Human Work

The work examines the complexities of human existence, emphasizing the often-overlooked social conditions that shape modern life. It argues that while physical challenges have been largely mastered, society struggles with internal issues stemming from outdated beliefs about work and economic systems. The text critiques the notion that suffering is an inherent part of human nature, suggesting instead that many societal pains are the result of misconceptions and superstitions. It highlights the importance of understanding social dynamics, advocating for a scientific approach to sociology akin to that used in the study of physiology. By recognizing the roots of social distress, the work posits that society can implement changes to alleviate suffering and enhance overall well-being. The author calls for a reevaluation of traditional views on work, asserting that these outdated ideas hinder progress and contribute to economic disparities. Ultimately, the text promotes the idea that increased social consciousness can empower individuals to enact positive change, leading to a more equitable and fulfilling existence. Through this lens, the work seeks to inspire a shift in perspective that prioritizes understanding and addressing the underlying causes of societal issues, paving the way for a healthier, more harmonious society.

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman · First published 1890 · Genre: Non-fiction, Sociology, Feminism · 17 chapters

Contents

• INTRODUCTORY <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Common facts hard to understand. Social phenomena most important to <br/> modern life, yet least understood. Complexity no obstacle if system is <br/> known. Practical knowledge of sociology quite possible. Coexistence does <br/> not prove true association. Social rudiments cause pain. Human pain <br/> always conspicuous. "The Star of Suffering. " Religions rest on <br/> conception of essential pain. Suicide a human specialty. Pain a social <br/> condition, remediable and preventable. Physical environment largely <br/> mastered, present difficulties social. Past societies died of internal <br/> diseases. Social indigestion. Human nature progressive. Language <br/> retarded by ignorance and superstitions. Civilisation retarded by same <br/> things. Economic difficulties our principal ones to-day. "The root of <br/> all evil. " Innutrition, over-nutrition, mal-nutrition, wrong action in <br/> body politic. Difficulty lies in false ideas. Effect of woman labour and <br/> slave labour. Consciousness proof of power. Modern society increasingly <br/> conscious. Pain most conspicuous, pathology precedes physiology. Errors <br/> of early therapeutics, personal and social. Need of scientific social <br/> physiology, as base of treatment. Must understand works to mend watch, <br/> or society. Knowledge enough to begin. This book a study of the economic <br/> processes of Society._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• MAN AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Social development affected by physical conditions. By our personal <br/> choice. We have overestimated the latter. "Natural" in contradistinction <br/> to "personal," or genetic and teleological. Conscious acts most <br/> conspicuous to man. Recognition of some other forces at work. Man's <br/> contribution to his own conduct. How individuals have promoted it, and <br/> the mass always retarded. How we retard evolution. Pterodactyls as <br/> conscious agents. Salutary effect of unconscious social processes. Our <br/> conscious behaviour always behind the times. Historic instances. Nature <br/> of the brain. Effect of education. Relative depth and size of early <br/> impressions as compared with later. Our ability to preserve and transmit <br/> ancient ideals. Folk-myth of a superior past. Reversionary tendencies, <br/> upward tendency of new brains checked by education; effect on religious <br/> progress. Should we have done better without conscious conduct? No. <br/> Enormous benefit if rightly used. Race memory, use of past. Real value <br/> of youth. Our attitude toward it. What it should be. Great advance in <br/> education in social consciousness. How to adjust conscious conduct to <br/> action of law._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• CONCEPT AND CONDUCT <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Human evolution. New faculties and instincts. Egoistic concept useful <br/> to individual animal. Disadvantage of outgrown ideals. Persistence of <br/> social rudiments explained. Need of social scrap-heap. Social relations <br/> psychic. Despot only a concept. Concepts internal environment. Shipwreck <br/> and character. Maternal and sex instinct and concepts. Negro hero, power <br/> of concept on conduct. Man's efforts to check his growth. Prejudice a <br/> physical brain condition. Healthy brain must be used. Virtue of <br/> "believing. " Natural organic tendency to consistency,-how perverted. <br/> Belief in luck. Charades. Basic concepts wrong. Superior past <br/> traditions. Ancestor worship. Fanaticism. Forced inconsistency. Concepts <br/> antedate facts. French Revolution. Slavery. Undertow of old brain <br/> habits. Increase of social convenience. Brain as developed by natural <br/> selection, by