- So far, I've been using the words work and labour more or less interchangeably but, for example, used the word labour when Arendt or Marx or Engels were referring to to 'labour' as a concept, and 'work' to describe more general actions. It's not a case that labourers labour and that workers work. For us, the word labour retains the meaning of heavy labour and 'toil' as Marx would have it but although we might use the word 'work' to describe what 'work at' this is merely a modern preference describing the same situations. One major difference is that we now have many more different types of production but this still involves questions of the labour power (a.k.a. energy) that goes into that production and how the benefits of that production are distributed. This second installment of this chapter is about work as we know it, and our relationship to it.
- I'm now translating 労働力 as labour power in line with Marx and as in The Human Condition, instead of the ambiguous labour force.
• • •
2 The Universality of Work
The contradiction of this word 'work'
For Fourier, labour was a joy., For Ruskin it was the validity of living. For Marx it was toil. Why do we have so many different interpretations of what it is to work. Even now, we are in a state where we have simply received these contradictory interpretations as they are. Work has unpleasant aspects and work has pleasant aspects but we never think of this as contradictory. Rather, we think of these differences as simply individual differences in attitude. Work has its unpleasant moments but when we are fully involved with it and suddenly become aware of having been, then there is a feeling of satisfaction and we feel good when the results of that work are rewarded. This too is a matter of individual feelings and not a contradiction inherent to labour itself. There is the problem of Individual "motivation" and so the type of worker most desired by capitalists (employers) is 'motivated labourers'.
But is this really true?
There is a fundamental contradiction in how the word 'work' is used. For example, the previous paragraph mixed the words 'labour' and 'work' but we make a distinction between labour and work. "Work is pleasant," "work is difficult," "hard work," and "want to work" are all descriptions of the same thing but if we think of work and labour as the same then it is because it is us that believe so. Arendt writes that the two are a fundamental contradiction.
It is women and slaves who bear the burden of work
Labour and work are two completely different activities but we have lost the distinction between them. Modern society (mass society, market society) perceives them both as labour. Even if "man is a labouring animal", Marx said that "a primal and instinctive urge akin to that of animals" cannot be called labour. (Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Part I, p. 264) "Labourers are the sellers of their own labour power in the commodity market." (ibid., p.264) In other words, for Marx, labour was something that was traded on the commodity market. "Labour is a commodity that can only be perceived by humans." Industrial society is a society that is a commodity market to its very corners, and in which people think of their labour as a commodity. This is modern society (mass society, market society). Everything has become labour and we are living in such a modern society and so we don't understand why we have lost the distinction between labour and work. Work and labour are different but "ordinary people and specialists too … see these two different things as the same." (The Human Condition, p.225) Arendt continues, "This distinction between work and labour that I have been emphasizing is not something that is commonly recognized." (ibid., p.134) "Furthermore, in the enormous system comprising contemporary labour theory, there is practically nothing that supports this assertion of mine." (ibid., p.134) "This is because the Industrial Revolution replaced all work with labour." (ibid., p.186)
So then, how are labour and work different?
For Marx, labour was the commodity known as labour power and that was traded on the commodity market. For Fourier, labour was something one did as if they were pursuing a hobby. "The phalanstere was made as if it were a pleasure park with various pastimes (hunting, fishing, playing music, arranging flowers, stage performances) all compensated for. (Benjamin, Passages, Vol. 4, p.186) There was no boundary between labour and interest. Ruskin's labour was about manufacture but is this really labour?
It is activity that leads to 'change' but this activity that leads to change [as in the sense of 'the making of things'] is not labour. It is work, and something completely different from labour. After a goblin or gremlin or gargoyle had been made it was continue to stay in that same place forever. They were on the one hand elements of the facades of Gothic cathedrals but at the same time were definitive and total impressions of the intentions of their creators. If those sculptures were excellent works (in the sense of being collectively remembered) they would be remembered along with the name of their creator. Whether it is Sienna Giovanni Pissarro who created the sculptures of Siena Cathedral, or Michaelaqngelo who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or da Vinci who painted The Last Supper, we remember the name of the creator as well as their work. The product of their work was 'a work' and this part is something in common with architecture. Even though goblins and the like don't exist in reality, the will of their creators has continued to exist for more than 500 years. It is something that continues for longer than the life of a person. It is possible for us to even look and sense this today. Making things such as this is work.
