Dignity

Occasionally after a busy day of teaching, blogging, making felt things, baking or weaving baskets out of plastic bags, I will announce to the husband that I should like to relax and watch a nice horror movie. I like horror movies: I find their predictability comforting: I like spotting the music box that will start playing once the child is in bed, or identifying the dead bird moment (they fly into window panes, they are usually crows)  and of course I love to predict the timing of the father characters descent into madness. I find the horror just distracting enough to provide me with a curious level of enjoyment.

Dignity and Horror Listen illustrated by AndyArtisand 

Why then do I also enjoy politics? I find the predictability infuriating. I find the statements and manifesto claims increasingly preposterous more so than any music box and some of the things they say are considerably worse than maggots wriggling across a sleeping wife’s belly. Especially repulsive do I find the claim that there is dignity in work. Dignity in earning a wage, note that they never verify this or even provide a web link, they sate that there is Dignity in work as though it is an absolute truth.

My sophisticated research of running a google search reveals that “60 % of workers unhappy in their jobs”, “almost two thirds of workers unhappy in their jobs” .There are 7,420,000 results for “Unhappy in their jobs UK”. Is there dignity in work or dignity in working for money? What about job roles that leave the worker indignant? Does the pay create dignity? Is there dignity in inheritance? Is it the task that is lacking dignity? I know of jobs that are crushingly soul destroying for some people and yet enjoyable for others, of job roles that would fill some people with horror and others with glee. I wonder where the dignity comes from. I think there is dignity in a task well done. This is just my personal philosophy, not an absolute truth. I feel that a task well done is a task that makes a difference, be this the pleasure a guest receives from eating a meal you took care over or the personal satisfaction of cleaning bathroom tiles till they shine.

Perhaps the dignity comes from making a difference. In game development theory, immersion and user motivation comes from the player’s awareness that their choices and actions in game make a difference. Player motivation and satisfaction come from achievements in the form of various rewards, in the work place the reward is the pay, which for most rarely rises.

In the game world; rewards and achievements are used to challenge the player onward and to keep them in the game. IRL (in real life) the worker is challenged through the removal of  resources, a decrease in time allowed and pay freezes, whilst loyalty is rewarded with zero contract hours.

Ask a DOTA2 competitor if there is dignity in play, perhaps there is dignity in work, as for dignity in preposterous political claims: there the dignity is lacking.