The Profit in Work's

Pleasure
Wendell Berry
From a sermon delivered by Wendell Berry at New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine on November 8, 1987.

The question we need to answer today is a practical

T o those who still feel an attachment to the traditions of one, though it is not one that is entirely answerable by
empirical methods: Can a nation afford this exclusive rule of
religious and political thought that influenced the shaping of
our society and the founding of our government, it is competition, this purely economic economy? The great fault
astonishing, and of course discouraging, to see economics now of this approach is that it is so drastically reductive; it does
elevated to the position of ultimate justifier and explainer of not permit us to live and work as human beings, as the best
all the affairs of our daily life, and competition enshrined as of our inheritance defines us. Rats and roaches live by
the sovereign principle and ideal of economics. competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the
As thousands of small farms and small local privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice
businesses of all kinds falter and fail under the effects of and mercy.
adverse economic policies, or live under the threat of what What the ideal of competition most flagrantly and
we call “scientific progress,” the economist announces disastrously excludes is affection. The affections, as John
pontifically to the press “there will be some winners and Ruskin said, are “an anomalous force, rendering every one of
some losers”--as if that might justify and clarify everything the ordinary political economists calculations nugatory; while,
or anything. The sciences, one gathers, mindlessly serve even if he desired to introduce this new element into his
economics, and the humanities defer abjectly to the estimates, he has no power of dealing with it; for the
sciences. All assume, apparently, that we are in the grip of affections only become a true motive power when they ignore
economic laws, which are the laws of the universe. The every other motive power and condition of political economy.”
newspapers quote the economists as the ultimate authorities. I would like to talk about economy from the
We read their pronouncements, knowing that the last word standpoint of affection—or, as I am going to call it, pleasure,
has been said. advancing just a little beyond Ruskin's term, for pleasure is,

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so to speak, affection in action. There are obvious risks in winners are losers; that they may appear to be winners is
approaching an economic problem by a way that is frankly owing only to their temporary ability to charge their costs to
emotional—to talk, for example, about the pleasures of other people or to nature.
nature and the pleasures of work. But these risks seem to But a victory over community or nature can be won
me worth taking, for what I am trying to deal with here is only at everybody's cost. For example, we now have in the
the grief that we increasingly suffer as a result of the loss United States many landscapes that have been defeated—
of those pleasures. temporarily or permanently—by strip mining, by clear cutting,
It is obviously necessary, at the outset, to make a by poisoning, by bad farming, or by various styles of
distinction between pleasure that is true or legitimate, and “development” that subjugated their sites to human purpose.
pleasure that is not. We know that a pleasure can be as These landscapes have been defeated for the benefit of
heavily debited as an economy. Some people undoubtedly what are assumed to be victorious landscapes: The suburban
thought it pleasant, for instance, to have the most onerous housing developments, and the places of amusement (the park
tasks of their economy performed by black slaves. But this systems, recreational wildernesses, etc) of the winners, so
proved to be a pleasure that was temporary and dangerous. far, in the economy. But these victorious landscapes and
It lived by an enormous indebtedness that was inescapably to their human inhabitants are already paying the costs of their
be paid, not in money, but in misery, waste, and death. The defeat of other landscapes: in air and water pollution,
pleasures of fossil-fuel combustion and nuclear “security” overcrowding, inflated prices, and various diseases of body
are, as we are beginning to see, similarly debited to the and mind; eventually, the cost will be paid in scarcity or want
future. of necessary goods.
Is it possible to look beyond this all-consuming rush
of winning and losing, to the possibility of countrysides, a
T hat there is pleasure in competition is not be nation of countrysides, in which use is not synonymous with
defeat? It is. But in order to do so we must consider our
doubted. We know from childhood that winning is fun. But
pleasures. Since we know, from our own and our nation's
we probably begin to grow when we begin to sympathize with
experience, of some pleasures that are canceled by their
the loser—that is when we begin to understand that
costs, and of some that result in unredeemable loses and
competition involves costs as well as benefits. Sometimes,
miseries, it is natural to wonder if there may not be such
perhaps, as in the most innocent games, the benefits are all
phenomenon as net pleasures, pleasures that are free or
to the winner and the costs all to the loser. But when the
without a permanent cost. We know that there are. These
competition is more serious, when the stakes are higher and
are the pleasures that we take in our own lives, our own
greater power is used, then we know that the winner shares
wakefulness in this world, and in the company of other people
in the cost, sometimes disastrously. In war, for example,
and other creatures—pleasures innate in the Creation and in
even the winner is a loser. And this is equally true of our
our own good work. And these are the pleasures that are
present economy: in an unlimited economic competition, the

