A Theory on the Course of Values - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14763118
Today, many people would say that if you do not work, you are not a "good" person. This can seem strange if one considers that most jobs these days are divorced from human survival and often from any fundamental value of any kind. A person who "works" in the sales department of a widget factory is a "good person" because he works, someone who does not work is presumed to be a "bad person" solely because he does not work. Despite these presumptions, when the widgets made by Widgets Inc. are not actually important in any tangible way, one might still find themselves asking whether working in the sales department can, in of itself, make someone into a good person.

If we consider traditional values, work was originally acknowledged as being something that rational people wanted to avoid doing too much of. But work was also associated with human survival, so those who were "good" were usually found working, particularly as the dilemmas associated with slavery mounted (previously, the dilemma wherein one doesn't want to work but work must be done and getting it done is "good" was sometimes solved by making other people do the work). Ultimately, the traditional values that viewed any kind of drudgery as a metaphysical stigma were supplanted by new forms of traditional values (particularly in Protestant Christianity) that viewed work as a noble sacrifice.

What we see then is that the concept of being a "good person" and "doing good" were conflated into working. This happened because working resulted in good things for people. Today, the idea of working is being divested from all other moral values, meaning that a person can be "bad" in practically every way but so long as they work hard, they may still be considered "good" by many people.

While this is a problem that people will need to assess as jobs are "lost" to automation, instead of discussing it and the future I would prefer to go even further back because I think it is in the past where the real answer to this dilemma can be found. We will eventually have to accept that "working" is not always good in of itself, only being good is good in of itself. But what is being good?

The earliest philosophies generally did not distinguish between "good and evil" in the first place. Instead they talked about the metaphysical unity of all things and the goal of spiritual transcendence. The concept of "good and evil" was an easy method for explaining the quest for transcendence: things that encouraged one to transcend their selfish individual existence, such as meditation and charity, were "good" while things that did not encourage transcendence were "bad". Over time the concepts of good and evil became increasingly politicized, until they became almost completely divorced from transcendental ideas. It was only after the divorce occurred between "transcendental" and "good" that the concept of good was itself conflated into another idea, that of the "work ethic". Today "working" has finished taking ideas from "good" and is divorcing itself from those ideas.

I believe that ultimately, "work" as a value cannot stand on its own and that eventually, neither can "good and evil". The course of history has been to separate these ideas (and ourselves) from transcendental truth through a processes of partial absorption and divorce. Imaginary "rights" (none of which actually exist) have helped this process along. Even so, the same forces that contributed to the atomization of traditional structures will also ultimately destroy their products, eventually leaving only the truth behind.
#14763164
I believe that ultimately, "work" as a value cannot stand on its own and that eventually


The definition of work is at the core of this misunderstanding. Those who advocate work as a virtue are not referring to economics. Work is defined as doing something that gives your life purpose. You need a reason to get up in the morning, or your life becomes simple hedonism which provides no self worth. It is a delusion, but a necessary one for peaceful society.
#14763205
One Degree wrote:The definition of work is at the core of this misunderstanding. Those who advocate work as a virtue are not referring to economics. Work is defined as doing something that gives your life purpose. You need a reason to get up in the morning, or your life becomes simple hedonism which provides no self worth. It is a delusion, but a necessary one for peaceful society.

I agree, something I didn't get to in writing this was that people used to value "asceticism" which basically means spiritually training yourself, which included physical training for those capable of it. The work ethic consumed not just the idea of "good", it also consumed the concept of ascesis for most people. So now the only form of asceticism taken seriously is hard work but with few exceptions, this concept seemingly won't be able to hold merit for most people forever.

As an aside, asceticism in Christianity became conflated with the rejection of material wealth, I think this was not necessarily asceticism itself but a path towards it. As with most ideas, the means became conflated with and in some cases divorced from its original purpose.

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