Work Keeps Society From Falling Apart

Between 1958 and 1962, ethologist John B. Calhoun (a scientist who studies animal behaviour) conducted a series of experiments on population growth and behavioural patterns. He created a number of “rat utopias”: enclosed spaces in which rats were given unlimited access to food and water, a constant ideal temperature of 20 C, no predators, and a sterile environment to prevent diseases.

At first, unsurprisingly, the rats would just eat and have sex. With time, however, a phenomenon he called “behavioral sink” developed: male rats would become homosexual and constantly rape both sexes, female rats would no longer take care of their young and just let them die to the point of having 96% infant mortality, cannibalism ensued to the point almost no rat had still a complete tail. And the rats that could somehow survive into adulthood would show no interest in mating and would prefer to live by themselves, eating and drinking only when the rest were asleep. Interestingly, some rats Calhoun called “the beautiful ones” (as they did not have tails eaten, were groomed, etc) showed patterns of utter selfishness: only caring about themselves and showing no interest in interaction with others.

Now, it is common and rather simpleminded to think the reason for this social chaos was overpopulation, but that goes against the fact that the population did not spread evenly among the cages and it peaked at 2200 rats, well below the environment’s total capacity of 3000 rats.

So, to me, the reason was the lack of work which means boredom. Rats did not have anything to do and utter boredom would drive them mad. This theory seems to be proven by the words of Jesus in Maria Valtorta: 

He (God) has put the work as a punishment, but also as a distraction for the guilty man. Woe to you if you had to live in idleness! Since centuries the Earth would be a huge madhouse of angry people and they would tear each other to pieces. You already do, because you are still too idle. the honest weariness calms and gives joy and serene rest.

Now, another part of this essay comes from a series of experiments done in the 1950s by Dr. Curt Richter: a well-known Harvard graduate and scientist with Johns Hopkins University. In the paper, he explains he wanted to study what another scientist called Walter Cannon had called “Voodoo Death”: the sudden and unexplainable death after being in a situation of utter hopelessness.

For that, he put rats (which are widely known to be excellent swimmers) in large buckets of water to test how long it’d take for them to drown. For that, he started with twelve domesticated rats. Out of these, three only lasted a couple of minutes, but the other nine lasted from 40 to 60 hours: 240 times longer. He then took thirty-four wild rats and thought that they would last longer due to them being naturally trained by their harsh lives. To his surprise, they all died after just one to fifteen minutes.

At first, he thought the reason could be because he had removed the whiskers of all rats, which maybe could be more important to wild rats. However, he then noticed that wild rats that were removed from the water and held outside for a few minutes before being put back in the water again would last as long as the domesticated rats. He thus concluded the reason rats, regardless of whether they were wild or domesticated, lasted more was when they had hoped they would eventually be rescued. Domesticated rats knew that there was someone who kept them fed, their cages clean, etc, and that person should surely at one point get them out of the bucket, and wild rats had learned that they could be rescued at some point, albeit put back in the water again.

Now, as we march towards a society in which robots, computers, machines, etc do the work for us, a 4-day a week work system, an increasingly cheap food system to the point of up to 40% of our food ending in the garbage, lack of diseases, etc we see parallels of our current society to one of the rats of the 1st experiment. Here, while some believe work is just punishment, we Christians see it as a tool, a way to grow, a tool given by a loving father to keep us busy in a world which we always forget we will all inevitably have to leave at our deaths. Just like the rats at the 2nd experiment, who had hopes that their work in not drowning would pay off, the Christian is always sure that whatever work he does, no matter how this world sees it as pointless, underpaid, etc, will succeed and be somehow useful.

A musician who does not play constantly will find their music to become uglier and uglier. A painter who does not constantly paint will see their paintings become uglier and uglier. A muscle that is not used will atrophy and become ugly. And the opposite is also true: excessive work turns things ugly: in the photo the legs of polish cyclist Pawel Poljansk are striking, to say the least. The same should happen with the soul: it becomes uglier when not worked. A society of ugly souls is an ugly society.

As such, we should see work not only as a source of income, a punishment but as a required exercise for the soul given by a father in heaven who knows what’s best for us: a tool to keep us entertained and our soul pretty. In this, Saint Joseph is a model of work: we can’t imagine him saying “I will not do this because it is useless, boring, poorly paid”. Instead, we would think of him taking any work regardless of how stupid, useless, pointless, unpaid…and so many reasons we find to not do work. That’s what kept his soul pretty.

In conclusion: our society is becoming uglier in good part simply because of the lack of work. Let’s look at work with hope and use it to beautify our inner selves.