{"id":919,"date":"2016-06-11T23:22:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T06:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=919"},"modified":"2016-06-12T15:56:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T22:56:39","slug":"a-curse-an-identity-a-necessity-a-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=919","title":{"rendered":"A curse? An identity? A necessity? A calling?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thinking about how we think about work matters<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cAre you retired?\u201d<\/p>\n

In answering the friendly barista facing me with a smile, I stumbled a bit to find the best way to answer. You\u2019d think, being well past traditional retirement age, I\u2019d have a ready answer to such a straightforward question. My hesitation, though, had little to do with my age \u2013 I\u2019m happy to be 71, lucky to be healthy in body and spirit, and always ready to acknowledge how old I am. The challenge was the meaning of the word \u201cretire\u201d and the assumptions it makes about work and jobs.<\/p>\n

Am I working now? Well . . . \u201cyes and no\u201d or \u201con and off\u201d or \u201cit depends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, I still need to make money beyond what I get from social security and modest savings. But even if I didn\u2019t have to, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d want<\/em> to stop working, at least not as long as I can define \u201cwork\u201d in the large, loose, multi-faceted way I\u2019ve defined it over the years. Lines that might help me define my work have always been fuzzy \u2013 lines between my work and my social life, between work that pays my bills and work that I\u2019m driven to do, lines between when I\u2019m working and when I\u2019m having fun.<\/p>\n

The meaning of \u201cwork\u201d as I\u2019ve experienced it in my life doesn\u2019t fit the conventions for it that typically surround us. In general usage the word is most often restricted to effort where money changes hands, and for many too many people that work is nasty and unsatisfying, especially if they\u2019re at the bottom of the pay scale. But a whole world of real work is left out when it\u2019s defined this way.<\/p>\n

travail<\/span>
\ntrabajo<\/span>
\narbeit<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/h3>\n

John Budd, a university professor who studies and teaches about work, employment, and labor1<\/sup>, claims that the way we define work, the way we think<\/em> about it, is deeply important to how work is structured in practice. A short piece on his blog \u201cWhither Work?\u201d considers the roots of our words for work and described the long history of negative associations with these words in our language.2<\/sup> \u201cWords indicating labor in most European languages,\u201d he wrote, \u201coriginate in an imagery of compulsion, torment, affliction, and persecution.\u201d The French word travail<\/em> and Spanish trabajo<\/em> are derived from the Latin, trepaliare<\/em>, to torture, to inflict suffering or agony. \u201cThe German arbeit<\/em> suggests effort, hardship, and suffering; it is cognate with the Slavonic rabota<\/em> (from which English derives \u201crobot\u201d), a word meaning corv\u00e9e, that is, forced or serf labor.\u201d<\/p>\n

oeuvre<\/em><\/span>
\n opus<\/em><\/span>
\n werg<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

But the meanings aren\u2019t always negative. \u201cWhile travail<\/em> is rooted in torture, another French word for work, oeuvre<\/em>, comes from the Latin opus<\/em> relating to accomplishment and creativity. The word work itself is rooted in the ancient Indo-European word werg<\/em> meaning, simply, \u201cto do.\u201d Budd concludes that words for work can be negative (to torture), neutral (to do), or positive (a work of art).<\/p>\n

I was introduced to Budd\u2019s ideas about work a few months ago at the first Chat Room, a quarterly forum on art in the age of the internet.3<\/sup> \u00a0Subtitled, \u201cValue and Labor,\u201d this event also posed a more specific question: \u201cWhat are the trade-offs for artists, creative freelance workers, and other independent contractors in an economy altered by the internet?\u201d As an introduction to these more specific questions, Minh Nguyen, the forum organizer, began by presenting John Budd\u2019s \u201cten key conceptions of work.\u201d Many other strands of the evening\u2019s discussion were also fascinating, but the range of his ideas definitely got my attention.<\/p>\n

a\u00a0curse<\/em><\/span>
\nfreedom
\n<\/em>a commodity<\/em><\/span>
\nidentity<\/em><\/span>
\nservice<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

