Religion
DOROTHY L. SAYERS • "Why Work?"
The regulative ideal of fit reflects the aspirations people bring to the world of work, as it also elucidates the common opinion that work some- how supports human dignity. What would be required of us to fit our work? What would be required of work? What is the difference between a good fit and a bad one? Are there some useful jobs that cannot be said to fit anyone very well? And if so, how should these be allocated? This book will engage these questions and others in a way that will be at times uncomfortable, for I do not presuppose that the familiar terms of equal opportunity and free choice exhaust the categories with which we might evaluate the world of work. Yet uncomfortable categories are necessary if we are to understand the sources of pride and disappointment (and the sense of dignity and jus- tice) that our way of life contains.
DOROTHY L. SAYERS
"Why Work?"
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) was a British author and churchwoman who published plays, translations of medieval literature, a delightful series of detective novels, and theological essays like the one included here. It is said that she loved her work so much that writing filled almost all her wak- ing hours. It is possible that the creative character of her own work had a strong influence on her thinking about work in general.
More than most other essays in this anthology, this one makes a pow- erful case for our identities being wholly determined by our occupations. Sayers argues that we live in order to work, suggesting that those who work merely in order to live have, by choice or necessity, distorted the meaning and significance of work in their lives. On what basis does she make such an argument? Is she writing in the language of authenticity, suggesting that our work must be an authentic expression of our true
From Dorothy L. Sayers, "Why Work?" in Creed or Chaos? (London: Methuen & Co., 1947), pp. 47-64 .
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- t M Job Be the Prima ry Source of My Identity?
Q UEST IONS • 1 . Mus r kin the same kind of argument as Muirhead, suggesting
sel,m ? Is she ::uld\t ou r own personal preferences and skills and fit the th at ou r work .5 as well? How does her argument, which she locates needs of soC1 e~ n of Chr istianity, compare to the other Ch ristian read- with in the tra diti o h h e in the "vocation" section of Part I? ings in th is book, s~c
3 : t
0 ; .nts al so stands out as unusual : her argu-
One of Sayers 5
~t er : a;s the only obligation of Christians in th ei r ment th at the firs~ an ~e: She is probably right in thinking that Ch ris t ia n wo rk is to ~servke e wor ~mphas ized , often mindlessly, the idea of "ser- talk abou t wo~ 1: s over ec ial attention to any effort to challenge co nven- v_JCe." 5~ we s ou h~a y ~ter wh ile also wonder ing what form that service t1on al wisd om on t 1s m , mi ght tak e in the wo rk we do as students or in the kinds of work th at are emergi ng in the twenty-fi rst-cen tu ry economy.
I have already. on a previous occasion, spoken at some length on the subject of work and voca tion . What I urged then was a thorough-going revolution in our whole atti tude to work. I asked that it should be looked upon - not as a necessary drudge ry to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of li fe in which the nature of man should find its prope r exer- ci se and delight and so fulfil itself to the glory of God. That it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activi ty undertaken for the love of the wo rk itself; and that man, made in God's image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of do ing wel l a thing that is well worth doing .. ..
What is the Christi an un de rstanding of work? . .. I should like to put be- fo re you two or th ree proposit io ns arising out of the doctrinal position whic h I staled at the begi nn ing: namely, that work is the natural exe rcise and fu nction of man - the creatu re who is made in the image of his Creator. You will fi nd that any one of them, if given in effect everyday practice, is so revolutionary (as co mpa red with the habits of thinking into wh ich we have fa ll en), as to ma ke all political revolu tio ns look like conformity.
The .fi rst, stated quite briefl y, is that work is not, primarily, a thi ng one d_oes to live, but the th ing one li ves to do. It is, or it should be, the full expres- sJO n of t_he w~rker·~ facu lti es, the thi ng in which he finds spirit ual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God. fi Now the conseq uences of th is are not merely that the work should be per- bo rmed under decent living and wo rking conditions. That is a point we have
egun to gr~sp, and it is a perfectly so und point. But we have tended to con- cent rate on 1110 the exclusion or ot her considerations far more revolutionary.