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most vulnerable to so-called economic progress. division of our country into defeated landscapes and
“This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful victorious (but threatened) landscapes.
than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to More and more we take for granted that work must
be admired and enjoyed than used.” Henry David Thoreau be destitute of pleasure. More and more, we assume that if
said that to his graduating class at Harvard in 1837. We may we want to be pleased we must wait until evening, or the
assume that to most of them it sounded odd, as to most of weekend, or vacation, or retirement. More and more, our
the graduating class of 1988 it undoubtedly still would. But farms and forests resemble our factories and offices, which
perhaps we will be encouraged to take him seriously, if we more and more resemble prisons. Why else should we be so
recognize that his idea is not something that Thoreau made eager to escape them? We recognize defeated landscapes by
up out of thin air. When he uttered it, he may very well have the absence of pleasure from them. We are defeated at
been remembering Revelation 4:11: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, work because our work gives us no pleasure. We are defeated
to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created at home because we have no pleasant work there. We turn to
all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” pleasure industries for relief from our defeat, and are again
This bountiful and lovely thought that all creatures are defeated, for the pleasure industries can only thrive and
pleasing to God—and potentially pleasing, therefore, to us—is grow upon our dissatisfaction with them.
unthinkable from the point of view of an economy divorced Where is our comfort but in the free, uninvolved,
from pleasure, such as the one we have now, which completely finally mysterious beauty and grace of this world that we did
discounts the capacity of people to be affectionate toward not make, that has no price, that is not our work? Where is
what they do and what they use and where they live and the our sanity but there? Where is our pleasure but in working
other people and creatures with whom they live. and resting kindly in the presence of this world?
In the right sort of economy our pleasure would not
be merely an addition or by-product or reward; it would be
I t may be argued that our whole society is more both an empowerment of work and its indispensable measure.
Pleasure, Anada Coomaraswamy said, perfects work. In order
devoted to pleasure than any whole society ever was before,
to have leisure and pleasure we have mechanized and
that we support in fact a great variety of pleasure industries
automated and computerized our work. But what does this do
and that these are thriving as never before. But that would
but divide us even farther from our work and our products—
only serve to prove my point. That there can be pleasure
and, in the process, from one another and the world? What
industries, exploiting our apparently limitless inability to be
have farmers done when they have mechanized and
pleased, can only mean that our economy is divorced from
computerized their farms? They have removed themselves
pleasure, and that pleasure is gone from our workplaces and
and their pleasure from their work.
our dwelling places. Our workplaces are more and more
I was fortunate, late in his life, to know Henry
exclusively given over to production, and our dwelling places
Besuden of Clark County, Kentucky, the premier Southdown
to consumption. And this accounts for the accelerating