social selection. Apparent injustice. Individual hunter. <br/> On his own head. Mistakes most possible in highest grades. Peasant grade <br/> always preserved. Rub out and do over. Society the best culture for <br/> fools. Present concepts in economics, primitive, false, injurious. Ego <br/> concept. If bees were "idiots. "_ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• SOME FALSE CONCEPTS <br/> _Summary_ <br/> _The ego concept, based on pre-human status. Our separate consciousness <br/> not human. Human consciousness collective. "We" human, "I" animal. <br/> Absurdity of individualism in organism. Pleasure-in-impression theory. <br/> Animal basis. Pleasure through motory nerves as well as sensory, and in <br/> us far greater. Pay Concept, animal basis, logical extremes in Heaven <br/> and Hell. Other forces also operative. Woman labour. Slave labour. Shame <br/> and agony resultant in concepts of eternal torture. Wage labour. Want <br/> theory. Self-interest theory. Self-preservation not nature's first law. <br/> Race-preservation. Pain concept: "Sweet uses of adversity. " Action and <br/> reaction equal. "Good to be born poor. " Pain only a message, always <br/> indicative of wrong. Defensive torture. Hazing. Evils of poverty. <br/> Abraham Lincoln. Illegitimate wealth. Dumbbells not dinner. Contempt for <br/> work, how derived. Veblen. Paradox of "independence. " Law of demand and <br/> supply._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• THE NATURE OF SOCIETY <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Idea of social organism, not new. Proposition stated. Proof advanced on <br/> three main lines. First, nutritive processes of collective and organic <br/> society. Men do not support themselves. World-wide production and <br/> distribution of food. Individual could not become baker or tailor, they <br/> are social functionaries. Organic evolution along line of modification <br/> to food supply. Man the only creature who has mastered his food supply, <br/> he makes that which makes him, he produces food. Production of food a <br/> collective function, never found in individual animals. Physical <br/> conditions of agriculture essential to social progress, agricultural <br/> unit a village. Second, specialised activities of society collective and <br/> organic. Social evolution of trades, arts, businesses. Increasing <br/> interdependence. Instance of teacher. Evolution of social functions. <br/> Third, the brain a collective organ, a social organ, thought a social <br/> function. Effect of isolation on human brain, partial or complete. <br/> Difficulty of retaining mental stimulus. Individual animal's brain in <br/> relation to his own activities. Human brain in relation to common <br/> activities._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• THE NATURE OF SOCIETY <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Social organism a natural life-form. Confusion from arbitrary and <br/> superficial distinctions. Social functions not physically hereditary. <br/> Village type. Earth-limits. Social life in Individual. Natural law under <br/> "imperialism. " Mistakes of social functionaries. Why society was <br/> developed. Tendency to revert. Wider consciousness and activity of <br/> Society. Social Soul. Race memory. Joy a social quality. Size of social <br/> feelings and actions. Early decoration. Fund of power. Social <br/> consciousness in young persons. Happiness of right social relation. <br/> Social nourishment, rest, exercise. What are limits of social organism. <br/> No material really solid. Human connections. Detachment of human <br/> individual only temporary. Apparent paradoxes. Ex-man. Smaller human <br/> relations. Family, Church, Army, City, Nation. Appearance of <br/> world-consciousness. Order of importance of function. Change in relative <br/> value. Ethics the physics of social relation. Egoism right for <br/> individual. No basis for ethics in individualism. Collectivism of <br/> Christianity. Social life immortal._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• THE SOCIAL SOUL <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Our "common sensorium" the "human heart. " All human feelings common. <br/> Action and reaction between body and spirit. Cat and Sheep. Mob spirit, <br/> civic spirit, etc. Effect of institutions. Effect of industries. <br/> Confusion from Ego Concept. Prominence of painful processes. Widening <br/> social consciousness. Collective pleasure greatest. Team-work. Effect of <br/> position of women. Sex combat in industry. Altruism and Omniism. "Self" <br/> an extensible term. Organic relation. Progressive injury of egoism. <br/> Effect of special industries on altruism. Sailor, farmer, miner. <br/> Household labour. Men more altruistic than women. Religion has not <br/> understood altruism, which is a natural social instinct. Man with tail. <br/> Nature of "charity," transfusion of blood. Selfishness and socialness. <br/> My soul, our soul. Social needs. Inefficiency of personal gratification. <br/> Longitudinal extension of the soul's life not satisfactory. Must widen <br/> our life, our soul. The Social Passion. Names do not affect facts. <br/> Social life evolves social love. Social instinct in duty, in work. <br/> Social ascetics. Human nature