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DOROTHY L. S AYER S • ~why Work?"
(a) There is, for instance, the question of profits and ren:1 uneratio~. We have all got it fixed in our heads that th e proper end of work 1s to _be paid fo r _ to produce a return in profi ts or payment to the worker which fu lly or more than compensates the effort he puts into it. But if our propos ition is true, this does not follow at al l. So long as society provides the worker with a sufficient return in real wealth to enable him to carry on the wo rk pro p- erly, then he has his reward. For his wo rk is the measure of his li fe, and hi s satisfaction is found in the fu lfil ment of his own nature, and in contempla- tion of the perfection of his work. That , in practice, the re is this satisfaction, is shown by the mere fact that a man will put lovi ng labour into some hobby which can never bring him in any economically adequate return. Hi s satis- faction comes, in the god-like manner, from looking upon what he has made and finding it very good. He is no longer bargain ing with his work, but serving it. It is only when work has to be looked on as a mea ns to gain that it becomes hateful; for then, instead of a frien d, it becomes an enemy from whom tolls and contributions have to be extracted . What most of us de- mand from society is that we should always get out of it a litt le more than the value of the labour we give to it. By this process, we persuade ourselves that society is always in our debt - a conviction that not only piles up ac- tual financial burdens, but leaves us with a grudge aga inst society.
(b) Here is the second consequence. At present we have no clear grasp of the principle that every man should do the wo rk for which he is fi tted by nature! The employer is obsessed by the notion that he must find cheap la- bour, and the worker by the notion that the best-paid job is the job fo r him . Only feebly, inadequately, and spasmodically do we ever attempt to tackle the problem from the ocher end, and inqu ire: What r)' pe of wo rker is suited to this type of work? People engaged in education see clearl y that this is 1he right end to start from; but they are fr ustrated by eco nom ic pressure, and by the failure of parents on the one hand and employers on the other to grasp the fundamental importance of this approach. And that the tro uble res ults far more from a failure of intelligence than from economic necessity is seen clearly under war co nditions, when, though co mpeti tive eco nomics are no longer a governing factor, the right men and wo men are still persistently thrust into the wrong jobs, through sheer inability on eve rybody's part to imagine a purely vocational approach to the business of fati ng together the worker and his work.
(c) A third consequence is that, if we rea lly believed this proposition and arranged our work and our standard of values acco rdingly, we shou ld no longer think of work as somethi ng that we hastened to get thro ugh in order to enjoy our leisure; we should look on our leisure as the period of cha nged
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, 2
Musi My Job Be the Prim ary Source of My Id entity? Q UESTION S .
freshed us fo r the delightful purpose of_getting on with our rhyth m that re . ve should tolerate no reg ulati ons of any sort th
d this being so, \ I . at work. An , ki gas long and as we! as our enJoyment of work d ed us from wor n e-pre,•ent id nt any such restrictions as a monst ro us interferenc
ded Weshou rese h I f e man . . rt of the subject. How great an up eava o our ideas that with che hbe Y to imagine. It would turn topsy-turvy all our n()-.
Id mean I leave you f . . . wou f k rates of work, un air co mpetmon, and all the rest . about hours o wor ' 1 .
