In his diatribe on the inherent sacred function of work in our lives entitled “Labour” Thomas Carlyle suggests that it is only through work that we can escape despair and communicate with nature (in a universal sense) and achieve a lofty sense of harmony. While his vision of hard work as something that betters society, the self, and one’s spirit simultaneously is grand, it is far too rosy of a view and would likely make many of those in the low-wage laboring classes laugh.
In other words, Carylye’s well-intentioned and poetic sentiments about labor makes wonderful upper-crust dinner conversation (especially given the historical period and class situation present when he wrote this piece) and toss-about theory, but it makes very poor rational sense due to its limited scope and glossing-over real issues surrounding labor—especially manual labor. To its credit, the theory does actually hold more credence in modern times, especially as more people are branching out to follow their dreams and make their passions into professions. It is only these people—those who succeed in doing what they love most while managing to make a living doing it—that this really applies to, at least in any meaningful way.
When applying modern terminology and thought to Carlyle’s piece “Labour” one can make the argument that he makes a rather bullet-proof case for being a workaholic. He sees work as the ultimate escape from daily woes—one that actually achieves some objective as well. While on the surface his arguments are logical and rational in that they offer a reasonable way of considering one’s occupation, there are issues that lie just under the surface and make this argument about the perfect, holy nature of work less convincing, if not altogether flawed. The reason why it is impossible to agree with Carlyle is simply because he is applying this theory of the power of labor far too broadly, all the while coming from a limited perspective. This might be an incredibly appealing notion to those who are not acquainted with difficult daily manual toil but to those who are actually performing the mind-numbing work, this might seem like an incredibly silly notion. It seems then that this theory can only “work” when applied to those who actually love their work because they perform it by choice, not because of circumstances such as, say for example, fear of dire poverty.
When taking such a historical view, one of the most contentious aspects of Carlyle’s suggestion about the sacred nature of work and manual labor is the way it glosses over the daily “grind” and instead bestows some universal and religious significance on such toil. One cannot help but feel that Carlyle might be from the upper class where it would have been quite easy to romanticize the grueling labor of peasants and see their work as being “a kind of real harmony” rather than what it most likely was—difficult, relentless manual labor for low wages. The meaning of what the author writes is dependent on several different contexts then—the historical and the personal.
Putting those historical considerations aside for a moment, it seems that Carlyle might have been ahead of his time in seeing a shift in the number of people who chose an occupation out of interest as opposed to being born into a labor-related circumstance. More likely, however, is the assumption that it is much easier to agree wholeheartedly with his assessment if you are reading this piece as a modern being—someone who is “living one’s dream” and is able to combine hard work with genuine interest, thus never feeling like one is working at all but pursuing a passion. I know that when I am being forced to work on something that I am not interested in, I tend to dawdle and pine away for the time coming when I am doing what I like. There is no sense of “harmony” or peace about it—I would simply prefer to do what I enjoy and only then can I achieve the sort of strange nirvana Carlyle describes. I think most people are like this and have been since the beginning of history and peasants of yore would have felt no different and likely would have scoffed at Carlyle’s suggestions.
In modern times where we are often inclined to choose a vocation that genuinely interests us rather than being born into a trade or craft as one would have been when Carlyle was writing. Because of this it is easier to find meaning in what he is suggesting about how working can constitute a communion with nature and the world and can drown out sorrow and other self-based concerns. However, it is impossible to entirely extract this statement from its historical circumstances—even if some of it involves historical speculation. The truth of the matter is, it is easy to find a religious type of solace and feeling of harmony when one is pursuing one’s own choice of occupation.
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