Does Work Suck?
Sometimes, but not always. Here's why.
For the past year or so, I’ve been working on — and teaching — a class on the philosophy of work at Notre Dame. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience. First of all, it’s something students desperately want to talk about. The course has filled up in less than 90 seconds each semester it’s been offered. But, secondly, it’s given me exactly the sort of reflective space I’ve needed to figure out what I think about the nature and value of work in my life. I’ll have lots to say about work in this newsletter in the coming months, I’m sure. But, to kick this whole theme off, I want to reflect on all the positive ways work contributes to our lives.
Work Gives us Purpose
This phrase sounds, and often is, inane. But here’s the non-obvious, truth it contains. We cannot help but do stuff (as rational, goal-driven creatures). We are action-oriented beings. Try imagine what “doing nothing” would even look like (lying in bed? watching TV on the couch all day?) and you’re imaging doing something. And it’s way better to do something with a purpose than to do something for no reason. Even menial labor — if done to satisfy your spouse, or help out a friend in need — is better than just wasting all your time. So, because work usually serves some purpose, it’s usually a way for us to tap into a goal greater than ourselves. This feels good. And it is good (most of the time). So work satisfies the part of us that wants to be useful.
Work Gives us Meaning
You might be thinking, “Wait a second, this is the same as the first point.” But no. There’s purpose in any activity with a goal, but there’s not always meaning in it. Consider: If I told you to push a cart of sand from this end of the football field to that end of the football field, your activity would have a purpose. But if I then told you to push it back for no reason, it’d be clear that the it had no meaning at all. Meaning is something more nebulous and abstract than purpose, but it’s no less important. If anything, it’s more important to find meaning in your daily activities (and in life) than it is to find purpose, and work often provides this. Ask almost anyone why they do what they do, and they’ll give you an answer that invokes their work’s meaningfulness. “I’m educating the next generation,” a teacher might say. “I’m helping people get what they need,” a delivery driver might say. “I’m providing people with the capital they need to purchase a home for their family, “ a loan officer might tell you. As with purpose, we might be mistaken about whether we should actually feel the meaning that we do from our work, or whether our work’s meaning is genuinely good. But it’s undeniable that work often functions as a source of meaning in life, and that this is a genuinely good thing.
Work Keeps Us Busy
One of the sticking points in the philosophy of work is whether (and to what extent) “idleness” is a bad thing. Weber famously traces evaluative concepts like this one back to a mystical, outdated worldview. Whereas St. Thomas Aquinas genuinely thinks keeping busy will keep our minds and hearts away from temptation. (Bertrand Russell, whom I hesitate even to mention in this context, provides an almost-completely-tongue-in-cheek defense of the vice of idleness, which is actually more useful for it’s contemporary history of philosophical attitudes toward capitalism in the early twentieth century.) Even the atheist (even the atheist existentialist) will probably see some value in the power work has to distract us from the temporal, the mundane, the dread-inducing recognition of mortality. There are very few things that can provide the short and long-term structure (the ritual-like experience) of going to work every day.
Here’s a quasi-serious modern take on this philosophical aspect of work:
Work Activates Our Capacities
When I was a kid, I always wished that every day would be a snow day. A “day off.” A break from the structure of chores, school, or any other kind of compulsion. I now know enough to see how idiotic that is. Imagine a life spent on the couch. I can barely spend two hours watching Netflix these days without feeling life my soul (let along my muscles) are atrophying; that I’m becoming a human slug. Work provides the kind of mental, intellectual, and even physical (and social) stimulation we need to keep engaged in this world. It provides a space to think through problems with other people. It gives us puzzles to solve that are within our grasp, but that still have stakes. It allows us to realize our ambitions, but also to rely on a community when we need support. In short: it’s the main arena (at least in today’s, largely secular world) where we can live a public life. And that’s great! It’s like exercise for all the parts of us that make us human. And regardless of what we’re doing (or why), we all need exercise of this sort.
So work is great! Sort of. Well, work can be great. It can feed vital parts of us as human beings, and can provide for some of our deepest and most pressing needs.
That’s the upside. Or a large part of it. In future posts, I’ll start considering alternative perspectives. Ways work can go wrong or poorly. Ways in which it can oppress us as individuals or as entire classes of people. Still, I think it’s important to start with the benefits. To see all the ways in which we seek (and find) important goods in and through work, to appreciate that we can realize these in our world, no matter how f*cked up we take that world to be.
-pb
Deep(ish) Thoughts
A short explainer on what I mean by “Philosophy of Work.” I assign this to my students, but it’s a good, non-obvious question (unlike “ethics” or even “metaphysics”), it’s not totally obvious how we should think about this branch of philosophy.
(As always, if you like what you see here, feel free to subscribe to my channel here.)
Parting Recs
Want to do a really deep dive into the philosophy of work? Check out this amazing database of texts, quotes, passages, questions, etc. from UK philosopher Jean-Philippe Deranty:
Am I jealous? Yes. Our own database is still getting off the ground. I think Deranty’s just has so much…functionality. Anyways, you can check them both out. Some books on work I more or less recommend (my IG has pretty much become a philosophy of work book recommendation page, just FYI):
For the academically inclined (the intro essay to this is really good):
For anyone at all:
Burkeman’s book is the latest, and most accessible, entry entry into the “anti-productivity self-help” genre. And I love it. I may have rec’d this before, but it makes sense to recommend it again in the context of this newsletter because it just captures so much of what’s interesting and right about the contemporary current of books with the theme of “let’s think hard about our attitudes toward work.”
Oh, and this piece from the New Yorker is great.
It’s “notes on work” (literally the title) from a second generation Asian American woman who has made overwork a central part of her (personal, cultural, familial) identity. It’s the closest thing to a sympathetic portrayal of workaholism I’ve seen, but it also refuses to glorify hyper-productivity. It’s nuanced, I guess, in a way that much commentary on work these day is lacking. Really, do out and read it if you can. It’s good.
If you haven’t checkout of my TikTok recently, may as well. I’ve had a few good ones lately (Brian’s back!) — including one that I think is going to hit half a million views. I’m going to be talking to a reporter from Slate tomorrow about doing philosophy on TikTok. I’ll post the article if it leads to anything.
That’s it. If you’ve got any recommendations on work-related books, texts, podcasts, or whatever, please post them below or send them my way! This is the main thing I’m thinking about for the next two or three years…
Action items:
Get the book!
Brilliant! I love a good webpage, especially when it addresses things with which I torment myself. (If you’d like 2 to 4 more U.S. cents of my academic/sociologist’s opinion about ‘work,’ trying to help 22-yo figure out ‘work futures,’ etc, I’d be happy to natter on further.)
Oh...my brain is exploding...! What happens when we link 'work' with capital? Capitalism? Exchange of labor for compensation? What happens when my boss tells me that I should work hard because of a calling (not because I will ever get a raise or bonus)? Max Weber said, 'The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so.' What difference does this make? What about Matthew Crawford's arguments about work in Shop Class as Soulcraft? Thanks for the essay...!