uons Ye hould all find ourselves fighting , as now on y art_ISts and the mem- of it. \ 5 . fessions fight, for precious ume m whtch to get on With bers of certain pro · h d f h · b . d f fighting for precious ours save rom t e JO . thejob- 111st" 0
1 h Id fl h h d d A fourth consequence is that we s ou 1g t toot an nail, not
I I I e t but for the quality of the work th at we had to do. for mere emp oym n ' h . We should clamour to be engaged on work that was wort doing, and in which we could ra ke a pride. The worker would demand that the stuff he helped to turn our should be good st uff - he would no longer be content
10 rake the cash and let the credit go. Like the sharehold ers m th e brewery,
he would feel a sense of personal responsibili ty, and clamour to know, and co control. wh at we nt into the beer he brewed. There would be protests and sirikes - not only abou1 pay and conditions, but about the quality of ,he work de manded and the honesty, beauty, and usefuln ess of the goods produced. The greateSI insult whi ch a commerc ial age has offered to the wo rker has been to rob him of all interest in the end-product of the work and 10 force hi m 10 dedicaie his life to making badly things wh ich were not worth maki ng.
This first proposition chiefly concerns the worker as such. My second proposition di rectly conce rns Christians as such. and it is this: It is the busi- ness of the Church to recogni ze that the secular vocation, as such , is sacred. Christian people, and particularly perhaps the Christian cl ergy, must get it fir mly into the ir heads that when a man or woman is called to a particular job of secular work, tha t is as true a vocation as though he or she were called 10 specifically religious wo rk . The Church must conce rn herself not only wi th such questio ns as the just price and proper working cond itions: she ~ ust concern he rself wit h seeing that th e wo rk itself is such as a human be- mg ,_an perform wit hout deg radation - that no one is requi red by eco- nomi~ or any other considerations to devote himself to work th at is con- 1em pt1ble soul-<! 1 · h . • h
. · es roymg, or armful. It is not right for her to acquiesce 111 t e nouon that a ma , 1· ~ • d. • · k d h . n s I e 1s 1v1ded into the time he spends on his wor an { e time he spends in serving God . He mu st be able to serve God in his wor , and the work itself b d' f divine creation mu Sl c accepted and respected as the me 1um 0
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DOROT H Y L. SAYERS • "Why Work?"
The church·s approach to an intelligent carpen ter is usually co nfin ed to exhorting him not to be drunk and diso rde rl y in his leisure. hou:s, ~nd ~o come 10 church on Sundays. What 1h e Church should be telling h_1m IS th !S: that the very first demand that hi s religion makes upon him 1s th at he should make good tables ....
Let the Church remember this: that every maker and wo rker is ca lled to serve God in his profession or trade - not outside it. The Apostles com- plained rightly when 1hey said it was not meet [meant] they should leave th e word of God and serve tables; their vocation was lO preach the word . But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meet for us to leave the service of our ta bles to preach the word . The official Church wastes time and energy, and , more- over, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Chris tian work - by which she means ecclesiastical work. The only Christ ian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is Church embroidery, or sewage-farm ing ....
This brings me to my third proposition; and this may sound to you the most revolutionary of all. It is this: the worker's fi rst duty is to serve the work. The popular 'ca1ch' phrase of to -<lay is that it is everybody's duty to serve the community. It is a well-sounding phrase, but there is a catch in it: It is th e old catch about the two great commandments. 'Love God - and your neighb our; on those two commandments hang all the Law and the Pro phets.' The ca tch in ii, which nowadays the world has largely forgotten, is that the second com- mandment depends upon the first, and that without the first, it is a delusion and a snare. Much of our prese nt trouble and disillusion ment have come from putting the second commandment before the first. If we put our neighbour first , we are putting man above God, and that is what we have been doi ng ever since we began to worship humanity and make man the measure of all things. Whenever man is made the centre of things, he becomes the storm-centre of trouble - and that is precisely the catch about serving the communi ty. It ought perhaps to make us suspicious of that phrase when we consider that it is the slogan of every commercial scoundrel and swindler who wants to make sharp business practice pass mu ster as social improvement. 'Service' is the motto of the advertiser, of big business, and of fra udulent fin ance ....
There is, in fact, a paradox about working to serve the comm unity, and it is this: that to aim directly at serving the commun ity is to fa lsify the work; the only way to serve the community is to fo rget the commun ity and serve the work.
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