becoming more human by becoming more godlike 401
today depends on extraordinary luck even more than on exceptional
gift s.
We must therefore look in another direction for a response faithful
to the religion of the future. Th ere are three antidotes to mutilation that
reaffi rm and strengthen the condition of embodied spirit. Each of them
addresses only part of the problem, and even so imperfectly. Each de-
pends on changes in the or ga ni za tion of society and in the direction of
culture and of education, over which the individual has no control. Th e
more distant society remains from these changes, the greater the de-
mand that is placed on the self- transformation of the individual. Th e
resistant will, derided by the doctrines of the overcoming of the world
and converted to the ser vice of society by the teachings of the human-
ization of the world, must be acknowledged as the indispensable in-
strument of our rise.
A fi rst antidote to the belittling eff ect of mutilation is the ac cep tance
of an idea of work: work as a transformative vocation. Th ree ideas of
work contend for infl uence today. One idea is that of work as an honor-
able calling: a recognized place in the division of labor, oft en or ga nized
as a specialty, a trade, or a profession, under the aegis of historically
developed group standards and with the benefi t of honor given by
society. Th e individual’s identity comes to be bound up with the per-
for mance of this role. He earns a living in a way that also ennobles
him. Here there can be no solution to the problem of the mutilation
wrought by a course of life. Society teaches the individual to embrace
his contingent and par tic u lar position and to defi ne his identity by its
mea sure.
A second idea of work is instrumental. Work loses its sanctity and
its charm. Th e individual works only to earn the means with which to
sustain value in another realm: typically, the family. Th e combination
of the profane work role and of the family haven becomes the whole
world of the individual. He may hope to sweeten his daily chore, never
to transform or transcend it.
A third notion of work is the idea of the transformative vocation. Its
hallmark is the relation that it establishes between self- transformation
and social reconstruction. We strive to reshape some part of our in-
stitutional or conceptual setting, and oft en fail. Despite our failure, we
may succeed in changing ourselves.