Open Forum: Employment and Identity:
What is the Real Nature of Work..? And Should We Go Fast… Or Go Slow…?
Some Miscellaneous Notes and Observations

1.	For many people a good proportion of our adult existence is spent working for our living. For many people, in ‘full’ time employment, it seems these days they are working even longer hours what with the advent of such tools like laptop computers, mobiles, pagers, etc. Nowadays, it seems, people are expected to take their work home with them with less differentiation between the public and private sense of self-identity? Although our workplaces profess to be caring institutions current expectations about after-hours work practices often belie such professed sentiments. This type of observation is central to the recent book Bonjour Paresse (Hello Laziness) written by the French author Corinne Maier, a senior economist at Electricité de France. Her publication has directly or indirectly been a factor in setting in process a disciplinary hearing by this same organization which has, in turn, fueled the notoriety of this work which hitherto had barely been noticed by the French public. Hence the subtitle to this open forum: in effect, should we set out to work more… or work less (given this encroachment of work into our personal time?)?

2.	How is work related to personal identity? In what sense are the values apparently enshrined in a sense of vocation to be absorbed by the person in general. Too often when we meet someone for the first time without being given some pre-introduction by a friend, etc., we ask “what do you do?” (meaning what is your line of work)? If they answer that they don’t work our next question is probably “are you a student?” (if young) or “have you retired?” (if middle aged or older). If we are met with a second “no” to either of these questions most of us are lost as to how to place such ‘misplaced’ individuals. The territory of identity under these circumstances is now problematic to discern as we might be dealing with people that unemployed or unemployable, are physically sick or mentally ill, individuals that have dropped out or are disabled in some form or other. Even if we refrain from asking any further such direct questions I am sure most of us are still puzzled as to how to understand that person, especially if they proffer no information to help us in this task of locating the place of that person in our cultural perceptions of society. I am sure we would be ever alert to clues that might help us define this relatively unknown ‘type’ of person. In terms of determining ‘identity’ what else do we look for? I guess clothes, bodily characteristics, manner of presentation, language and accent, content of conversation, etc? Interestingly, if we are told a person does x or is a student or has retired we may feel we now know how to understand that person, i.e., place them in our perception of society and how we should interact and react in their presence. But, does an definitive answer to these types of questions really help us to understand that individual? E.g., a person might tell us that they are a “civil servant” – are we any the wiser as to what they really do. They could be head of a government ministry, janitor or a spy for all we might know…

3.	Identity in many ways is a co-authored affair – other people advertently or inadvertently help to define us. Imagine, if you would, if you were a suicide bomber about to go into action. What sort of identity do you have or hope to have through this act of murderous detonation? Could you do this type of task; how would you feel when you approached your set of potential victims. What motivation would you need to do this sort of thing? For a start, you would have to re-value and re-scope your ethical principles since under normal circumstances most cultures have strong prohibitions against such barbarous acts of mass slaughter (along with a general prohibition against suicide at the same time). You might wish to consider people of the same faith who get killed by this act of yours as unfortunate collateral damage. Such motivation is usually engineered in a directly co-authored affair. So, we would usually be correct to perceive each suicide bomber as a member of a close knit group that has collectively re-engineered this re-evaluation of normal cultural standards in this regard? Speculatively we might assume that various members of this group are not all suicide bombers and, instead, might deal with planning, make these weapons, cadres out to instill this re-direction of motivation, etc. Of course, in this instance, their task in life is to essentially deconstruct in public in such a manner that kills the greatest number of people with some sort of consequential goal in mind (be that religious, a change of government, etc.)? In the light of this extreme example what opinions do you now have here on this nexus between profession, vocation, sense of mission and the values espoused through the commission of the same.? Does such behaviour have any real sense of the spiritual or existential about it when reviewed in more balanced, wider terms of reference…?

4.	Nowadays, it seems, some people would prefer to downsize? What does the loss of one’s profession or retirement do to how we might perceive our own sense of self? In some hierarchical sense (of relative privileging of our cultural values) is our work identity less real than a more inward sense of personal identity?

5.	In what manner does the experiential sense of community – local, regional, provincial, religious, national, global, cultural take on any meaning? How is cognitive dissonance resolved both between these competing levels of cultural demand and forms of cognitive dissonance experienced within the same level of political-cultural  organization? To what extent is precedence a guide here? What happens when society experiences shifts in cultural paradigm as happened with the advent of Feminism, a more democratic vision of society, e.g., etc?

6.	Then, what changes in the nature of employment (and environment) are possibly changing the nature of how we might see ourselves? Is there a virtual dimension to our existence now? How have these changes impacted upon our perceptions of freedom? With more freedoms and rights now do we have more cultural obligations?

7.	Lastly, how have changes in the nature of work altered our sense of identity over time, over generations, between various eras, etc. Can we do an archaeology in this regard, and, are all changes in some sense preserved in the psyche? They do seem to be preserved in the language (like telling fairy stories to children preserves a link to our animistic past?)?					    Noël Tointon, Sydney, 6.10.05.