How can we make our labor work for us post-pandemic?
 | By Eleanor Barkhorn Editor at Large, Opinion |
What do a 19th-century pope, a present-day Marxist feminist and Henry David Thoreau have in common? |
They each have something to teach us about the nature of work, and how we as a society can develop a healthier relationship with our jobs. |
Much has been written over the past few years about the problems with American work culture: In January 2019 Anne Helen Petersen published an article in BuzzFeed declaring millennials as "the burnout generation." The following month, The Atlantic's Derek Thompson identified "workism" — the belief that work can provide "identity, transcendence and community" — as akin to a religion for many Americans. The pandemic has only amplified the discontent many of us feel about our jobs. |
In an essay for Times Opinion, Jonathan Malesic writes about how Pope Leo XIII, the Duke University professor Kathi Weeks and Thoreau all can help us cast a new, better vision of work. |
It's a vision that starts, Malesic writes, with "the idea that each one of us has dignity whether we work or not." In other words, a better relationship with work requires us to place less value on work in the first place. |
"Your job, or lack of one, doesn't define your human worth," Malesic writes. |
This has always been true. But the pandemic, with all its disruptions to work and the clarifying effect it has had on our priorities, offers an opportunity to change how we relate to our jobs. |
"We now have space to reimagine how work fits into a good life," Malesic writes. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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