A nice little article ‘On Work’ by A. R. D. Fairburn from the New English Weekly, vol. 2, no. 4 (10 November 1932), pp. 83–4. I reproduce it here as it is otherwise unavailable online. If you own the copyright and you would like it taken down, let me know.
The New English Weekly was founded by A. R. Orage in 1932. In many respects it was a continuation of what the New Age had been under Orage’s editorship with many familiar contributors (A. J. Penty, Ezra Pound, Anthony Ludovici) and themes (guild socialism, Nietzsche, the latest in literary modernism); though it was, for my money, more straightforwardly a ‘movement paper’ than the New Age had ever been, the movement in question being Social Credit.
‘Rex’ Fairburn was a poet New Zealand and a friend of Count Potocki de Montalk.
This article very satisfyingly skewers the poisonous doctrine doctrine of the dignity of honest toil. Though some of Fairburn’s references are out of date (‘Public School code,’ etc.), the evil he identifies is still alive and active.
On Work
One would not expect a priest of religion, on being asked why he fulfilled his duties, to reply that he did it for a living. He would be more likely to speak of his ‘calling’ — a term which is applied, with unwitting irony, to all manner of unpleasant and worldly occupations. It is true that he might be paid for his job, but that would not necessarily mean that the payment was the reason for his performing it. Even priests and poets cannot live on light and air, and must keep their condition.
Payment for a job of work is like economics, or bodily health, or municipal drainage. It presents a question which cannot be avoided. Unsolved, the question is of vital importance. Solved, it is of no importance, and immediately makes way for the consideration of higher matters. To over-emphasise the question, or to lay stress on it after it has been solved, is to be a materialist, to proclaim one’s community with the beasts that perish. To avoid it altogether is to be a sentimentalist and a public menace.
Only the most contemptible of time-servers, the most abandoned of cynics, would admit that he, being a priest, disliked the service of the Lord, and did it only to get bread and jam. Yet, so far have our standards of conduct been debased by the Samuel Smileses, the apostles of thrift and self-abnegation and work-in-itself, that this same reason, when offered by a toiler in any other vineyard but that which, alone, is supposed to be the Lord’s, is taken as evidence of high virtue.
This notion that no other activities but those of organised religion and charity should be regarded as part of the religious life, a means of drawing near to God and serving Him, is likely to prove dangerous. Already it has created the general feeling that a person engaged in any form of work that is within the law is virtuous so long as he is paid for doing it. A man who is unemployed and refuses to take a job writing advertising copy or magazine stories, or digging holes and filling them in again, is considered a hypocrite and a prig. And it is part of the general tragedy of Puritanism that even should he be no such thing, but a fellow of genuine integrity, he will probably find himself in the company of hypocrites and prigs, suffering more than they, and powerless to better his position. He may even have the uncomfortable suspicion that he is a hypocrite and a prig.
So deeply rooted is the idea that the highest social virtue is to ‘pay one’s way’ that a man will be excused for undertaking the dirtiest and most anti-social work if thereby he manages to keep himself and his family off the parish.
There are forms of work that are necessary but unpleasant. Somebody must be found to do them. But that all work, pleasant and unpleasant, ought to be dragged down to the level of drudgery, that no work is virtuous unless it be unpleasant, is a notion which is widely, if sometimes unconsciously, held. Most of the envy and contempt accorded to (living) artists by the so-called ‘bourgeoisie’ is due to their suspicion that the artists may actually be enjoying their work. Hence, too, the reluctance to admit that artists should be paid good money for their painting and scribbling.
The Italian critic, Leo Ferrero, comparing the attitudes of the Southern and Northern European peoples, has written: ‘But imagination brings the Italian other satisfactions, of a social order, enabling him to experience and enjoy other passions calculated to mould society, to give life and not to annihilate: the passions of labour and love. The love of work is more deep-rooted than among the northern peoples — the English, by way of instance. … Work is work for him [the Englishman] and nothing more, a glum means of paying for week-end pleasures. … The proof that in England work is not enjoyed is that it is held in much greater respect there than elsewhere; the admiration felt for, the honour paid to the worker, if not exactly in proportion to the prevailing dislike of work, has at least some relation to that antipathy…’*
The revolting ugliness of much English architecture and public statuary, the deliberate discomfort of conventional forms of dress, the preference for dull and ‘sound’ leaders rather than men of brilliance and vigour, the endless patience manifested towards incompetent politicians, the network of piddling rules and regulations in which they allow themselves to be snared, the mania for dogs, which degrades and soaks up affection more properly bestowed on human beings — these bear witness on the one hand to the sense of sin which compels the English to deny themselves their birthright and endure mortification. And on the other hand we observe their lip-service to the spirit, born of a torturing suspicion that they were meant for higher ends, and manifested in National Galleries, Toc H Movements, Shakespeare-worship, and so on.
These things, despite their comedy and pathos, lead one to the conclusion that the English, being at least conscious of their guilt, are not wholly damned. And so there is hope. Not that they will turn to a classical form of living and wear their garlands instead of trampling on them. That, I think, is impossible in a climate which imposes such a strong need for rationalisation. The English will always feel guilty of their climate, and this alone will lead to self-mortification. Old farmers say, ‘Summers didn’t used to be like this,’ and here, in the steady deterioration of the English climate, we have perhaps the reason for the change from Merrie England to Puritanism.
No. The hope lies in the possibility of their adopting a simple code of conduct in place of the equally simple but dangerously out-moded one dinned into them throughout ages of Scarcity. This is a change which is at least temperamentally suited to them: for he who would change England must change the letter and not the spirit. It is too much to expect that they may come to a passionate belief that all things ought to work together to the glory of God: and that all human activity, including work, is either creative or destructive of personality; either a manifestation of the Spirit working through man, or the agent of death; either an act of worship or an act of defilement; and that drudgery, in the sense of unnecessary and unpleasant work, is at least one of the sins against the Holy Ghost. But I believe that it is possible for the English to compromise by translating these ideals into a simple code to fit the economic needs of the future — a sort of revised Public School code. ‘Never do unnecessary work’ may come to replace ‘Never strike a woman.’ And even the fatuous ‘Play the game’ may be made to imply a different game from the one that is played now.
The change, being biologically necessary, must come even after catastrophe. The transition will probably be marked by some preposterous movement — a cult of Laziness, say. But even that would lead to better things.
I shall regard it as a sign of grace in the English when they regain their talent for revolt, mislaid a century ago.
Note [Fairburn’s]
* Article ‘On the Tragic Grandeur of Italy’ in ‘This Quarter,’ 1930.
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