Professional Conditions of Labor and Action Matrix of Job Image as Important Anthropological Factor which Surpasses the Work of Nature

Tinyakova Elena Aleksandrovna PhD in Philosophy Associate professor, lecturer of the Department of General Humanitarian Disciplines at Sergiyev Posad Humanitarian Institute and Sergiyev Posad Moscow Institute Enterpreneurship and Law 141300, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Sergiev-Posad, ul. 40 Let Oktyabrya, 5 A etinyakova@bk.ru Other publications by this author

Historic process of building and shaping a man as a biological creature in labor is represented in many theories: anthropological, biological, culturological, social, philosophical, economic. This article will concern problems of forming a human being in the process of labor. On the one hand the considerations of the article are connected with praxiology^[1] (in analysis of human labor), on the other hand with anthropology which is most responsible for the outward appearance of a man. Of course economic theories ^[2] and politology^[3] (the influence of power on human labor) come first in the decision of this question. The Austrian philosopher Ludwig von Mises raised the question: what position does human labor occupy in the hierarchy of achievements, besides he analysed the influence of power on human labor and argued that bureaucracy hinders normal labor development, and the Austrian economist rejected the possibility of rational managing economy under socialism. From the specter of problems mentioned we shall point out the following: how does labor activity help to make a human being more esthetic. The author of the article still thinks that sometimes culture development may exceed economic development in its influence. It is wise to warn that, the information taken for the article may lead to different conclusions for labor of men and women, children, people of various ages and ethnic groups.

Labor activity has such components: skills and habits, aimed at achieving a concrete result of labor (it is here that differentiation into various professions begins); coating component that supports basic skills and habits (they are not first-hand in achieving results, but have a stimulating function); specific traits in professional behavior and outward appearance of men, typical for a concrete profession (they make the final end of traits cultivated by the type of labor of a concrete profession). Our considerations will be crowned by the proverb, which is typical for various peoples:” Labor should make a man smart”. But in reality does it make so? This proverb has much in common with the philosophical truth:” Motion (labor is meant) is life per se”. From the point of view of social problematics the fact holds truth: when a person comes to one’s pension’s age and loses all chances to go on with one’s labor activity, he may fall into a social and psychological crisis. Another tragic example: social degradation in case of loss of work and accidental temporary jobs. We ought to pay attention to a very cardinal problem: labor has performed an anthropological creation of a man and at the same time labor is fraught to turn anthropological development into regress. People, who have turned rough in labor, may become socially dangerous. Nowadays many types of hard labor have been passed over to technique. These are mainly very heavy and dangerous types of labor. But take care! Technique has a chance to make human psychic artificial.

So labor is at the basis (root) of life forces of a man. Let’s put a question: To what extent can this root keep its esthetic potential for perfecting a man anthropologically in outward appearance and spirit. When we try to project this question on the space of different professions we are sure to discover a sharp contradiction; some professions and jobs really make a person smart, and others work otherwise–ruin a person mercilessly. Axiological and culturological characteristics of professions and jobs develop in opposite directions and contradict each other.

P.S. Gurevich, a contemporary Russian culturologist, states such lines of problems: ”culture is a great failure”, “culture is burdened by oppositions” ^[4]. To clear up our considerations we shall put apart from each other the two notions:”a profession” and “a type of labor activity”. Every profession has a certain theoretical potential which is responsible for professional actions, skills and habits. Every profession requires preparation and learning. Professional training is connected with all stages of education. In contemporary socially dynamic society which is characterized by quick differentiation of professions (this is the direct consequence of growing knowledge about the world, information development of a man), there appeared a system of optional education, which helps to switch from one profession to another or to combine two or several professions. Types of labor activity make up components of a profession, but they may exist autonomously. It is necessary to state that the more complex a profession is and the higher its status in professional hierarchy of human labor activity, the more types of labor activity it comprises. The most simple professions can be oriented only to one type of labor activity. For example in the system of medical professions a sanitary profession is at the lowest stage of professional ladder. It is less paid. But in a certain way it supports the most complicated labor of a surgeon or a doctor of other specialization. The payment of any profession is motivated by the degree of its complexity and quantity of types of actions it comprises. But interdependence of professions is not taken into consideration (the article is based on labor reality in Russia, and concrete comparison of the emphasized situation is a problem of another article). This approach to economic justification of professions has lead to division of professions by their economic status: some professions are being put further and further from each other. Hence people may find themselves in opposite social and economic conditions. This economic trait is more typical to countries of low economic development and in many ways opposition of professions is a very important factor of economic development. However growing opposition of professions does not coincide with the necessity of professions in life. It so has happened that simple and common professions have been driven to the “outskirts” of society as a result minimal economic support. Because of that society has many problems with support of life space in cleanness and order, it is just here that ecological problems begin. P. Gurevich interprets the situation:”…culture is the most important phenomenological reality, social structure is one of its prerequisites and modes of existence” ^[4]. The author of the article shares this viewpoint, A. Nikishenkova divides anthropology into social and cultural. Unequal social and economic conditions of labor leave negative signs in cultural space. The less favorable conditions of labor bring rough traces on the anthropological development of men, which nature has not been going to do.

