Do you have to like work?

As a reader of the Pages of Academics in Politics (thanks to him), the France Culture program Culture, Les nouveaux chemins de la connaissance, devotes a week to the baccalaureate exam in philosophy. One of the questions discussed is the question of work, themes of the Sciences Po 2014.

The question asked is: should we like to work?

Here is a transcription for you, the readers of Academics in Politics, of the program, which is not exhaustive, and which can easily be completed by listening to the The podcast.

—You should forget the answer that comes spontaneously, because it is not the this is not the right way to establish a philosophy plan.
—Documentary: “I am in great pain at work” Testimony: Work, in the etymological sense, is tortured. So can we love work? Work? But work allows us to feed our family, to take care of our children, it is vital for children, it is vital. Work gives meaning to life, establishes a link with others which is fundamental. Not having a job, having a poorly paid job work is a voluntary servitude, we go to work every day to work.
—The ambivalence of work: at the same time a source of happiness and a source of unhappiness. Ambivalent character of work. What is working? The work in itself is lovable or why should the love of work be the object of the love of work be the object of an obligation?
—We are interested here in the first word of the question, because we must question all the words of the question and the words of the question. Philosophy is a normal school question: there is no mystery, there is no mystery, there is a program. In the essay, should you in the essay, should one love one’s work, one must define the work.
-One will find the question that pinpoints the problem if in front of a question, one asks oneself a second question: why am I being asked this question? Can love be the object of an obligation?

Modern Times –  Charlie Chaplin

—First part: work is considered as a suffering.

—Hannah Arendt, Condition of Modern Man

“To say that work and crafts were despised in antiquity because they were reserved for slaves is a prejudice of modern Modern historians. The Ancients made the opposite reasoning: they judged that it was. that it was necessary to have slaves because of the servile nature Of all the occupations that provided for the needs of life. It is even for these reasons that they defended and justified the institution of Slavery. To work was to be enslaved by necessity, and this enslavement was. Was inherent in the conditions of human life. The men being subjected to the necessities of life could only free themselves By dominating those whom they force to submit to necessity. The degradation of the slave was a blow of fate, a fate worse than death, because death, because it provoked a metamorphosis which changed the man into a being Being close to the domestic animals. This is why if the status of the slave changed. the status of the slave changed, for example by manumission, or if a change in political conditions raised certain occupations to the rank of public occupations to the rank of public affairs, the “nature” of the slave automatically Automatically changed.“

—The farmer produces what he will consume. The ancients did not have a word equivalent to our equivalent word to ours: work was the activity to which we are absolutely to which we are absolutely compelled to live. So the consumption, essential to live, is working. Rest is working. The journey to work is also working. The ancients called work essentially a forced activity. Not to work for a Greek, it is not to do anything for as much. It means having time to perform unconstrained activities, free activities.
—We are all forced to work, to get a salary, to live. Therefore, by integrating the ancient conception, the work is in itself not in itself unlovable. One can love a free activity.

—2nd part: modern conception of work.

Locke, Ricardo, Smith. For the moderns, work is productive, it is a source of value. Work makes it possible to enrich. The forced nature of the character of work does not exhaust the conception of work: it is necessary to reflection is needed. For example, Hegel shows that work is a properly human activity, work is the realization of humanity, of the of humanity, of the freedom of humanity. For through work, man transforms nature. Through the work that man produces, man recognizes himself. It is the sense of Hannah Arendt’s distinction between work and work.
—To work is to participate in the collective effort of humanity. For moderns, it is a human activity, but also an activity that humanizes. The worker can acquire a certain number of virtues. The laborious and sterile that it can be with its result, nevertheless allows forming oneself. A new conception, which makes of work all human activities.

—Karl Marx, The Manuscripts of 1844
“Now, in what does the dispossession of labor consist? First of all, in the that labor is external to the worker, that is to say that it does not belong to does not belong to his being; that, in his work, the worker does not. assert himself, but denies himself; that he does not feel satisfied, but unhappy; that he does not deploy a free physical and intellectual energy, but Intellectual energy, but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. This is why. why the worker has the feeling of being his own only outside of work work; in his work, he feels outside himself. He is himself. When he is not working and, when he is working, he is not himself. His Work is not voluntary, but forced. Forced to work, it is not not the satisfaction of a need, but only a means to satisfy needs Needs outside of work. The alienated nature of the work appears clearly in the fact that, as soon as there is no physical or other constraint Physical or other constraint, one flees from work like the plague.”

—Part 3: Karl Marx says that work is a social activity. The division of labor must be taken into account. We must no longer speak of to speak of labor with a capital T, but we must know what specific labor we are talking about we are talking about. We have to take into account the historical and concrete division of labor and concrete division of labor. Karl Marx with Hengel discovered the concept of alienated, with a double alienation. Alienated labor is not lovable. For the worker does not recognize himself in the specific task he performs modern Times, Charlie Chaplin.
—What is love? René Descartes says that love is the greatest of the goods of men. It is not a source of any joy, it is the greatest source of the greatest source of joy in life. So work would be an activity that would be in harmony with our sensibilities, our faculties, source of social recognition.

—Conclusion: it does not make sense to say that we can love work if we have not defined the work. We must have the possibility, the freedom to choose a lovable job.

→ Review with the best-of articles on the notion of work