When did “I work for what I like” become “I work even if I don’t get paid”? What kinds of jobs are prestigious enough that there are people willing to do them even without getting paid? Already in the late 1980s, the sociologist Zygmunt Baumann He argued that there had been a passage from the ethics of work to the aesthetics of consumption. If before any work had an ethical value in itself, today its aesthetic value prevails: it is judged by its ability or not to generate pleasant experiences. Of course, there were always tasks that were more rewarding than others, but because of the fact that “work dignifies”, they all had the same value from an ethical perspective. To this was added an aspect of a spiritual nature (Max Weber explained it well in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) because it was believed that a job well done was also a way to please God. The German word professionberuf“and the English”calling” include the religious idea of “mission” that gives any honest work a sacred meaning, where being is reaffirmed in doing. Although in modern societies this model has been emptied of spirituality, the vocation continues to be especially rewarded by capitalist ethics and the gap has widened: some creative works are presented as fascinating, while others seem to have even lost their ethical value. The new paradigm is to have “instagrammable” jobs, that look cool, that in the general imagination are confused with leisure. It is no longer about working as little as possible to have free time, but quite the opposite: the ideal job is presented as the height of entertainment and the line between productive and recreational tasks is blurred. “We have fun working,” says a supposedly privileged minority who were able to turn their personal tastes into their livelihood.
However, this success that is measured in aesthetic terms is often a trap. Let’s see. Most of those who dedicate themselves to creative work in Argentina are marked by precariousness, piece-rate invoicing, delayed payments, the absence of agreements that guarantee vacations and Christmas bonuses, and many times (even though they look good on social media) they are not enough to get there. at the end of the month. In Bourdieu’s terms, the symbolic capital that they have does not correspond to the economic capital that they actually grant. At the last Buenos Aires Book Fair, Guillermo Saccomano he touched on some of these issues in his inaugural address. He said he was the first to charge for giving said conference, since it was not usually a paid task for the recognition that it meant. “I imagined myself in the supermarket trying to convince the Chinese that he was going to pay for the purchase with prestige,” the writer ironized.
The anecdote illustrates a situation that is well known within the cultural field: more and more, “little jobs” are offered without money in exchange. The date of a recital, the column in a radio or TV program, the design of a logo, the presentation of a book, the conference in a congress, the participation in a festival, are proposed so that they become “cool” or for very little money, on the grounds that they give “visibility”, which would allow them to get… yes, you guessed it: other jobs. That formula popularized by Mirta Legrand of “How they see you, they treat you; if they see you as bad, they mistreat you and if they see you as good, they hire you” is the new and unspoken mantra: if you appear in the media, have a presence in networks and dedicate yourself to what you like, the consolation is that there is no salary but there is applause (either likesas the case may be).
No one wonders if a worker derives pleasure from taking his place on an assembly line. He is there because he is paid: he does it to live, he does not confuse it with life. It would never occur to anyone to ask him to do it “for travel expenses”. On the other hand, in creative activities there is an intimate motivation that goes beyond the mere sale of labor power. There the firm, the proper name, the accumulated reputation is at stake. The Spanish Remedios Zafra, author of the winning essay of the 2017 Ensayo Herralde prize, “The enthusiasm. Precariousness and creative work in the digitalreturn to the subject in fragile. Regarding what mobilizes these workers, he comments: “Enthusiasm used by capitalist logic, making profitable their gratuitous or vain passion. Its protagonists have training, creative motivation, activity in networks, usually temporary jobs, they are always active and in many cases they live in economic uncertainty or directly remain poor. This generates that, in addition to the time dedicated to making creative itself, time is invested in the self-promotion of that work in order to generate greater demand and income.
Bend but don’t break
With flexibility as the motto, from the 21st century, work in the West ceased to be the way to build a predictable and lasting life path. Identities, like consumer goods, must be constantly recreated. If the disciplinary society molded individuals to act routinely, today the requirement is to be able to choose all the time: both the ideal worker and the ideal consumer are those who are tempted by new offers, who can improvise.