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sheep breeder and one of the great farmers of his time. He part of August and the first part of October. Usually the
told me once that his morning duty in the spring and early weather is hot; usually we are in a hurry; the work is
summer was to saddle his horse and ride across his pastures extremely demanding, and often, because of the weather, it
to see the condition of the grass when it was freshest from has the character of an emergency. Because all of the work
the moisture and coolness of the night. What he wanted to must be done by hand, this event has maintained much of its
see in his pastures at that time of year, when his spring old character; it is very much the sort of thing agricultural
lambs would be fattening, was what he called “bloom”--by experts have in mind when they talk about freeing people
which he meant not flowers, but a certain delectability. He from drudgery.
recognized it, of course, by his delight in it. He was one of That the tobacco cutting can be drudgery is obvious.
the best of the traditional livestock men—the husbander or If there is too much of it, if it goes on too long, if one has no
husband of his animals. As such, he was not interested in interest in it, if one cannot reconcile oneself to the misery
“statistical indicators” of his flock's “productivity”; he involved in it, if one does not like or enjoy the company of
wanted his sheep to be pleased. If they were pleased with one's fellow workers, then drudgery would be the proper
their pasture, they would eat eagerly, drink well, rest and name for it.
grow. He knew their pleasure by his own. But for me, and I think for most of the men and
The nearly intolerable irony in our dissatisfaction is women who have been my companions in this work, it has
that we have removed pleasure from our work in order to never been drudgery. None of us would say that we take
remove “drudgery” from our lives. If I could pick any rule of pleasure in all of it all the time, but we do take pleasure in it,
industrial economics to receive a thorough re-examination, it and sometimes the pleasure can be intense and clear. Many of
would be the one that says that all hard physical work is my best memories come from these times of hardest work.
“drudgery” and not worth doing. There are, of course, many The tobacco cutting is the most protracted social
many questions surrounding this issue: What is the work? In occasion of the year. Neighbors work together; they are
whose interest is it done? Where and in what circumstances together all day for weeks. The quiet of the work is not
is it done? How well and to what result is it done? In whose interrupted by machine noises, and so there is much talk.
company is it done? How long does it last? And so forth. But There is talk involved in the management of the work. There
this issue needs to be re-examined by everybody, because it is incessant speculation about the weather. There is much
is personal. The argument, if it is that, can proceed only by laughter; because of the unrelenting difficulty of the work,
personal testimony. everything funny or amusing is relished. And there are
I can say, for example, that the tobacco harvest in memories.
my own home country involves the hardest work that I have The crew to which I belong is the product of kinships
done in any quantity in my life. In most of the years of my and friendships going far back; my own earliest associations
life, from early boyhood until now, I have taken part in the with it occurred nearly forty years ago. And so as we work we
tobacco cutting. This work occurs sometime between the last have before us not only the present crop and the present

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fields, but other crops and other fields that are dirt for the barn floor. It was a cold day, but the sun was
remembered. The tobacco cutting is a sort of ritual of shining; we hauled our load of dirt over the treelined gravel
remembrance. Old stories are retold; the dead and the lane beside the creek—a way well known to her mother and to
absent are remembered. Some of the best talk I have ever l my mother when they were children. As we went along, Katie
have ever listened to I have heard during these times, and I drove the team for the first time in her life. She did very
am especially moved to think of the care sometimes taken to well, and she was proud of herself. She said that her mother
speak well—that is, to speak fittingly—of the dead and the would be proud of her, and I said that I was proud of her.
absent. The conversation, one feels, is ancient. Such talk in We completed our trip to the barn, unloaded our load
barns and at row ends must go back without interruption to of dirt, smoothed it over the barn floor, and wetted it down.
the first farmers. How long it may continue is now an uneasy By the time we started back up the creek road the sun had
question; not much longer, perhaps, but we do not know. We gone over the hill and the air had turned bitter. Katie sat
only know that while it lasts it can carry us deeply into our close to me in the wagon, and we did not say anything for a
shared life and the happiness of farming. long time. I did not say anything because I was afraid that
(I am perforce aware of the problems and the Katie was not saying anything because she was cold and tired
controversies about tobacco. I have spoken of the tobacco and miserable and perhaps homesick; it was impossible to
harvest here simply because it is the only remaining farm job hurry much, and I was unsure how I would comfort her.
in my part of the country that still involves traditional But then, after a while, she said, “Wendell, isn't it
neighborliness.) fun?”

U ltimately, in the argument about work and how it

should be done, one has only one's pleasure to offer. It is
possible, as I have learned again and again, to be in one's
place, in such and such company, wild or domestic, and with
such pleasure that one cannot think of another place that one
would prefer to be, or of another place at all; one does not
miss or regret the past, or fear or long for the future. Being
there is simply all, and is enough. Such times give one the
chief standard and the chief reason for one's work.
Last December, when my granddaughter, Katie had
just turned five, she stayed with me one day while the rest
of the family were away from home. In the afternoon we
hitched a team of horses to the wagon and hauled a load of

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