THINKER'S ALMANAC - November 7

What can the construction of a Lego structure teach us about the relationship between work and meaning?

Subject:  Work and Meaning - Sisyphus and the Lego Study

Event:  Birthday of Albert Camus, 1913

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies. -Albert Camus

On this day in 1913, French writer and philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) was born in Algeria, a French colony.  Camus was active in the French resistance in World War II, writing for an underground newspaper.  Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 for his fiction, specifically his novels:  The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), and The Rebel (1951).

Though he never called himself an existentialist, Camus is often associated with the post-World War II philosophical movement which places the individual struggle for meaning above any other meaning that might be found in religion or society.  The major theme of Camus’ writing was the absurd — or the paradox of the absurd:  the idea that individuals have an innate desire to live a life that has meaning while at the same time realizing that ultimately life has no meaning (1).

To help his readers understand these somewhat abstract ideas, Camus wrote a philosophical essay in 1942 entitled “The Myth of Sisyphus,” where he retells the ancient Greek myth as a way of making sense of the plight of modern man.

Sisyphus, the King of Corinth, was condemned by the gods to an eternity of rolling a huge rock to the top of a mountain. Once the rock reached the top, it would then roll back down to the bottom, where once again Sisyphus would commence the fruitless and futile task of rolling it back to the top.  Camus calls Sisyphus “the absurd hero” because, although he knows he must forever push his rock up the hill and then watch it roll back down the mountain, he embraces his fate.  By doing this “he is superior to his fate.”  In this way Sisyphus exemplifies the nobility and courage of the individual who even in the face of a hostile universe, strives for his own purpose.  Camus parallels Sisyphus’ labor with that of the modern worker (2).

Another individual who considered Sisyphus’ labor was the psychologist Daniel Ariely.  Ariely set up a study where subjects were asked to construct Bionicle Lego toys.  All subjects were paid the same amount for each Bionicle they built, but the amount they were paid decreased slightly with each one built.  The subjects were divided into two groups, one was called the Meaningful condition and the other was called the Sisyphus condition.  In the Meaningful condition, each Bionicle constructed by a subject was collected and placed intact under the table.  In the Sisyphus condition, the Bionacle was collected by the experimenter and was then disassembled in front of the subject as he/she built another one.  The results of the study revealed that subjects in the Meaningful condition built an average of 10.6 Bionicles compared to the Sisyphus condition which built an average of 7.2.  The experimenters also timed the construction of Bionicles to measure productivity.  Not only did the Meaningful condition group construct a larger number of Bionicles than the Sisyphus condition, they also still took less time to construct each Bionicle than did the Sisyphus condition.

                                                       Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay 

This creative experiment gives us an opportunity to look at the relationship between work and purpose.  Both groups were intentionally paid the same amount in an effort to assess what other factors besides money might provide motivation.  Clearly the study shows that the meaningfulness of a task has an important role in motivation.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  In the Lego study what did the differences in the Meaningful condition and the Sisyphus condition reveal about the relationship between work and meaning?

Challenge - The Best Thing Ever Said About Work:  What is the best thing that anyone ever said about work?  Do some research on quotations related to the topic of “work” or “labor.”  Find a quotation you like, write it down, and explain why it stands out for you.

Sources:

1-Albert Camus – Biographical. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 8 Aug 2018. 

2-Camus, Albert.  The Myth of Sisyphus. 1942. 

3-de la Fuente, Isabel. “Legos and Motivation.” mappingignorance.com 3 May 2013.