Things I'm Torn About: Respectability Part 2: Achievement

"It's about the beauty of failure. It's about that failure happens to all of us...Every character is not only flawed, but sucks at what they do, and is beautiful at it and Jackson and I suck at what we do, and we try to be beautiful at it, and failure is how you get by...It shows that failure's funny, and it's beautiful and it's life, and it's okay, and it's all we can write because we are big fucking failures. "
---Doc Hammer, co-creator of The Venture Brothers, on the show's underlying message.


It's hard to tell the difference between indolence and protest, and it's hard to tell the difference between subservience and greatness.

The cult of work in America is rooted in our Protestant work ethic, so well documented by Max Weber, and the Protestant work ethic in turn is rooted in a cult of pain worship, which historically has been the essence of most expressions of Christianity. There is a fundamental belief that pain is redemptive and meaningful, and the idea that somebody should live an enjoyable life without having "earned" it through the pain of work is offensive to the American psyche. I believe this pain worship at the heart of American culture is pathological. I don't believe it's rooted in anything rational, but rather is a byproduct of two millenia of steady Christianization. As Weber points out, it dovetails perfectly with the dictates of capitalism. Isn't it a convenient coincidence that this belief in the redemptive power of work happens to also maximize profits for owners of capital? Or, in the case of public or nonprofit organizations, to maximize the achievement of misssion? Either way, our deep psychological commitment to the idea of redemptive pain and earned rewards is readily exploited by management to maximimally sublimate the individual. Enjoyment of life is countenanced with legitimacy only when it occurs according to the time, place, and manner deemed appropriate by the powers that be (i.e., only after one has first dedicated the appropriate time and energy to the furtherance of organizational goals).

I don't believe that pain is fundamentally good. I don't. I think pain is pain. Pain MAY be a necessary step on the way to improvement, but our culture goes beyond that. We are committed to an aesthetic of pain. We are so threatened by the possibility that pain and suffering could just be random and unfortuante occurrences in life that we must invent some sort of intrinsic value for suffering. I think this is irrational and is a mistake and leads us to abandon pleasures even when it is unnecessary and to embrace pain even when it's pointless. I also think we have too quickly swallowed the idea that human existence should be something that occurs only for a few hours a night, weekends, and 2 weeks a year. I believe people work too much in the United States, and that humans should have more time to themselves to do other things.

So, basically, I have part of my brain that celebrates laziness. That celebrates career mediocrity. That celebrates abject failure. That celebrates the roustabouts and the bums and the Lebowskis and the indolent sages that speckle society. The pieces of shit doing nothing all day long. The people who call in sick and don't pick up the slack and hang out with their lovers and their kids instead of spending every possible waking second at the office.

ON THE OTHER HAND....

I also have a tremendous respect for achievement, and the sacrifice that it requires! I love art! I love science! I love philosophy! I love technology! I love organizations that help the world! Making a mark in just about any field almost always requires a tremendous amount of work! I can't very well celebrate people's accomplishments without having a deep appreciation for the work they had to put in.

I also respect people's dedication to their family's material well-being. Sacrifice is part of being a good provider for one's family. Is it great to be around for your kids' school play? Sure, it's freakin great. But is it also great to be able to buy braces for them and to send them to rich kid summer camp so they can meet other rich kids and grow up to get rich people jobs? Yeah! Yeah, that's also freakin great.

So I have this other part of my brain that says that a person should be dedicated to something. To a cause of some kind. To something greater than their own lives. Most of the time, this will involve a lot of time spent doing something other than what most would consider "recreation."

I am genuinely torn about this. How should I feel about my own career, which is certainly not achievement oriented right now? Should I make it my goal to pay my bills with the least amount of working hours humanly possible? There are days when I feel like that. That committing myself to a high-octane, R1 career path (assuming it was even possible) would be to sell myself out, to waste my one chance at being a human on some faceless organization that will chew me up, spit me out, send me the gold watch, and never look back. Or should I make it my goal to try to make a difference in the world? To try to be a famous researcher? Or even a famous artist? To get my policy ideas adopted by governments? To ease people's suffering?

I don't know! I really don't. My personality is not naturally gifted in the areas necessary to be successful...I have trouble with organization, concentration, and self-discipline, so I probably won't do that with my life. But I guess the question is, how bad should I feel about that?