problem you're talking about... after thinking about your post a little bit, i figured out that's why i want to do gvt or nonprofit work. i have to feel like i'm combating some injustice rather than arguing the side i'm paid to argue. i think there IS still justice on the civil side of litigation, i just don't believe strongly enough in it to follow that path.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Why law school, in particular, then, and not just grad school? Seems like that would have been a better fit for your needs at the time, even if it has worked out okay in the end.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

An interesting, and perhaps relevant blurb from The Monitor of the Lodge, Grand Lodge of Texas A.F. & A.M.

The Bee Hive is an emblem of industry, and recommends the practice of that virtue to all created beings, from the highest seraph in the heavens to the lowest reptile of the dust. It teaches us that, as we came into the world endowed as rational and intelligent beings, so we should ever be industrious ones; never sitting down contented while our fellow creatures around us are in want, when it is in our power to relieve them, without inconvenience to ourselves.

When we take a survey of nature, we view man in his infancy more helpless and indigent than the brute creation; he lies languishing for days, months and years, totally incapable of providing sustenance for himself, or guarding against the attack of wild beasts of the field, or sheltering himself from the inclemencies of the weather.

It might have pleased the greate Creator of heaven and earth to have made man independent of all other beings; but, as dependence is one of the strongest bonds of society, mankind were made dependent upon each other for protection and security, as they thereby enjoy better opportunities of fulfilling the duties of reciprocal love and friendship. Thus was man formed for social and active life; the noblest part of the work of God; and he that will so demean himself as not to be endeavoring to add to the common stock of knowledge and understanding, may be deemed a drone in the hive of nature, a useless member of society, and unworthy of our protection as Masons.

It isn't really addressing the idea of vocation, so much as admonishing those who don't seek the excellence as you describe, as a general work ethic.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Interesting, and it looks like it borrows some of the general idea of the Catholic theologians' take on the idea without necessarily borrowing from their expressions of it. (Which is a bit funny, considering the historical relationship between Masonry and the Church.)

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

Catholics don't like Masonry, Christians don't like Masonry, Christians don't like Catholics, Christians don't like Mormons. I don't pretend to know anything about comparative religion. Heck, until last week I thought Hindus were polytheistic.