A man is rich in proportion to the number of things, which he can
afford to let alone.
-
Henry David
Thoreau
To create a philosophy of work that is fit for
human beings, we need to remind ourselves of three truths:
1.
You don’t have to be rich or have a lot of money
in order to live well.
2.
The world is arranged to make it quite easy to
acquire everything you need to live well.
3.
If you’re finding life difficult and not enjoyable
then you are doing something wrong.
We have forgotten that money and
wealth are not goods in themselves. When we seek to acquire and accumulate more
and more wealth, we inevitably cause harm to the environment and exploit the
least advantaged among us. In the end, we only end up destroying our own
ability to experience happiness and to live well. A poor or modest home, filled
with love and healthy relationships, is happier than a mansion filled with
isolated individuals and broken relationships. Philosophers have long pointed
out that the acquisition of our basic needs should be enjoyable and not too
time consuming. As Epicurus said in 300 BCE, it is pleasurable to eat, to have
sex, to sleep, even to work if we are doing what we love. The basic necessities
of life are good, provide enjoyment, and are abundantly provided when
moderately consumed. Yet too often we make it difficult for others and
ourselves by seeking not just to satisfy our basic needs, but greedy ambition
tempts us to pursue lifestyles that are unnecessary, unenjoyable, and
destructive to the environment.
We’ve allowed avarice to flood our
lives with unnecessary products forcing us to work and bury our lives in menial
servitude to unhealthy status symbols of large homes, expensive cars, and shiny
toys. But as Thoreau once said: “In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to
maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we live
simply and wisely.” His advice was to simplify our lives. We should use our
talents and time making some real contribution to humanity and the world. If it
does make us wealthy, we must not be seduced by the siren song of greed and
conspicuous consumption, but still live simply and use our surplus wealth to
help others make their contribution. Yet this goes against many years of
cultural conditioning!
At least since the industrial
revolution, we’ve been socialized into believing that being a productive member
of society means working long hours making money for someone else in return for
a paycheck. The proof we are a person of value to society and our family is
that we work hard and are a good provider. We are taught that if we don’t waste
time engaged in activities that neither produce nor consume economic resources,
then we show our good character and earn a favored status before God. A
person’s worth and value is determined by his or her ability to make money. So
we’ve come to feel guilty when we aren’t working, and it seems wasteful if
we’re just enjoying ourselves outside of economically approved activities.
Further, if we’re to be considered
good employees today with modern technology, especially our smart phones, we’re
expected to be available 24/7 to our employers. So instead of being an
expression of our humanity and a joyful exercise of our talents and skills in
service to others in community, work has become difficult, tedious, and demeaning.
Technology should
have brought us more creative ways to secure our basic needs, while serving
others, and without harming the planet. It should have freed up more leisure time
for cultivating our relationships and developing ourselves. Instead it has been
used to produce artificial needs, bringing greater consumption, less time for
building relationships, and more harm to the planet. Instead of creative leisure
time, which renews our spirits, technology has turned us into insecure
narcissists who need others to like our posts and friend us on social media. Only
their acceptance will assure us that we are lovable and as great as we think we
are. Or seeing the fabricated happiness of others’ Facebook or Instagram posts,
we fear we are missing out and become anxious and depressed.
Technology mixed with greed and anxiety has led
us to produce far more stuff than we need to satisfy our human needs. We have
an economy of waste and artificial needs, which drives the consumer economy but
kills the human spirit. As Hannah Arendt pointed out, the world today will be
annihilated in runway consumption and mindless work. Such consumer capitalism
and soulless labor destroys the very things they seek to satisfy. We become
like leaky pots, never able to be filled but always needing more. Our lives are
consumed in wasteful consumption and dreary jobs. We have jobs, but not work.
We pursue careers, but not vocations. We have turned our lives into a commodity
to be sold to the highest bidder.
We are each responsible for the impact of our
work on the world. We must be creative not destructive in our relationship to
the world through our work. Work clears a space for ourselves, a clearing in
the physical world where we can achieve our basic existential needs for
security, respect and meaningful freedom. But not by injuring others, exploiting
community or damaging the environment. We must assume responsibility even for
the acts that harm the world, but our not our own. As Abraham Joshua Heschel
was fond of saying, “All are not guilty but all are responsible.”
Today people and the environment serve the
economy. That’s backward! The economy should serve people and the environment. This
new philosophy of work can be neither individualistic nor collectivist. Neither
held hostage to global capitalism not controlled by planned socialism. It must
be grounded on a belief in localism and the principle of simplifying our wants,
so that work becomes something that we love to do and not something that we
have to do. If we simplify our wants to those needs, which are natural and
necessary, and then seek to satisfy those needs locally, we will free ourselves
to discover meaningful work. Work can be humanizing and a joyful
expression of our talents and our own authentic way of being human.
Recall the five principles of
localism, the five R’s, which will provide the context to simplify our wants
and return to a work that is joyful and creative realizing our full human
potential. When we live more and consume less, we will experience the joy that
is in intrinsic to life itself. The five R’s are:
Responsibility – we should govern our local
communities through equal power relationships and peer practices of town hall
meetings, citizen councils, rotational stewardship positions, and mentors. We
need to return to some sense of real and genuine self-government and public
participation.
Reduction – we should reduce our
dependence on distant sources, whether governmental or commercial, for the
provision of the necessary goods and services we need to live our lives.
Replacement
- we should replace goods and services acquired from remote sources with
goods and services produced and provided locally.
Regeneration – we can regenerate the world
through the practice of local innovation and creativity in finding new ways,
and improving old ways, of meeting our needs.
Reconnecting – This is not a strategy of
isolation or secession form either the national or global community, but a
return to the only authentic source of political power – the people governing
themselves at the local level. Upon the foundation of self-sustaining and
self-governing local communities, we can reconnect community-to-community and
then to our governments in the exchange of ideas, best practices, and in
assisting less fortunate communities.
For more information on the type of
communities such a vision suggests and how to manage them see my book, Deconstructing
the Supermeme of Leadership, at https://goo.gl/MpBiWl.
