SUBJECTIVE DIMENSION of WORK
IN JOHN PAUL II’S LABOREM EXERCENS
The possible grandeur of one’s work transforms not only the face of the earth,
but also transforms himself and his own face.
The highest reward [or punishment] for man’s toil is not what he gets from it, but what he becomes by it.
John Ruskin
Those who perpetuate injustice suffer more than those are harmed by it.
Gaudium et spes, 27
Phenomenological Description: When we act, we affect and change objects outside or
beyond ourselves (“transitive”). This is most evident in our work. Most professional education
and literature, for example, is all about how to change things: build a team of employees with
complementary skills and talents, learn to effectively cooperate together, use various
technologies, attract a consistent flow of capital to fuel growth, discern opportunities in markets,
argue and win cases, etc. It is in the objective changes that one begins to see the significance of
humanity’s dominion over creation. People have the rational capacity to see and anticipate
opportunities and to change the world. Each of us, made in the image of God, has been given a
command to have dominion—to “make” something. We are by nature a homo faber, a “builder
of the world and maker of things.”1 This process of making is what the Greeks called techne,
which is about the means (skills, techniques, tools, instruments, etc.) necessary to build things.
“It is a development of the mind’s ability to bring into being objectively what it can conceive in
the imagination.”2 A competence in techne will differ for each professional, whether one is an
accountant, engineer, doctor, journalist, teacher, manager, lawyer, entrepreneur, etc. If we do not
have good means to make things, our nature as “builders” will be frustrated, and we will most
likely not succeed in the profession, no matter how good or pious we may be. John Paul II calls
this the objective dimension of work (see Laborem exercens [LE], 4-5).
However, impressive these objective changes are in communications, computerization,
construction, travel, etc., work is not simply an activity that terminates in an object. Actually,
such technologies blind us to the changes work is having on us. While work always entail
achieving the various objectives of the company, work is also simultaneously achieving subjects.
The worker changes not only the world, but she also changes herself (“immanent”). As a selfreflexive activity, work reflects right back into the person—it changes me, the employee, lawyer,
teacher, carpenter, entrepreneur. We see this quite clearly in the physical changes of the
blacksmith. As he forms the metal with his hammer, the very activity is forming his physical
body in the development of his muscles. This dynamic, while obvious on one level, is quite
striking on another, especially when we take into consideration not only the physical aspects of
work, but also the intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual. When people work, they not only
make a choice about what they work on, that is, the objective dimension of work, but they also
simultaneously make a choice about themselves, that is, the subjective dimension of work.
1
Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. 160.
Robert Kennedy. “The Professionalization of Work.” Work as Key to the Social Question. Citta del Vaticano:
Libreria Editrice Vaticana. 107. Jacques Maritain explains that this desire to make things, to be creative, is a
response to a very obvious truth of the created order, namely that “[t]he whole order of human life is not ready-made
in nature and in things; it is an order of freedom; it has not just to be discovered and accepted: it has also to be
made” (Jacques Maritain. Freedom in the World, in The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain. Ed. Otto Bird. Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996. 43.)
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Human work remains in the human worker and “determines the subject’s immanent quality or
value.’” In many respects, the subjective change may last longer than some of the objective
changes he or she has initiated.
Yet, the subjective dimension of work is not easily discernible when we are used to seeing only the
objective dimension of work. At first sight, the work done in organizations can look as if it
involves people merely busy with objects. But on reflection, as Bernard Lonergan explains, “it
appears that deeds, decisions, discoveries affect the subject more deeply than they affect the objects
with which they are concerned. They accumulate as dispositions and habits of the subject; they
determine him; they make him what he is and what he is to be.” A major problem in describing
work today is the magnification of the objective (technology, profits, globalization, etc.) and the
agnosticism of the subjective.
Moral Orientation (the subjective dimension of work “conditions the very ethical nature of
work” [LE, 6]): This subjective dimension of work is on one hand a descriptive concept, which
tells us that to understand the phenomena of work we not only have to key in on the objective
dynamics of work, but we also have to see with new eyes the subjective reality. But the
subjective dimension of work also “conditions” the moral claims that work has on us. This
dimension of work should persuade us that human work should not be reduced to simply
financial or productive goals, such as the maximization of shareholder wealth. When we
maximize something we prioritize it above others. While profits and shareholder wealth are the
life blood of an organization, they are things and we should never prioritize things over people.
Precisely because the subjective changes affect personal character and the human soul, the
fundamental principles of organizations should be, as John Paul II explains, the priority of
persons and labor over things and capital. He argues that work must “serve to realize his
humanity, to fulfill the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity” (LE, 6).
Work is not a “uni-dimensional” activity but a multi-dimensional one, which is why we speak of
three goods (goods, work and wealth) and not one bottom line. What the subjective dimension
of work highlights is the moral importance of good work.
Alasdair MacIntyre explains that the end of farming, fishing, architecture, construction, and so
forth, “when they are in good order, is never only to catch fish, or to produce beef or milk, or to
build houses. It is to do so in a manner consonant with the excellences of the craft, so that not
only is there a good product, but the craftsperson is perfected through and in her or his activity. .
. . It is from this that the sense of a craft’s dignity derives.” Of course the fisherman who fails to
catch fish is no longer a fisherman; he is broke. But, his work is never fully or essentially
explained by the fish caught. In other words, to explain the phenomenon of the fisherman by his
product of fish, is to remain on the surface of what is actually happening (the same could be said
about law, medicine, journalism, business, etc.). As John Paul II puts it “The sources of the
dignity of work are to be sought primarily in the subjective dimension, not in the objective one”
(LE, 6). This means that in one sense there is no difference between “pouring the coffee” and
running the coffee company since both workers are persons (see LE, 6.6).
