On a Seven Day Diary
Oh I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and talked and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and slept.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and fucked and went to sleep.
Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!
Love must be the reason for the week!
We went shopping! I saw clouds!
The children explained everything!
I could talk about the main thing!
What did I drink on Saturday night
that lost the first, best half of Sunday?
The last half wasn’t worth this “word.”
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and went to sleep,
refreshed but tired by the weekend.
—Alan Dugan
I thought of this poem when I read the excerpt from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Marx and Engels write, "the fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind" (p. 767 in the Norton). This gets into some complicated territory: the territory of telling people what they feel. We discussed what a generalization this claim is in our last class, and though some persuasive points were made, I think it's easy for all of us to think of people we know whose labor does not belong to their essential being. It's fair, at least, to say that the speaker of this poem's labor doesn't belong to his essential being. It's also fair to say that Barbara Ehrenreich didn't feel affirmed, happy, and physically or mentally stronger after a shift at any of her jobs in Nickel and Dimed. So what is it that makes people so reluctant to take Marx & Engel's critique seriously?
And as for the poem, the speaker hardly has any time to do fulfilling activities. On Saturday he goes shopping, spends time with his family, and drinks too much. Except for the middle one, they aren't what most of us would consider quality time. And one more thing, on Saturday, the speaker finds he can talk about "the main thing!" What is that? What does it mean that he can talk about it only on a free day?
Does Saturday make the rest of the week worth it? Do we need the rest of the week in order to feel the pleasure of Saturday? Are labour hour laws enough, or does the workplace itself have to change in order for us to be fulfilled?
If I'm understanding this post correctly, I would have to say I agree with what the writer of the poem is saying. The typical Monday-Friday 9-5 hum-drum lifestyle can get incredibly redundant, boring, and unfulfilling. Unlike Marx and Engels, I don't believe our occupation is what classifies us and creates our whole being. In today's society, there is so much more to a person than just their job description. What we do in our spare time, outside the office and outside the classroom is just as much a part of us as what we do within it, if not more. During Marx's time period, the majority of the working class was unable to enjoy lesirely activities because they had too much else to worry about on their minds. They couldn't focus on the "main thing" (which I take to be the meaning of life, or the meaning of our existence) because they simply did not have the time to do it. Our minds have to be able to have some sort of time for liberation which we can look forward to - hence, Saturday. Workers need Saturdays to keep them from living in a monotonous circle of dehumanization. On Saturdays, people are again humanized.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely adore this poem. It wonderfully expresses the conditions of the working day Marx discussed throughout the Working Day section of Capital. Marx writes "The capitalistic mode of production...produces thus, with the extension of the working-day, not only the deterioration of human labour-power by robbing it of its normal, moral and physical, conditions of development and function. It produces also the premature exhaustion and death of this labour-power itself. It extends the labourer’s time of production during a given period by shortening his actual life-time." The speaker of the poem is the embodiment of an alienated man (in a manner of speaker that is). Unfortunately, he lives for his job and undoubtedly it is one of his defining characteristic. Arguably, because of his job he is being robbed of his "normal, moral and physical, conditions of development and function". His life revolves around his job - even his saturday and sunday are occupied in a somewhat revolt against his weekday. Similar, Marx writes " Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society. To the out-cry as to the physical and mental degradation, the premature death, the torture of over-work, it answers: Ought these to trouble us since they increase our profits?". This brings in the question why does the speaker live this way? -- a bare existence during the weekday and then coming alive during the weekend? It is, as Marx writes, harmful to his health? Does he work a mind-numbing job on the weekday, drink and entertain too much on the weekend simply because that is "what is done". Or maybe it is a question of buying into our culture of "commodity fetishism"? The speaker states "Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!/ Love must be the reason for the week!/ We went shopping! I saw clouds!". Shopping? The value of his work - the products (whatever it is he "produces") allows for him to afford certain "luxuries", such as his weekend shopping - yet is this really living? Is this truly happiness or 'consciousness'. Does it even matter that he is happy or conscious?
ReplyDeleteI think one thing to keep in mind is the idea that the objects that we produce in labor are ultimately external, too. We think that they are ours, but their value is ultimately determined externally, by market and cultural forces that are, arguably, outside of us. Heck, we could argue that this blog only is meaningful because I have attached a grade value to it. Beyond that, it's only meaningful if other people find value in it--if we acquire a readership, in short. Is the act of blogging fulfilling if there aren't any other forces out there valuing what we are doing?
ReplyDeleteMoreover, it's striking to me that the speaker of this poem sanwhiches sex into the litany of tasks that the work week entails. Structually, the word fuck doesn't even stand out because it is jammed between all kinds of outher routine tasks, rendering sex--that one thing that shouldn't feel like work--just another job. Taking it even further, what do we make of the fact that children are produced--after sex--through labor?
This poem reminds me a lot of a very minimalistic song by the Moldy Peaches (not to completely insult Dugan), which also relates to what Professor Fisher mentions about sex turning into another mundane task crammed into the routine of the work week. The melody of the song is pretty monotone and gives off a bored, almost ennui impression, and some of the lyrics are thus:
ReplyDeleteMy name is Jorge Regula.
I'm walking down the street.
I love you.
Let's go to the beach.
...
I wake up in the morning.
Put on my yellow shirt.
I get a bite to eat.
I go to work.
...
My name is Jorge Regula.
I'm walkin' down the street.
I love you.
Let's go to sleep.
In reading Dugan's poem and these lyrics, it seems that even the most fantastic notions about love and sex are editorialized into the routine. I think it would be valid to say that most people like to think that they can value intangible things like love above the material aspects of our lives, above commodities. However, the impression given off by Dugan's poem is that all of those intangible experiences are just as meaningless as the other cycles we continue to undergo.
Also, I read Nickle and Dimed in high school! I don't remember liking it very much because Ehrenreich sort of cheated a lot in trying to maintain a lifestyle making minimum wage, but it's still an interesting read.