Work In Revue

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009) is an extended socio-philosophical journey through a bricolage of found occupations – from aviation and rocket science, logistics and accounting, to career counselling and painting – in search of what makes jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying. Written with a characteristic blend of wit and wisdom, the book offers an unusual glimpse into the “beauty and occasional horror of the working world.”

There is a sense of mourning for the natural and aesthetic sublime throughout. Attributing our present-day environmental devastation to the era of the “technological sublime”, de Botton casts a wistful eye towards recovering a sense of history and humanity, and expresses his regard for work and activity that issues from “the impractical side of human nature”, such as art-making. These ostensibly engage the intellect and sensitivity more holistically than merely subscribing to prevailing “working wisdom”, which is the net result of the success of Paretan work specialisation: we lose our ability to grasp the broader scheme of things as a consequence of the “necessary myopia” induced by highly specialised jobs. More often than not, he conjectures, our everyday toil is rarely endowed with a sense of a larger purpose or meaning – oftentimes not even a tangible product – making our daily labour unsatisfying in and of itself. This inorganic state of things is further supplemented by the need for numbing distractions and illusions outside of work (in one instance, the television is described as an ever “jealous screen” that jostles constantly for our attention).

Whether all this conjecture is based on a false or constructed dichotomy is of little consequence. Ultimately, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is an astutely timed eulogy for what de Botton sees to be the impossibility of faith in the permanence and durability of our labours – whether via memory, Proustian or otherwise – in an age of unmitigated acceleration, for that which is continually and irredeemably lost in our era of permanent technological and sociological revolution.