If for centuries the figure of the creative genius was installed, currently all of us are required to be “creators”. Do not let anything stop you. It’s your time to express yourself. To show it to the world. To monetize it. To live from it. If you fail to undertake, be your own boss, have flexible hours and freedom of decision, the yoke of work will be lived just like that: a weight. It wasn’t always like this. Today creative work, that of “brainstorming”, that which requires motivation and enthusiasm, is part of a culture of multi-employment. The result is usually self-exploitation, work at any time, the demand to become “your own brand”, to “have a differential”, to build “your own label”. And all this, with joy. Who doesn’t smile goes wrong in the photos.
An Argentine example: in 2018 the Buenos Aires legislator Andy Freire, former Minister of Modernization, Innovation and Technology of the City of Buenos Aires, published a video with advice to “turn into money all those places in your house that during the holidays are going to remain unused” in which the following was dispatched: “Did you know that gardens are beginning to be rented for camping? The barbecue area, the grill, the barbecue, the armchair in your house, the room you don’t use. The bicycle, the car, all of that you can rent, use, make available during your vacations and make money. What are you waiting for? If you don’t, it’s because you don’t want to.” Of course the video went viral (it’s easy to find on Youtube) and the PRO official had his 15 minutes of virtual mockery, which didn’t make his entrepreneurial optimism wane either.
in his book The Fatigue Society South Korean philosopher Byung Chul Han It states that the current worker is a “subject of performance” that is characterized by a positive verb: power. Like political campaigns or sneaker campaigns, contemporary subjectivity lives to the cry of “Yes, we can”“Impossible is nothing”, “Just do it”. In order to increase productivity, the disciplinary paradigm was replaced by the positive scheme of “can do”, which is much more efficient than the negativity of should. Now there is a new type of worker: the one who exploits himself, voluntarily, without external coercion: “The collapse comes when the subject of performance can not power more. Depression consists of a tiredness of creating and power do. His regret is “nothing is possible”, which can only be manifested within a society that believes that everything is possible. Another aspect of this excess of positivity (which often leads to exhaustion, panic attacks or mental illness) has its correlate in attention multitasking which, far from being progress, is a setback for civilization as a whole. Says Han: “Humanity’s cultural achievements are due to deep, contemplative attention, which is being replaced by hyperattention: scattered attention that rapidly shifts focus between different tasks, information sources, and processes. Given his low tolerance for boredom, he also does not admit that deep boredom that would be of some importance for a creative process.
Against the culture of work
Work appears in circulating discourses as the cure for all ills. But, what if life had not been made to work? The idea sounds revolutionary but it is old. Aristotle said that work does not make people better, but rather degrades them because it takes time away from their social and political obligations. Already in the 19th century, Paul Lafargue analyzed this in detail in his book The right to laziness of 1880. After all, there is a class that lives with no other vocation than leisure: they are the heirs, those who do not have to work to live. A “work culture” is not required of them: they can be full-time hedonists. They don’t even have the pressure to create anything. It is enough that they are, in their own right. By dint of VIP consumption and bearing the last name, some may even forge a media reputation.
Meanwhile, the current trend is that the more social value a job produces, the less it is charged for doing it. The American anthropologist David Graeber came up with an original analytical category to designate certain jobs that could well not exist and that nevertheless are rewarded with high salaries. He called them “shitty jobs” in his 2018 book of the same name. There he argues that these useless jobs differ from those that are simply bad or poorly paid, but are not shitty because they are necessary, such as those in the field of cleaning. On the other hand, shitty jobs are usually respected and well paid. Because they exist? According to Graeber, because our societies prefer more consumption to less work but, above all, because a happy, productive population with free time is a mortal danger: “It is convenient for the dominant to implant the belief that work is a value in itself and that whoever does not work deserves nothing. But what if a class of workers suddenly disappeared? If they were nurses or mechanics, we’d be in trouble. But it is not clear what would happen if there were no financial managers, lobbyists or notaries, even the world would be better”. The exercise of thinking about it can generate a bitter smile; a little recess, at least, until we go back to work.
Suggestive, right?
E-Z