Social nature._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• THE SOCIAL BODY <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Likeness between spirit and form, mutual modification. Love modified by <br/> form. The soul human. The body of society our manufactured things. Bones <br/> of dead societies. The thing made. Animal's things all grow on him. <br/> Society secretes its material form. The thing marks the age. Axe-man, <br/> swords-man, pen-man, etc. Value of detachability of tools. Potentiality <br/> of human body. Value of exchangeability of tools. Vehicle of common use. <br/> Reaction of thing made on user. Body a machine we have to learn. Thing <br/> promotes further action. Growth in work. Cloth. Effect on life. Value <br/> and effect of machines. Pleasure of transmitting energy. Mistaken <br/> objection to machinery. Reversion to "hand work" foolish. Social <br/> progress conditioned by mechanical. We are now capable of far better <br/> living and have the means for it. American advance. Machine does for <br/> society what the cerebellum does for the body. Our power to facilitate <br/> social progress. "Truth in art" and "better housing. " Restrictions due <br/> to false concepts, not to conditions._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• THE NATURE OF WORK <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Familiarity of Work confusing to true thoughts, our general attitude <br/> due to false concepts. Veblen's theory. Theory of Hebrew religion. <br/> Occasional dim perception of value of work. Effect of ego concept and <br/> pay concept. Effect of organic concept. Effect of Want Theory. Main <br/> thesis of author on Work. Physical organic action. Heart, as <br/> illustration. Social organic action. Individual consciousness no <br/> obstacle. Social circulation. Men not self-supporting. Waste, <br/> parasitism, disease. Evolution of Work. Universal transmission of <br/> energy. Appearance of consciousness. Feeling and action. Pleasure in <br/> sensation and action. Society the greatest life-form, greatest action, <br/> greatest pleasure. Social nourishment for worker, and true adjustment. <br/> Accumulation of social energy. Limitation of individual animal. <br/> Geometrical increase in social efficiency up to the sixth power. <br/> Increase of stimulus. Increase of interest. Storage and transmission of <br/> society energy. Work of art. Devotion to country. Bee and Ant. Proper <br/> human relation and action. Child's instinct to work. Resistless working <br/> instinct of great specialist. Radium. The teacher, scientific <br/> discoverer, etc. Our workers not supplied with social energy. Extinction <br/> of London labourer. Want Theory again. Our dinner. Social nutrition <br/> collective. Discharge of surplus energy not an exertion._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• THE NATURE OF WORK <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Life a verb. Vegetable life processes, animal and social. Work is human <br/> life. A sick society. Transmission of energy, pleasure in collective <br/> sensation. Pleasure in specific function. Pain of malposition and <br/> mal-nutrition. Recapitulation. Work is making, not taking. Squaw and <br/> hunter. Maternal energy. Bee. The motherised male. Short circuit of <br/> individual action. Production of food. Common defence. The social base <br/> and ensuing variation. Attendant evils. Personal consequences and <br/> social. Social treason. Sin of common carriers. Contrast between effect <br/> of industry and war. Agriculture and peace. Commerce and honesty and <br/> justice. Work is altruistic. Steps of development. Female origin of <br/> Work. True Human Work has no sex connotation. Male belligerence in <br/> industry. The world and the home. Thief and pauper. Production <br/> collective. The Social traitor. Work is giving out, not taking in. <br/> Slavery an essential transition system, also wagery. Master, Employer, <br/> Co-operator. Shame of work based on slavery and self-interest. Social <br/> productivity has allowed disease. American attitude toward work. <br/> Conservation of energy. Work must not waste force, organic action does <br/> not. Accumulated energy must be discharged. Social energy enormous. <br/> Normal work an easy discharge. Abnormal work injurious. Social evolution <br/> in ease and happiness. Effect of false concepts. Child's delight in <br/> work. Organic action agreeable or unconscious. Conditions of normal <br/> work._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• SPECIALISATION
• PRODUCTION <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Work is production and distribution. Joy of production. Transmission <br/> again. Pleasure in expression more than impression. Social stimulus. <br/> Arrested distribution. Increase in production. Shoes. Collective pride. <br/> "Owned" machinery. Effect of false concepts. George Eliot's <br/> "Stradivarius. " Art recognised as world-service. The "Pot-boiler. " <br/> "Saving" and "serving" one's country. Traitor and coward. Line of <br/> evolution in a productive industry. Effect of errors. "Duty to <br/> employer," etc. Payment not the right incentive. Reactive effect of <br/> production. "Greeking. " Effect of great work on society. Physical <br/> heredity, social heredity and transmission. Bicycle. Benefit of making, <br/> of using. We "exhaust the soil" of humanity by denying it right use of <br/> its product. Want theory. Degraded press. Object of production. False <br/> production. Individual is society-feels and represents it. Social <br/> consciousness mistaken for self-consciousness. "Self-expression" and <br/> social service. "The songs of a people. " Position of the artist. <br/> Expression is also transmission. "Poor Jones! " Art a social function. <br/> Depravity in highly specialised function. The presumptuous eye. Art for <br/> humanity's sake._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• DISTRIBUTION
