Labour and Work

8-pound sledge hammer heads, steel
each 6.5” x 6.5” x 11.5”
2020

In her book The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt makes a useful distinction between Labour and Work. Labour she considers the physical but necessary activities essential to sustaining life, while work is the mental and physical ly productive activity that results in useful things.

Over the past century, a blurring of the categories has complicated this relationship; blue-collar labour and the decline of trade unions has occurred simultaneously with the rise of white-collar activities and an expanding service economy, with poorly-remunerated participants trying to achieve a living wage. More people working in offices and desk jobs has separated bodily activity from repetitive labour.

Increasingly people are using the gym for bodily workouts that were once part of the physical labour of daily activity; the building of the body has become an end in itself, outside of useful work. One sees people with sledge hammers beating tractor tires as a form of exercise.