Thoughts on Work

I've been reading a book lately by Matthew Fox (the activist and former Catholic, now Episcopalian priest who founded Wisdom University) called "The Reinvention of Work," and it's a fascinating read. Work is something that I've spent a great amount of time pondering, and I think this book is helpful in guiding these questions forward: What does work mean? What do we do when there isn't enough "good" work to go around? What do we do when the "good" work keeps getting outsourced or offshored and those who can still stay employed find themselves in an ever more insecure and stressful position at work? What if the "work" we're creating is destroying the Earth we depend on for our very sustenance?

I remember years ago seeing a documentary on a Department of Energy site on some river on the East Coast (likely the Savannah River in South Carolina), and how even though the work being done on the site had poisoned the rivers of the town and had been ecologically devastating, there was pressure from the community to keep it there and open because of the jobs that it provided. It started me thinking about the meaning of work and whether there wasn't a better way to sustain human beings.

Fox points out that there are over 1 billion unemployed people on the planet; that this of course is a huge problem in and of itself. But he also points out that "Jobs, jobs, jobs" isn't necessarily the answer; that the type of work we create matters. He cites a Canadian study that showed that life expectancy is more closely linked to how much of a sense of control people feel in their work lives than it is to their access to health care, something we might do well to keep in mind as we push for universal health care coverage. Having lived with crappy but expensive health insurance for three years, I think the health care crisis is real and I'm all for single-payer universal health coverage. But we also need to be thinking about how to allow for people to live lives of dignity and meaning, and how to restore health and balance in this crazy world.

An Evening with Bill Clinton

We spent last evening at a fundraiser for Jim McDermott in Seattle, at the beautiful Benaroya Hall, where we were entertained with some great music, edified by the words of my most esteemed Thom Hartmann, educated in the some of the vagaries of the first amendment case that Rep. McDermott has been fighting for the last nine years, and inspired by Bill Clinton, talking about what Democrats stand for.

Now, I must say, I have mixed feelings about Bill. I think he's smart. I think he's an inspiring speaker. I also know that there were a lot of things that he did as President that I don't think best represented the interests of most of the people of this country. That said, I think he spoke with some insight, contrasting those who hold an ideology ("Don't bother me with the facts!") to those who hold a philosophy ("I know what I believe, but I also know that I can be wrong--so let's talk--and let the best ideas win."). He said that the ideologues can't win an argument, which is why they have to rely on attacking their opponents.

I thought that was a good distinction. A useful one. I also know that we can all be fundamentalists about some of our ideas, and that we need to be watchful lest we also let any ideology pump us up with self-righteousness, so that we don't recognize how we ourselves contribute to the quandary that we find ourselves in on planet Earth at this time at the start of this new century, where so much that is so serious must be resolved so quickly.