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21.4
The concept of work
  
     
  What is work? It is a pretty simple question. The standard answer is something like:  
  Work is essentially something done; the physical effort of an individual towards some activity in exchange for obtaining essential physical needs of food, clothing, and shelter.  
  The word appeared in largely its present form around the 13th Century.  
  But what really is work from a philosophical sense is an entirely different thing. And the philosophical to what is work, is both wide and quite sobering.  
  The philosophical nature of work  
  In modern historical writings about the philosophy of work, two broad attitudes are given – the “East” based on an essential Taoist nature of work being part of the natural flow of life and the “West” where work is more akin to both a duty and burden for our transgressions.  
  This is the “homogenized” view, the packaged view of work philosophy. In truth, there are in fact only two broad philosophies concerning the nature of work, but they do not relate to east and west but Non-Christian and Christian attitudes.  
  Non-Christian view of work  
  Before Christianity filled the minds of people with concepts such as original sin, women being evil and subordinate and that human beings were somehow cursed to labor, work was considered a natural part of life.  
  Certainly an individual in the ancient Roman Empire might liked to have done something else, but there was no baggage concerning the nature of work. It was simply something that had to be done.  
  Similarly today, many non-Christian cultures simply recognize work as part of life. Some religions might place a high degree of emphasis on the state of mind and effort applied in all manner of duties (such as Shinto Buddhism), however for the most part work is considered natural.  
  Christian view of work  
  In contrast, the Christian view of work is far more sinister and twisted and still pervades the mindset of most Christian dominated nations even today.  
  By the Christian philosophers such as St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, work was described both a duty and a burden that all must bear; a suffering which we must endure.  
  There was nothing to be enjoyed by work. It was our curse for the original sin of Adam and Eve and for women, it was their curse that they should be the slaves to men from morning to night.  
  For example, the Benedictine monks enunciated the rule that "to work is to pray," to fulfil one's duty to God and thus achieve salvation. This notion of work bringing spiritual rewards, in addition to physical survival, was carried further during the 17th century by the Puritans, whose work ethic led them to regard the accumulation of material wealth through labour as a sign of God's favour as well as of the individual's religious fervour.  
  This attitude still appears in the American expression, "You are what you do," implying that people define themselves by the nature of their work.  
  Not to work was a sin, unless you were a wealthy noble, a priest or a bishop. For if you were a serf, you had no real rights- you were a slave to the world created by the church- it was your lot to tread the path made by their hands.  
  As twisted as this model of the world is, it remains largely the philosophy of the Vatican even today. It remains a powerful underlying attitude towards work that pervades the attitude towards corporations and the saying “a hard days work for a good pay”- that working hard is a noble pursuit.  
  Never mind that the hard work of workers over centuries has simply made the rich richer and sometimes the poor poorer. Never mind that modern societies have more than enough wealth and systems to enable people to work twenty hour weeks and be paid well, so long as senior executives were prepared to be paid ten to twenty times average pay rather than one hundred to a thousand times average pay.  
  The Christian philosophy of work still impacts the world today and is a large reason that the nature of work has been slow in developing to a more enlightened framework.  
     
 
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