Henry at Work
Thoreau on Making a Living
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- USD 12.99
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- USD 12.99
Descripción editorial
What Thoreau can teach us about working—why we do it, what it does to us, and how we can make it more meaningful
Henry at Work invites readers to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard—surveying land, running his family’s pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond—and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions. And his ideas about work have much to teach us in an age of remote work and automation, when many people are reconsidering what kind of working lives they want to have.
Through Thoreau, readers will discover a philosophy of work in the office, factory, lumber mill, and grocery store, and reflect on the rhythms of the workday, the joys and risks of resigning oneself to work, the dubious promises of labor-saving technology, and that most vital and eternal of philosophical questions, “How much do I get paid?” In ten chapters, including “Manual Work,” “Machine Work,” and “Meaningless Work,” this personal, urgent, practical, and compassionate book introduces readers to their new favorite coworker: Henry David Thoreau.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this astute study, Kaag (Sick Souls, Healthy Minds), an ethics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and van Belle (Zenithism), a former editor at Outlier.org, explore what lessons Henry David Thoreau's life and writings hold for 21st century workers. Suggesting that Thoreau's opposition to the "alienation and nihilism" caused by capitalism defined his attitudes toward work, Kaag and van Belle explore how readers might push back against "meaningless work" by following his example. The authors examine Thoreau's takes on the commodification of time, the dehumanizing effects of repetitive labor, and employers' inability to provide spiritual fulfillment for their workers, and draw lessons for modern workers from Thoreau's life. Telling how Thoreau quit a teaching position after his boss insisted he use corporal punishment to discipline students, Kaag and van Belle contend that resignation offers laborers the opportunity to claim moral agency from employers. The speculation on what Thoreau would think about modern workplaces is plausible and well supported (Thoreau would object to automated technology because of its inability to exercise "moral autonomy"), making a strong case for the transcendentalist's continued relevance. This should give workaholics pause.