The word change in the paragraph above comes from the Japanese word 物化 the characters tell me its meaning is "to make something (or for something to be made) into a thing. A secondary meaning is death and this makes me think Arendt is using this word in a special sense. Yamamoto helps out by explaining how this change is what happens when an idea is made tangible, and that the idea behind a thing lasts longer than the thing itself. Oddly, last night I was watching the movie Barbie and the denouement has Barbie say "I want to be part of the people that make meaning. I don't want to be something that's made. I want to do the imagining. I don't want to be the idea. Does that make sense?" (Barbie, 1:38:50-1:39:10) Didn't see that coming. As everybody else but me probably knew, Barbie chooses the real world and the opportunity to make meaning, despite the certainty of death. Rather than speculate about whether screenwriters Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach were referencing Hannah Arendt, perhaps the takeaway is that we should all aspire to be the people that make the meaning? Especially given that death is the alternative. (This is more upbeat in the movie, most likely for the sake of us in the real world.)
But what is labour? "Labour is what was performed by the slaves of Ancient Greece and slaves were the defeated enemy (domoes or duoloi) and, in addition to being used in warfare, would be taken to the victors' houses and live (as oikeretai or familiares) and work for the livelihood of their masters. They were gynaeconitis slaves, and household labour for maintaining the human processes of life. This labour was not up to the free will of the slaves. It was repeated tasks for the maintenance of the lives of the master and his household. It was labour that had to be performed on command of the head of the household, The Greeks thought of this labour as, from the point of view of the slaves, as labour in exchange for being allowed to live. [For the Ancient Greeks], it was essential labour for the recurring processes of life. This labour for necessity is the nature of labour, and it is the labour of slaves. This is something people must object to. To put it the other way, "the slave system of old … was an attempt to remove labour from the conditions for human living." (The Human Condition, p137)
"The fate of falling into slavery was instant but it was a fate worse than death because human beings were kept and raised as if they were livestock." (ibid., p. 137) They were persons confined to within the gynaeconitis (the deepest part of the private realm) and it was not permitted for them to appear in the public realm. The only thing consumed by the labour was their bodies and nothing would remain as a result of their labor. Slaves were people "neither seen nor heard". "The right to see them or hear them was privative. The thing a slave feared the most was to be nameless for, as long as they were nameless, they could disappear without leaving a trace." (ibid., p. 83) "The greatest fear of a slave is that theyy would die without leaving any evidence that they had been alive.
The Universality of 'Work'
"The persons for whom the slaves worked (the demiourgoi) were able to move freely within the public realm external to the private realm." (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.136) The demiourgoi were workmen, people that did work. Alternatively, they were homo faber (with faber having the meaning of construction or carpentry)". (ibid., p.274) These workmen made things that had durablility in the world" (ibid. p.224) and the world was the polis. They made the city walls of the polis, the temples, the agoras, the boundaries between house and house, and the houses themselves. Their work was to make everything in the city that could be touched as a "thing" and those made things, in turn, made the world. What is important is that the things they made had a longevity and durability far longer than that of any one person. All workers from the most lowly to the highest rated artist were involved in making things that were as durable as possible." (ibid., p.146) The world had to have durability. Arendt is thinking of the "world" as something very concrete and specific. This "world" was made of the things made by workmen. "Nature" lay in "life processes" of repeated life cycles. Nature is born from decay and what is repeated is the cyclic movement of regeneration. The world, in contrast, always has the same appearance. Whereas "Nature" is the space where things decay and are reborn, the "World" is the space that is eternal.
The world is not in a state of continuous motion. Rather, it has durability and relative longevity and it is because of this that man appears in it, and also why he can disappear from it. In other words, the world existed prior to the appearance of individuals, and remains after they have gone. The life and death of people is a premise of this world. Therefore, if we were to assume a world in which people did not live and die, there would be nothing other than endless recycling without any change, and man and all other animals would remain deathless in eternity.
