The pivotal moment in G.W. Friedrich Hegel's Master/Slave dialectic occurs when a slave, engaged in the work of making things for the master's consumption, sees himself1 in those things and there finds meaning. These objects serve as a mirror in which he can see that his life has value. While the masters descend further into consumption and dependence on the slave's labor to fulfill an increasing litany of desires and needs, the worker realizes himself as independent consciousness. His labor and the products of his work provide him with a sense of identity and meaning that the master, lost in the ever-widening chasm of his consumption, does not have access to.

But what happens when an economic system, fixated on maximizing efficiency and scalability, de-structures2 labor to such an extent that it minimizes the possibility for people who have to work for money to develop self-worth around what they make and do? In other words, when work becomes an endless series of repetitive actions, disconnected from any final product, end goal, or even human need, rendering work meaningless to the worker, what then?

This all reminds me of a passing comment that Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) makes in his account of the Siberian prison work camp to which he was sent in The House of the Dead:

"Hard labour, as it is now carried on, presents no interest to the convict; but it has its utility. The convict makes bricks, digs the earth, builds; and all his occupations have a meaning and an end. Sometimes, even the prisoner takes an interest in what he is doing. He then wishes to work more skilfully, more advantageously. But let him be constrained to pour water from one vessel into another, or to transport a quantity of earth from one place to another, in order to perform the contrary operation immediately afterwards, then I am persuaded that at the end of a few days the prisoner would strangle himself or commit a thousand crimes, punishable with death, rather than live in such an abject condition and endure such torments. It is evident that such punishment would be rather a torture, an atrocious vengeance, than a correction. It would be absurd, for it would have no natural end." — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead

Doesn’t this sound a lot like so many of our jobs today? No matter how hard or unpleasant the task, we humans will make it meaningful to us because it is us doing it, and so it matters to us in some way, shape, or form. The only thing that is quite intolerable is being forced to do something senseless, over and over again. This lack of meaning or value is what is dehumanizing.

In "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory," David Graeber (1961-2020) explores the phenomenon of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs that, according to Graeber, permeate the modern workforce. Graeber argues that a significant portion of societal work is pointless, not necessarily because the tasks themselves are useless, but because they serve to perpetuate bureaucratic systems or corporate inefficiencies without contributing to the well-being of society. Graeber suggests that the existence of bullshit jobs is a result of cultural and economic systems that prioritize employment for its own sake, rather than for the production of valuable goods or services. He contends that this situation is not only demoralizing for individuals stuck in these roles but also detrimental to the economy and society at large.

Yes, and I think that the point is to keep people engaged in work that is as meaningless as possible. In other words, it's not just "employment for its own sake," but jobs that have been de-structured and as divorced from the social good they promote as is possible. This is not just the gig economy, although yes it certainly includes those jobs, but all jobs seem to be moving in this direction, Increasingly, our interactions dehumanized and technologically micro-managed. The low-grade torture of it, the outright cruelty, is the point now as much as efficiency.

But there is one thing that capitalism and the sociopathic billionaire class did not count on, and that is the indomitable spirit of the human being. We have this uncanny ability to find meaning even in the most desolate places, in the most grim of circumstances. Being nothing if not adaptable, we get used to it and still mostly survive. To not care is an aberration and a perversion of the human spirit, and it is harder that you would think to not care at all. We care, even when, really, we shouldn't. That is the one thing that makes being human still heartening.

Our tools and technologies do not care, computers don’t care, algorithms don’t care, but in our hands these tools become an expression of what we care about, and therein lies meaning. Think about what this means for the kinds of technologies that “we” are creating….

Fact is, we humans already exist in the throes of absurdity, so adding a little more meaningless on top of existential absurdity is like… meh. Somehow, we still manage to care.

Imagine dedicating your entire life to collecting rare, seemingly insignificant objects—say, pebbles of a specific shade of blue—believing that amassing enough of these will reveal to you the universe's deepest secrets or somehow validate your existence. This quest consumes every moment, every resource, displacing relationships, careers, and more traditional life achievements.

Yet, the universe, in its vastness and silence, offers no acknowledgment of this quest. The pursuit, deeply meaningful to the collector, appears entirely arbitrary from an external viewpoint. The absurdity lies in the profound disconnect between the individual's search for meaning and the universe's mute indifference. What would you say about the blue pebble collector? Are they deluded, or have they found the key to their happiness?

If our existence is absurd, inherently devoid of prescribed meaning, we must confront the possibility that our quests, our struggles, and even our suffering might be, in the grand scheme of things, without objective purpose or value. Albert Camus (1913-1960), French existentialist writer best known for his exploration of absurdism, uses gravity to land the full weight of our existence's absurdity. Sisyphus, so goes the Greek myth, is condemned to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll down each time he reaches the top. The myth is a metaphor for the human quest for meaning in an indifferent universe.

Many people find all this a bit depressing, a bit of a downer, but the myth is supposed to free us up to do whatever the heck we want because if nothing matters, the we minus well find a way to do what we really want to do. Despite the apparent futility of the task, Camus finds a resilient defiance in Sisyphus’s situation, suggesting that the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart, and one must imagine Sisyphus happy.

The is no right or prescribed way our lives are meant to unfold, and no one particularly cares what you do. Who is going to tell our blue pebble collector that what she is doing is pointless, if it serves to make her happy and harms no one? Her happiness spreads easily to others, and in that there is already some good. So find a way to do what you want to do, and don’t accept meaningless work for too long.

As of last Friday, I have gone independent with my teaching efforts. I am really enjoying actually teaching again and I need more students. If any of you know someone who wants to learn to code, I'm now available as an independent JavaScript tutor. 😉