Esthetics of human labor activity is an important factor of civilization and culture development of men. Here we mean an esthetic coating of professions by human behavior, outward appearance and social types of life in general. All professions unite in providing human life with everything necessary and make up their own microsociums with characteristic cultural features. People who tidy up metro stations and streets, commuter trains etc. have a certain socio-cultural type of life, those who work as bank clerks,–another. With professional development of people socio-cultural differentiation goes in various and opposite directions. It is quite naturally that everybody tries to get a well-paid job which would provide him with comfortable living conditions. Competitions to get a better job is becoming sharper and sharper, this process is still further sharpened by the unemployment sector. That is why esthetic coating of professions has become more intensive. It is necessary to add that the basic culture factor–transport beauty through labor–is still works and is active. Every profession has an internal culture development, the consequence is that its perfect image grows, a man is also trying to look smarter in one’s profession. But professions differ in their culture development. So contemporary professional development sets higher demands to their presentation. Very often it is this that confirms the social authority of a profession. To make our conclusions more concrete we shall choose a narrower space of our discussions. We shall compare labor activity and actor’s creativity.

Theatre art appeared in ancient times to support the dialogue of men with surrounding world with the aim of saving. Ancient rituals and traditions demanded an actor, who could build an image in the form of a dance, a song, decorate himself and others to “surpass nature”. Such rituals and traditions were aimed to protect men against wild nature, make life favorable and enjoyable, to get enough food and shelter, to direct nature forces according to men’s will. Rituals were connected with the most important types of human labor activity and performed a stimulating factor. However in the process of human development the artistic world has got autonomy: fantasy and imagination helped people to create the world of their wishes, which added to the image of the really existing world. It is quite justified that particularly the “ancient actor” has created and focused the space of artistic culture which by nowadays has differentiated into various types of art. Artistic culture contains wishes of men about our world in the most concentrated form.

Contemporary social space has developed many contradictions, and the most extreme view is that there exists an idea that a man should return to the most archaic forms of contacts with nature. This crisis in social and cultural development of mankind was pointed out by philosophers of the 17-th century, when there appeared the position of “human natural rights’. However for many centuries peoples have created a huge cultural material space, which now stands between men and nature, and the call to “return to virgin nature” is practically impossible to be realized. And it is just here that actor’s mastership comes to help men. Theatre is summoned to become “the doctor of culture” in contemporary, complicated by problems, society. Such an approach leads to give theatre a new cultural status.

Let’s analyse the basic historical stages of theatre art.

• Theatre in the form of an ancient ritual and tradition for emotional support of men;

• Theatre when it has already got enough artistic attraction and professionalism; it existed mainly as entertainment for rich layers of society;

• Theatre when literature appeared and its branch–drama, calling important life events on the pages of theatre plays. Theatre concerns history and politics.

• Classic period of theatre art, characterized by a clear dialogue between the actor and the audience. Theatre existed for spectators in wide meaning of the word.

• Contemporary theatre attracts actively spectators to its artistic process. There appear various forms of experimental theatre, the essence of an experiment is to build theatre presentations of events into real life, dissolve theatrical actions among spectators. The scenes, played, should be artistic ownership not only of actors but spectators as well. The aim is achieved by stroke-type presentation of theatrical events, as time for detailed scenic presentations lacks: social time follows acceleration, and theatrical symbols are explained so that ideas transported by actors can’t be one-sided in meaning. The ideas, coming from the scene, are not clearly finished. These are rather philosophical conceptions which demand interpretation on the part of spectators. A contemporary spectator is no longer a “pupil” who is taught from the scene, but a philosopher of life through the symbols which make up actors’ play. This tendency–to make precepts of art creators–is typical of other types of art, particularly painting. However classic theatre hasn’t died! It goes on keeping the stability of human existence.

Contemporary development of theatre dissolves theatrical esthetics in professional life, bringing even quite ordinary events on the theatrical scene. And various professions take on theatrical features to present themselves brighter. Not always these adopted esthetic features serve good quality, sometimes they work uselessly: esthetic component of professional life surpasses pragmatic one. It may be illustrated on the examples of advertising activity.

In an attempt to achieve good results in jobs and professions there has rooted the idea: to be the master of one’s work. The Spanish writer Gracian y Morales Baltasar stated that a man should regard an easy work as hard and a hard work as easy.V.Pekelis remarked that “among vitamins of creativity motion is the most important”^[5]. That is why today fitness training adds to an esthetic halo of any profession: the contemporary demand to any professional person is that he should look attractive. We shall make an important remark; the more elite is a profession, the stronger is care for the beauty of its specialists. But there are many professions that are devoid of any opportunity to give specialists any possibilities to perfect their image. Here we shall make a very important conclusion: some professions with possibilities to perfect human outward and physical appearance surpass the creativity of nature in human developing; others on the contrary make a regress in anthropological development and human beings even lose what nature has created.