Arendt, The Human Condition, p.152
Arendt's image of the "world" is that of the polis of Ancient Greece. The polis is a memory device. The polis is a device that remembers people who were once there and active there, even if those people who lived there die and move on. "The organization of the polis is protected by the city walls around its perimeter and, on the outside, is guaranteed by its laws but, for as long as it does not change to the degree it is unrecognizable to later generations, is a type of memory device." (Arendt, The Human Condfition, p.219) The space of the polis was a memory device that remembered what house a person was born in, what activities they performed, and where and how they died. It was possible for persons to be confidence they would be remembered after they were gone, [along with] the temple, the agora, the city, the houses and the fireside. They could also be confident that "things" would also continue without change even after they themselves were gone. This polis was the "world" and it was the job of workers to make that "world". This is why Arendt wrote that "The human condition of work is universal". [colour, bolding and italics mine] To make the world's "things" is the fundamental meaning of "work".
Arendt writes that "Hercules said it is not possible for a person to enter the same stream twice and people too are ceaselessly changing. Even so, people are connected by the same chair and the same table and this makes it possible for a uniqueness and an identity to be returned to people. This "objectness" of things in the world is because of this." (ibid., p.225) Put more precisely, "Both table and chair are "things of the world." These "things of the world" "are what physically connect person and person." (ibid., p.296) "This means that something takes shape between person and person, to make relationships between them and connect them. Practically all activities and speech lie in-between." (ibid., p.296) By being inbetween, it is possible for "the chair, table, fireplace, house, temple and agora to create relationships between people and connect them." "At the same time as they are connected, they are also separated." (ibid., p.79) These are the "things of the world." In contrast, modern society (mass society, market society) is a society in which things have lost their "universal objectness". It is a society in which things have only a function. "This means more than many persons being gathered around a table … and the table being suddenly removed from their midst so that people sitting opposite each other are no longer separated by something that can be touched and felt, but that those persons are now completely unrelated." (ibid. p.79) This is what modern society is like. It is a society without "things" inbetween. It is a society in which things are not used to form mutual relationships between people. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1959) took as a premise such a society without the mutual connections caused by things and gave the name "universal space" to the architectural space created. It was an architecture that asked nothing of society. Mies was of the opinion that an architectural space that "creates relationships between people and connects them" instead creates a burden on society. As a space, society must be a free space. It must not create a burden. This is why he designed the spaces he did, spaces that could freely respond to any need. [Architect] Hiroshi Hara [Hara, H.] has given the name 'uniform space' to such Miesian space. It is an architectural space that has lost the 'universality of things". It is the architecture of our society today.
I'm beginning to see how buildings are some of the "things of the world" and that, because they are made through this activity called work, are given the ability to make relationships between people and to connect them. Buildings of many types may connect people by containing them (functionally) within the one enclosure, but not that many retain the relationships those people (continue to) have with the (public space) outside that enclosure. Yamamoto's way of looking at the people in the spaces between buildings is said to be about community and Yamamoto has often used this word to describe his buildings. We may understand Yamamoto's projects in terms of community and, after all, it's not a bad thing. Yamamoto's position is that all things in the world, but especially those very big things called buildings, should make these connections and relationships between all people and not just be containers for a functional few.
• • •
2024/07/21 Ch. 3, pp.108-114 (this post)
2024/07/14 Ch. 3, pp.101-107
2024/06/30 Ch. 2, pp.92-100
2024/06/23 Ch. 2, pp.87-92
2024/06/16 Ch. 2, pp.78-87
2024/06/02 Ch. 2, pp.69-78
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.66-70
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.58-66
2024/05/05 Ch. 1, pp.46-55
2024/04/28 Ch. 1, pp.35-46
2024/04/21 Ch. 1, pp.23-35
2024/04/07 Ch. 1, pp.18-23
2024/03/31 Ch. 1, pp.14-18
2024/03/24 The Space of Power vs. The Power of Space: Preface pp. 7-11
Revisited this week:
No comments:
Post a Comment