The Gospel of work

Abstract

In 1843, Thomas Carlyle proclaimed a new “Gospel” for modern England: “Work, and therein have wellbeing.” Inspired by Carlyle’s vision, writers such as George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Friedrich Engels, and others subsequently developed their own version of his spiritualized conception of work, reimagining the relationship between work, the self, and society. Indeed, the centrality of work is one of the primary characteristics of Victorian thought: as Walter Houghton remarks in an oft-quoted line, “after ‘God,’ the most popular word in Victorian England was ‘work.’” Certainly, the emphasis on work appeared across Victorian culture, appearing in Victorian painting, self-help manuals, and even board games. Yet Carlyle and the Victorians were also influenced by a longer tradition: the gradual investment of worldly professions with religious energy inherent in the idea of a secular “vocation.” The fundamentally philosophical nature of the “Gospel of Work,” and of the idea of a secular vocation more generally, appears in its basic form in Carlyle’s argument for it. When one sets to work, he contends, a sort of moral transformation occurs: agents forget the searching questions of religious skepticism and the distractions of incidental desires and remake or realize themselves. Moreover, a society of such workers would no longer be founded on the cash “nexus”; in other words, social relationships would no longer be determined by economic structures. In that sense, meaningful work is essential for the healthy person and the healthy society. But when taken seriously and applied broadly, this seemingly straightforward philosophical claim encountered a number of philosophical difficulties and ideological tensions. Most obviously, it was not clear whether the sort of industrial labor actually available to most people could have the effects Carlyle and others imagined. Correspondingly, to advocate for the importance of the Gospel of Work under industrialism began to seem politically suspect, especially after versions of the Gospel of Work served to justify imperialist expansion. Then, too, it gradually became apparent how thoroughly the Gospel of Work was interlaced with elaborate assumptions about gender. Finally, the vexed status of the productions of writers and artists pushed at perhaps the hardest question in the Gospel of Work: what, after all, is “work,” and how is it different from other human activities? This research has been supported by the Danish National Research Foundation, grant number DNRF127.