• CONSUMPTION
• CONSUMPTION <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Resistance of false concepts to true. Spread of literature. Use of <br/> imagination. Hypothesis as to natural laws in consumption-free <br/> clothing-Veblen. An unnatural market. Commodity money a check to <br/> distribution and production. Real conditions. Enormous producing power <br/> of civilised man. Legitimate consumption. Truffles. Free transportation. <br/> Free provision reduces demand and increases productivity. Property <br/> rights and personal ownership. Evolution of ownership, ownership a <br/> psychic relation, a social condition, based on social needs. True law of <br/> ownership: "Society must insure to the individual those things which are <br/> essential to his social service. " Decrease of self-interest. Success of <br/> our surviving savages. "Making money. " Normal wealth must circulate. <br/> Belief in polygamy. Natural relation not Communism. Legitimate personal <br/> property is in goods consumed-not in goods produced. Normal ownership <br/> inheres in normal consumption. Production belongs to Society. Man does <br/> not consume his own product, but that of Society. Human rights <br/> social-essential conditions of true social relation. Previous position, <br/> based on Ego concept and Want theory, does not work well. Compulsory <br/> production not normal. Owner and Employer. "Iron law of wages. " Want not <br/> a productive force,-tends only to consumption. Organic action of <br/> Society. America's productivity does not show commensurate greed, but <br/> fuller supply of social nourishment and stimulus. Parent's relation to <br/> child, and Society's. Social duty._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• OUR POSITION TO-DAY <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Fact and delusion. American advantages and possibilities. Possible <br/> consciousness. Perverted Press. Falsely maintained position. Grade A and <br/> grade G. Soul paradoxes. Old Adam. Arbitrarily opposed "Leisure Class" <br/> and "Working Class. " Parasitism actual and potential. Dead matter in <br/> live body. Sour grapes. Charity an evil. Helplessness of rich man trying <br/> to establish right relation. Furnishing employment, i. e., furnishing <br/> payment. Unhealthy secretions resultant from over-consumption. Law of <br/> private servants. Doctor with a herald. Degraded art. Human value in <br/> work. Painful result of social disconnection in leisure class. Working <br/> Class suffers differently. Higher social position of Working Class. All <br/> human labour collective. False classification. Economic relation of <br/> sexes, result. Effect on child. What he should be taught. The round man <br/> in the square hole. Extended ill effect of malposition in social <br/> organism. Waste of energy, inferior workmanship, deterioration of social <br/> tissue. Progressive mal-nutrition. Genius._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>
• THE TRUE POSITION <br/> _Summary_: <br/> _Duty of improvement for individual and race. Effect of Ego concept. <br/> Collective nature of Christianity-"‘our' daily bread. " Unity of man. <br/> "Kingdom of Heaven. " First human duty to assume right functional <br/> relation to Society. Right social relation tends to develop all virtues, <br/> to eliminate all sins. Want Theory and theft corollary. Normal <br/> distribution prevents abnormal acquisition. Sins against property and <br/> person. Thieving produced by clot of wealth. Right organic relation. End <br/> of "the wolf," of "our" sins, of unnecessary diseases. Twofold duty-to <br/> change concepts and conditions. Public school and library. Social debt <br/> to the worker. Malthusian doctrine. True law of increase in population. <br/> Natural selection among individuals. Difference in organic development. <br/> Artificial selection. Stirpiculture. Superior methods of social <br/> improvement. Poverty increases number of births, but decreases quality. <br/> "Individuation is in inverse proportion to reproduction. " Splendid <br/> opportunities. Two roads to health. Right condition-right action. <br/> General cause of local evil. The home, effect on social consciousness. <br/> Better housing. Way to growth. Human nature. Happiness._ <TEXTOPIAN: Footnote>

More by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• If I Were a Man (1914)
• The Giant Wistaria (1891)
• Herland (1979)
• The Man-Made World (1899)
• The Crux (1896)
• Concerning Children (1899)
• The Home, Its Work and Influence (1898)
• Women and Economics (1898)
• All works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman