February 27, 2013
NEVERMIND WHETHER THEIR WORK IS DISTINCTIVELY VALUABLE...:
The worth of work (Karl D. Stephan, 26 February 2013, Mercator)
...they either wouldn't do it without a paycheck or we need not worry about worthwhile professions being unfilled when jobs become disattached from pay.[W]hich is more important, the work or the pay you get for it? I bring up that question after reading an essay on work by the well-known medievalist C. S. Lewis.In the essay, Lewis distinguished between two types of work. The first type is work that is worth doing for its own sake. Some professions are automatically included in this classification: teachers (Lewis was a professor at Oxford), doctors, pastors, and other members of the helping professions, for instance. As long as members of these groups do their work faithfully and competently, they should have no problem looking themselves in the mirror and saying, "I'm glad I do what I do, because it makes the world a better place."There are other types of work that can fit into this first category, and I'll get to those in a minute.The second kind of work is done merely to get a paycheck.
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 27, 2013 9:31 PM
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