(Dr. Veltman).
Well, there I should say that
although on my account,
meaningful work is
an objective good, it
nevertheless can be diverse
and individualized in different
ways and different lives.
So you might find a particular
occupation fulfilling
for several years
and then outgrow it.
In order to further challenge
and develop as a person,
you might need to move to
another kind of occupation.
Or you might find that because
you're burnt out in your job,
you're simply not communicating,
you're not contributing
to your community in such
a valuable way as you were
when you were first in the
job and very excited about it.
So no doubt, there is a
kind of personalized factor
in determining what meaningful
work is for the individual.
You'll have to look at
your own set of talents
and circumstances, gifts,
proclivities, and so forth
in order to determine
what choice of work
will be meaningful for you.
Yes.
(female speaker).
I was worried about how
you define work itself.
I heard you just say
occupation the whole hour
and I was just wanting
to know having just spent
a while changing diapers
and rocking babies.
Is that considered work,
is the band that I play in
on Saturday night work
especially if I don't have
a job that I spend my whole
life in my garage painting?
(Dr. Veltman).
That's an excellent
philosophical question,
what is work?
Certainly, it is
difficult to define work.
I would argue that it's
difficult to define work
because work does not have
any kind of a singular essence.
But rather the concept of
work is like a [unclear audio]
family resemblance concept
where you have a kind of loose
association of activities that
you could rightly call work
but no singular defining essence
that underlies all of them
and clearly separates
them from non-work.
Now, I tend to use the
word work in the talk
because I'm influenced by
the German philosopher
Hannah Arendt who operates
with an important distinction
between labor and work.
Labor is the kind of cyclical
repetitious activity necessary
to sustain life that you were
referring to like changing
diapers and so forth where work
in the German sense has more
of a connotation of the
work of an artisan.
Work in the sense often
produces something durable
and simultaneously
self-expressive.
So in one sense there is
an important distinction
between labor and work.
But thinking about it
very broadly certainly
changing diapers is
work in a loose sense.
Fundamental to work if
there is anything fundamental
is a certain kind of effort and
a certain goal directedness.
Beyond that it is
difficult to identify
defining essence of work.
For instance, you might
immediately be inclined to think
of work as other directed.
You're performing something
for the needs and desires
of other people yet as our
students know, when they are
running their term papers, they
are working and yet primarily
the object of the
work is their own
intellectual and
moral development.
So in that respect,
work can be self-directed.
That is to say, you as the
worker can be the primary
beneficiary of the work.
Work is often paid but not all
work is paid as with the labor
in the home.
Work tends to be identified
as a contribution to the needs
of others and thus
you're paid for it.
But in working on your
own garden, you're working
and yet you're not contributing
something necessarily
for other people.
So in that regard, defining
work is a messy business.
Ultimately, I do not think there
is a singular defining essence
of work that you can
find, but it is clearly,
it's closely associated with
a kind of goal directiveness
and it tends to be for
that reason opposed to both
play and leisure and to
rest and relaxation.
That's basically the best
I can do in defining work.
Yes.
(female speaker).
Going along those lines,
in your point of view, do
you think that kind of extra
professional work like
that is objectively valuable
to the human flourishing
you were talking about?
(Dr. Veltman).
Professional work you said?
(female speaker).
Work outside of your job.
(Dr. Veltman).
Yes, often one will go outside
of paid occupation in
order to do some work
in order to either contribute
to a community to feel valued
by that community, to
have something to do,
to lend structure to one's life,
to develop one's capacities,
to express one's
humanity and so forth.
This is why people volunteer in
their communities for instance
or continue to work past
their retirement when they
no longer need to work.
Yes, in the red.
(male speaker).
[unclear audio].
(Dr. Veltman).
Right, I'm working with
the distinction between
a utopia in the one hand
where you can imagine
that meaningful work
would be available to everyone,
perhaps through some kind
of a Marxist scheme or
because robots will come along
and do all of the
meaningless work for us
or because time saving
devices will keep us from
having to change the
diapers and so forth.
In a utopia, meaningful work
is available for everyone
because there are non-people
to do the dirty work.
Outside of the utopia,
not everyone will have
meaningful work and that clearly
includes the present day
with our present technologies
and so far into the future
as one can really think
about social human structures.
Yes.
(male speaker).
I wanted to say that
on the one hand, I really
do agree that there is
management in social classes up
there that makes certain jobs
oppressive and abusive.
I guess I'm really curious as
to what objective occupations
you're actually claiming
are intrinsically meaningless.
It does seem to me the
social oddity to say that CEOs
and scholarly researchers
have more meaningful jobs than
trash pickeruppers and
wall painters and people
that take care of
our homes and streets.
Yet at the same time, you look
down on them, sort of you are
our fast food workers
[unclear audio].
Sort of medial non-equal stuff
and we look up to the heads
of society [unclear audio].
At the same time there can
be a social artificial form
of respect.
If we could just learn
to respect each other
and give each other
respect in their occupations.
(Dr. Veltman).
In many occupations,
one might not find
respect from the work itself,
but have to claim a certain
kind of respect or dignity
of the person that exists
in spite of the work.
But no doubt you can imagine
that many forms of work
would lie somewhere in
the middle of a continuum
of labor meaningfulness.
And on the one hand you can
imagine someone who is a slave,
who has little opportunity to
exercise autonomy and freedom
in the choice of work.
And then within the work have
little choice or decision making
about how the work is done.
That work might also not
express the worker's capacities
or human abilities.
It would be drudgery,
it might be dishonorable,
even if it contributes
to a community.
So you might imagine the
kind of work that a slave does
as something that is
quintessentially meaningless.
And on the other hand, something
like an architect might embody
meaningful work in the respect
not only of producing something
fantastically enduring, but also
doing something self-expressive
that will be appreciated by
other people and in turn promote
the development and
self-respect of the worker.
So there are sort of
paradigmatic examples,
but most work will
lie somewhere in between
because it will
embody some but not all
characteristics of
meaningful work.
Yes, a follow-up question.
(male speaker).
I just want to find out about
the slaves is a social construct
not an intrinsic occupation.
I mean what actual
occupations have been made.
(Dr. Veltman).
Well, there are some people
who are forced into work, and
that's what I mean by a slave.
(male speaker).
Yes, but in the social construct
you talk about manhood
oppressing people.
But what we're talking
about right now is the jobs
that people can do.
Why can't we find that respect
and a sort of meaningfulness
in whatever occupations
that society needs.
If we can't find that, we just
shouldn't do those occupations.
(Dr. Veltman).
Right, so, for instance,
once in a while you can find
someone who performs the work
of a bathroom attendant where
the attendant has no other
function in the job other than
to provide towels for people
who come into the restroom and
to offer lotions and stuff.
And that's really a bullshit,
meaningless job in the respect
that it's not necessary.
People can go into bathrooms
and figure out on their own
that they can use the
hand towels and the lotions
and so forth, and that
occupation is meaningless
in the respect that it's not
necessary, it doesn't truly
contribute to a community, it
really just serves the function
of allowing other people to
feel better about themselves.
