Our Indomitable Spirit: Finding Purpose in Pointless Work

But you should insist on meaningful work anyways. A philosophical meditation involving the ideas of Hegel, Dostoyevsky, Graeber, and Camus.

The pivotal moment in G.W. Friedrich Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectic occurs when a slave, engaged in the work of making things for the master’s consumption, sees himself1 in those things and there finds meaning. These objects serve as a mirror in which he can see that his life has value. While the masters descend further into consumption and dependence on the slave’s labor to fulfill an increasing litany of desires and needs, the worker realizes himself as independent consciousness. His labor and the products of his work provide him with a sense of identity and meaning that the master, lost in the ever-widening chasm of his consumption, does not have access to.

But what happens when an economic system, fixated on maximizing efficiency and scalability, de-structures2 labor to such an extent that it minimizes the possibility for people who have to work for money to develop self-worth around what they make and do? In other words, when work becomes an endless series of repetitive actions, disconnected from any final product, end goal, or even human need, rendering work meaningless to the worker…