This connection between one’s work and one’s identity can be found in the history of names.
During the Middle Ages as well as other earlier historical periods, the products created were
closely identified with the people who made them. Names such as Baker, Smith, Miller, Cook,
Mason, Carpenter, Hunter, and Farmer attest to the close identity between what one made and
who one was. Even today when people ask “What do you do?” they answer, “I'm a teacher,”
“I'm a steelmaker,” “I'm an accountant.” As John Paul II wrote before he became pope,
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“[H]uman actions once performed do not vanish without a trace: they leave their moral value,
which constitutes an objective reality intrinsically cohesive with the person, and thus a reality
profoundly subjective.” The all important moral question is what is work transforming us into?
So when a lawyer, manager, teacher or plumber works, he or she affects the inner landscape of
his or her character. The issue is not whether he or she changes, but how he or she changes and
here we are at moral conversation. And the key to understanding the significant revealing of
one’s personhood is not found in the amount of revenues generated, or even in the skills and
knowledge acquired. Rather, the moral character of the worker will be captured in the
responsible relationships he or she has forged with others, what John Paul calls “a community of
work.”
In simple terms, when one’s work is good, the person participates in a process of fulfillment;
when one’s work is narrowly limited to only economic (job) or egotistical values (career), work
brings a certain de-formation to the person. Failure to take into account the subjective dimension
of work is not to take up a neutral position; it inevitably leads (at least at the practical level) to a
commitment to a merely materialistic view of the organization, based exclusively on the
objective dimensions of work, what John Paul II calls economism, namely that human labor is
evaluated solely according to an economic purpose. He explains that “the (primary) purpose of
any kind of work that man does is always man himself,” so that “man does not serve work, but
work serves man.”
The Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel, who we will be reading in the next couple of weeks,
wrote about how the objective dimension of work turns on and defeats the subject, the person:
How proud we often are of our victories in the war with nature, proud of the multitude of instruments
we have succeeded in inventing, of the abundance of commodities we have been able to produce.
Yet our victories have come to resemble defeats. In spite of our objective triumphs and
achievements, we have fallen victims to the work of our hands; it is as if the forces we had conquered
have conquered us.
Our objective “triumphs and achievements” can too easily become forces that corrupt the
subjective soul. Rather than being conquerors we have become conquered by our own objective
achievements. In order to understand work, one must understand its subjective dimension as
well; otherwise, work corrupts us rather than fulfills us. Once we sever our work from
participating in God’s “original ordering” (LE, 4), our work loses it sanctifying force that
eventually disorders the soul (e.g., road warrior, Philip, Steve Tourek, etc.).
Spiritual Calling: This phenomenological and moral approach to the subjective dimension of
work makes the most sense within a theological perspective that the world is designed this way.
This design, especially in light of the creative and redemptive activity of God, helps us to see that
our work is an important source to fulfilling our vocation in this world. John Paul in his explanation
of a spirituality of work writes that “[i]n its subjective dimension, work is always a personal action .
. . It follows that the whole person, body and spirit partakes in it, independently of whether it be
manual or intellectual labor. It is also to the whole person that the word of the living God is directed,
the evangelical message of salvation, in which we find many points which concern human work and
which throw particular light on it” (LE, 24). This is why a “spirituality of work” is so important.
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Creation: Work is a participation in God’s on-going creation which is destined to the building of
the Kingdom. Genesis says that ”Man is the image of God partly through the mandate received
from his Creator to subdue, to dominate, the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every
human being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe” (LE, 4). “Man has to subdue
the earth and dominate it, because as the ‘image of God’ he is a person, that is to say, a
subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about
himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of
work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process;
independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to
fulfill the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity (LE, 6).
Redemption: Because of sin, all work has some form of toil. The question is not whether we will
suffer, but how we will suffer (see LE, 9). The way in which we deal with this suffering has a
tremendous impact on our character. At work we all have crosses to bear. Such crosses can make
us cynical, pessimistic, ornery, etc. that turn us into cynics, OR such crosses can transform us into
Christ-like persons so long as the suffering is transformed not by us but by Christ. It can make us
bitter or better, but suffering will never leave us the same. We must “shoulder that cross which the
world and the flesh inflict upon those who pursue peace and justice” (LE, 27). Jung once wrote
“Anyone incapable of coping with suffering is headed into neurosis.” Suffering at work is not
something to be escaped, but rather to be redeemed. We need to be explicit about our suffering at
work and face it, otherwise work loses it capacity to sanctify us (e.g., Ouimet Industries—follow-up
meetings after firing or layoff). Part of our Christian vocation in the workplace is to alleviate as
much suffering as possible, especially, for others. If our suffering is redemptive, if it makes us
better, we begin to develop a “disciplined sensitivity to the suffering of others” (Buckley).
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MORAL ECOLOGY OF VIRTUE
WATCH YOUR THOUGHTS
THEY BECOME WORDS.
WATCH YOUR WORDS
THEY BECOME ACTIONS.
WATCH YOUR ACTIONS
THEY BECOME HABITS.
WATCH YOUR HABITS
THEY BECOME CHARACTER.
WATCH YOUR CHARACTER
IT BECOMES YOUR DESTINY.