This post was originally published on Filosofía en la Red. It has been translated as part of the APA Blog’s ongoing collaboration with Filosofía en la Red.
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Imagine attending any event on a Friday night; a book presentation at a bookstore, for example. Before the event begins, attendees move amongst the shelves and, perhaps with a glass of wine in hand, strike up conversations with strangers they encounter. They discuss the cover of a particular book, the synopsis of another, or any other topic that comes up. When that initial spark of spontaneous conversation ends, someone may feel obliged to continue the dialogue and, almost inevitably, they will do so with a cliché and often inappropriate question: “What do you do?”. At first glance, one is involved in many things throughout the day. Dedication is given to the act of getting up, preparing meals for children, or planning the quickest route to the market. But this “what do you do?” refers to something much more specific. It refers to the specific activity that currently shapes our lives: one’s work.
Despite the many other aspects of our daily lives that we value, the truth is that our profession or current job often serves as a means of introduction. In fact, we can respond to this question not with “I dedicate myself to…”, for example, to be a doctor, but with “I am…” (a doctor). The use of the verb “to be” demonstrates the importance that our profession holds. For some, their profession is a source of pride (which is likely the case for someone who says “I am a doctor”), while for others, it can become a source of anxiety.
The map of identity
Let’s say that a person completely unfamiliar with the literary world attends the event mentioned at the beginning of this text. This person is passionate about reading, yes, but disconnected from the complex world of publishing. Among writers, editors, and journalists, our attendee will likely feel overwhelmed when confessing their limited knowledge of the industry in any conversation. Nowadays, asking someone what they do not only signifies curiosity about their job, but a way to position that person on a map. It may happen unconsciously, but if we stop and think about it, knowing someone’s profession often reveals their position in the social hierarchy and what it implies: political ideologies, habits, cultural tastes, or economic resources.
There is a tendency, therefore, with this question, to generalize. We tend to think that an entire economic group lives or thinks in the same way. If a banker meets a philosophy student at a party and the inevitable question arises between them, both—perhaps more so the banker—may find an excuse to interrupt the conversation. The “What do you do?” serves as a rupture to a potential conversation and acts as a method of classification based on preconceived ideas or prejudices. However, this is not an argument against work per se. The question of work is of utmost importance for the development of our existence, as well as for philosophy itself. Its study is central in the works of philosophers like Marx or Kosík. The question at hand, then, implies revisiting something much deeper: what it means to be human and how work factors into that answer.
But what is being human?
How can we define what we are? What it means to be human beings? If we can do so, is work significant in that definition we have arrived at? The phenomenologist Eugen Fink dedicated himself to listing the aspects that make us human in this context, i.e. the parameters or broad areas that encompass everything that is human. In doing so, he arrived at Fundamental phenomena of human existence (Grundphänomene des menschlichen Daseins) which condensed all things human into five major domains: work, love (or Eros), domination (or war), play, and death. Work is understood here as the human act of adapting to the environment, to survive, to nourish oneself. Our instincts do not provide us with everything we need for that; we must make a bit more effort—that’s the work we refer to. By organizing ourselves to do so, we meet other humans, form communities, and that’s what the realm of love refers to. But, of course, within a community, disagreements arise, norms are needed, and there are groups of dominance as well as the dominated. Both sides require inventiveness, imagination, play—the distinctly human faculty to depart from the present and imagine new futures, new possibilities that shape action. Finally, encompassing everything, death appears as a generator or bestower of meaning. Dying transforms living into something significant. Death, or the awareness of it, truly makes us human, finite, and imperfect.
Work, if we accept the above, would be a fundamental part of being human, although not the only thing defining us. Furthermore, the work referred to here seems to differ from what one explains when answering the question that titles this text. As a fundamental phenomenon of human existence, work is a survival strategy, an action that distinguishes us from non-rational animals. It is the very maintenance of rationality in the practicalities of everyday life. It is, perhaps, the “lifeworld” (lebenswelt) of Edmund Husserl. But all of this may also sound like it belongs to a historical era that no longer represents us, reminiscent of caveman times. Some may think that today, in the 21st century, it is not really what is being discussed here. Rather than guaranteeing the survival of the human in the natural environment, work often guarantees an increasingly precarious survival.
The question “What do you do?”, then, is not solely linked to whether that job is precarious or not, vocational or not, passionate or not. We have associated it with one’s own identity, as if those other four major areas that Fink identifies were on a lower rung. As if knowing a person was sufficient by simply glancing at their LinkedIn profile. With what our interlocutor can tell us about their work, we can pre-judge and understand certain economic and social aspects of a person, but not the person themselves. What they do when they are not obligated to adhere to a schedule. What they would have dedicated their efforts to if they had sufficient resources to not have to work in that office or that supermarket. What they dream of or if sometimes they can’t sleep thinking about how something like the metamorphosis of a butterfly is possible. Limiting our conversation to one’s work, in short, doesn’t offer many possibilities for conversation in our current world. It offers the same old things, nothing new. Nothing exciting. Think about it again at your next event, perhaps it’s better to talk about butterflies.
Translated by Diego Durazzo
Luis López Galán
Undergraduate in Philosophy at UNED University, Spain. He frequently writes articles and collaborations on philosophy and literature for various outlets. His interests lie in topics related to ethics, political philosophy, and current affairs.