In his 2011 book, The Thought of Work<\/em>,4<\/sup> Budd elaborates on these ten views of work and in the process explodes the narrow definitions we commonly use, narrow definitions that reduce work \u201cto a curse or to a commodified, instrumental activity that supports consumption.\u201d Being a fan of lists, I include his list of ten ideas.<\/p>\n

A curse.<\/strong>\u00a0 An unquestioned burden necessary for human survival or maintenance of the social order.
\nFreedom.<\/strong>\u00a0 A source of independence from the dictates of the natural world, a way to express creativity and build culture.
\nA commodity.<\/strong>\u00a0 An abstract quantity of productive effort that has tradable economic value.
\nOccupational citizenship.<\/strong>\u00a0 An activity pursued by human community members entitled to certain rights.
\nDisutility.<\/strong>\u00a0 A lousy activity tolerated to obtain goods and services that provide pleasure.
\nPersonal fulfillment.<\/strong>\u00a0 Physical and psychological well-being that provides more than extrinsic, monetary rewards.
\nA social relation.<\/strong>\u00a0 Human interaction embedded in social norms, institutions, and power structure.
\nCaring for others.<\/strong>\u00a0 The physical, cognitive, and emotional effort required to attend to and maintain others.
\nIdentity.<\/strong>\u00a0 A method for understanding who you are and where you stand in the social structure.
\nService.<\/strong>\u00a0 The devotion of effort to others, such as God, household, community, or country.<\/p>\n

a job<\/em><\/span>
\nwork<\/em><\/span>
\nas commerce<\/em><\/span>
\nas a calling<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

Budd\u00a0differentiated kinds of work in a much more\u00a0fine-toothed way\u00a0than I did\u00a0in \u201cUnpaid, in Spite of Their Value.\u201d5<\/sup> I made one main distinction, and it was bigger and more diffuse than any of his. Having learned from artists, I distinguished between a \u201cjob\u201d and \u201cwork,\u201d between work as commerce and work for the common good, between jobs that pay the bills and work that\u00a0could be called\u00a0a calling. And by calling, I mean work\u00a0we\u2019re compelled to do by something other than money \u2013 writing poems, composing songs, and making photographs, or teaching, neighborhood clean-ups, and caring for children. I\u2019m grateful for the reinforcement I get from Budd\u2019s multiple views.<\/p>\n

Beyond simply identifying the various root definitions of work and his ten conceptions of it, Budd strongly believes that the way\u00a0we think about work matters. \u201cThis should be more than an esoteric, intellectual exercise.\u201d Our unstated views of work affect public policies and laws. When the unpaid work of artists, parents, and neighborhood volunteers is not viewed as \u201creal work,\u201d policies around compensation and benefits, for instance, don\u2019t include them, and without money changing hands, the work and often the person doing it are less valued than wage-earners, not only by the world at large but too often by the people themselves. Budd writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe linguistic features of work reflect the realities of human work\u2026 As a society, we need to re-connect with the deep meanings of work not only for individuals but also for democracy. We need to develop new norms that value work that is not rewarded by the labor market and create institutions for improving how work is experienced.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve thought about multiple meanings of work as I\u2019ve gone from one sort of work to another, and I\u2019ve done so right through my 60s without much of a pause at \u201cmile marker 65.” While I\u2019m sure our\u00a0specific understandings\u00a0of what we mean by work will keep changing, I suspect I won\u2019t stop doing it\u00a0any time soon.<\/p>\n

It was ideas like these, bouncing around in my head as I stood in front of my barista friend, that made it hard to give a quick and coherent answer to her question about retirement.<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u2022\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. John W. Budd, biographical sketch<\/a>,<\/li>\n
  2. Budd, \u201cWhither Work?\u201d blog site<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Chat Room<\/a>,\u00a0at the Northwest Film Forum, Seattle<\/li>\n
  4. Budd, The Thought of Work<\/em><\/a>, Cornell University Press, 2011<\/li>\n
  5. Anne Focke, \u201cUnpaid, in Spite of Their Value<\/a>,\u201d on this site<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

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