A Sense of Doubt blog post #3126 - Work is Good

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3126 - Work is Good

We talk about the value of work and the drive to work, me and my community.

Here's a rumination on work by one of my favorite comic book creators, Colleen Doran, whom I interviewed 30 some years ago when I wrote a weekly column on comics for the local newspaper.

She posted this ON Labor Day. I am not so prompt.

Thanks for tuning in.


Via Collen Doran on Labor Day 2023

I used to write a column on my blog entitled "Work is Good".

I believe, like the 19th century activists believed - like Ruskin, William Morris and more - that work is ennobling, that productivity gives purpose, that fair compensation and good conditions for work are essential to its life-enhancing qualities.

I also believe that those who decry work as exploitative miss the entire original point of the labor movement that work is good and glorious. Workers bring value to the lives of others. It is not that work is exploitative, but that workers are exploited.

This is the painting Work by Ford Madox Brown, an allegory of the ennobling nature of work. It took him 13 years to paint it. For its release, Ford wrote a pamphlet explaining the symbolism in it.

The central figures are digging a sewer tunnel - considered by many to be lowly labor, but they are elevated in their presentation. The heroic figure in the middle is an allusion to the Apollo Belvedere.

To the right are portraits of two intellectuals and theorists Thomas Carlyle and F. D. Maurice, the founder of Christian Socialism, who wrote a treatise often referred to as 'the gospel of work".

Ford wrote that those whose labor is of the mind are "the cause of well ordained work in others".

In the background, the upper class sits on their horses, their way impeded by the workers before them.

There are political signs reading "Vote for Bobus". Bobus Higgins is a character from Carlyle's book Past and Present, a sausage maker who is meanly and ungenerous in spirit, who recognizes his own worth, but not the worth of others.

'For example, you Bobus Higgins, Sausage-maker on the great scale, who are raising such a clamour for this Aristocracy of Talent, what is it that you do, in that big heart of yours, chiefly in very fact pay reverence to? Is it to talent, intrinsic manly worth of any kind, you unfortunate Bobus? The manliest man that you saw going in a ragged coat, did you ever reverence him; did you so much as know that he was a manly man at all, till his coat grew better? Talent! I understand you to be able to worship the fame of talent, the power, cash, celebrity or other success of talent; but the talent itself is a thing you never saw with eyes. Nay what is it in yourself that you are proudest of, that you take most pleasure in surveying meditatively in thoughtful moments? Speak now, is it the bare Bobus stript of his very name and shirt, and turned loose upon society, that you admire and thank Heaven for; or Bobus with his cash-accounts and larders dropping fatness, with his respectabilities, warm garnitures, and pony-chaise, admirable in some measure to certain of the flunkey species? Your own degree of worth and talent, is it of infinite value to you; or only of finite, -- measurable by the degree of currency, and conquest of praise or pudding, it has brought you to? Bobus, you are in a vicious circle, rounder than one of your own sausages; and will never vote for or promote any talent, except what talent or sham- talent has already got itself voted for!’

This was written in 1843.

As I sit in my studio, satisfying and entertaining work at hand, at the end of a massively successful Kickstarter campaign for the Good Omens graphic novel, I am in the happy position of feeling valued for my work.

On this Labor Day, I wish for all of you the joy of productive purpose, the respect of your fellow men, and the glory that comes of giving value to others in meaningful work.

Happy Labor Day.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2309.09 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2990 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.