We shall emphasized the core problem of the article: nature has lost its leading role in constructing human beings, there appear human types, not typical to nature, it concerns not only rough types, but also “super esthetic”. Here adds substantially genetic engineering, but it is a big problem for a separate article.

It goes without saying that professions with esthetic image are more attractive. Esthetic image of professions influences professional orientation, and this line of development often doesn’t coincide with economic demands. Beauty in presentation of professions has given birth to mastership and ruined some precious essence, because of complex professional skills some professions have fallen behind in esthetic development, but they are still needed and keep the providing of human life. Every profession has two lines of creativity; one is connected with concrete skills and aimed at a certain result; the other–at attractive presentation of these skills. Some professions developed in the dialogue of these two lines quite normally and rationally, others turned to crisis type interrelations of these two lines. The problem called to be discussed on the pages of the article is directly connected with P. Gurevich’s discussion about merit and value nature of culture. When a person recognizes the value of his labor, it urges him to create one’s professional behavior image like. “Values are fixed and signified through certain presentations” ^[6]. As P.Gurevich confirms, values guide human activity in a certain direction. The author of the article will prolong the idea. The height of pragmatic interpretation of Gurevich’s statement happened in the 17-th century. In the 18-th century, classicism raised the most harmony containing values above human society. In later development values began to gather more and more contradictions.

Nowadays the professional matrix of human labor activity is very chaotic, the more so as it is in the condition of self-regulation (synergetic approach). And very often actor’s qualities of a profession win its popularity. For example the profession of an animator in tourism and service. Synergetic dynamic in distribution of professions is quite vivid. Labor initiative is high mainly thanks private sector (a license gives a right to practice any initiative, ruining of safe life excluded). In this situation actor’s mastership plays a cardinal role in granting life to especially new professions, various innovations.

The problem of rational distributions of various professions in human society has not been decided. We have some professions in surplus, but we lack others. J.V. Pozhdestvenskiy points out three big types of labor activity ^[7]:

1. Professional division of labor.
2. Division of labor in accordance with difficulty of performance.
3. Economic division of professions (here especially entrepreneurship is given importance).

Here we make an important remark. Professional activity of a businessman can be presented through a certain model: a) active energy and initiatives, which are often due to actor’s traits; free choice of appearance, forms and spheres of economic activity, methods of realization; b) professional behavior is more often oriented to positions of leadership, leading habits and skills; c) professional behavior is full of creative potential, bent for unusual decisions; d) often turning to situations demanding risks. Let’s remember the quotation of the antique thinker Plutarch who stated that minor mistakes seem big in behavior of those who have power. It goes without saying that examples of professional mastership are held by leaders of this or that profession. In this case under leadership we mean the leading role in the profession under consideration, in everyday speech ‘boss’s behavior”. Such persons usually give a model for other worker to follow. If the effectiveness of leadership is combined with personal good qualities then such a leader can transport his personal style to his colleges. But there can be such colleges who like to keep aside from others and be autonomous. In such situations strokes of actor’s mastership may still help and keep the communication canal active, this canal may unite such an outsider with others. From the psychological point of view such persons may give a certain stimulus to others: as unusual and sometimes even extraordinary situations, practised by outsiders, interrupt monotony in professional activity.

Besides of particular traits, typical for professions, and extraordinary behavior of some colleges there are still universal orientations. Here we refer to the wise thought of B. Franklin, the American philosopher: “Be polite with everybody, sociable with many, keep familiarity with few chosen”.

Today university courses “Business relations”, “Psychology of business relations” and courses the like are very popular. Here the emphasis is made on skillful use of language, speech, public presentation. It is quite understandable because the ”word” has a great power over men in contemporary information society. This article is aimed at actor’s mastership which comprises the following meaning: professional behavior should be complex, combining the art of a word and the skillful manner of behavior, a person as if plays one’s profession to meet the requirements set by society. It goes without saying that actor’s mastership gives a certain esthetic halo, otherwise presenting oneself may turn as violence. Redundancy in domineering has always negative results and actor’s behavior may make one’s position more communicative. But ‘the medal” has a back side (in actor’s behavior); a person may only generate professional ballast and conceal “doing nothing” by one’s actor’s behavior. Here our considerations are in line with the conception of “pure beauty in esthetics”. Again Plutarch’s wisdom comes to our mind: ”Human actions work like drugs; they can save and ruin in respect of circumstances”.

One more feature of analysed actor’s mastership: it is not always that actor’s behavior serves the creation of beauty image, the more so as a person may act evil mood, cruelty and other negative traits which, in his opinion, are to add to fulfillment of his plans. Actor’s behavior is realized independently and autonomously, gestures playing an important role ^[8], here also belong expressions of eyes, type of gaits, manners ^[9;10]. For example, a clenched fist, a raised upward arm, two fingers modeling the letter “V” (the sign for victory). The gestures are often used as initial actions for acting a situation. It is necessary to state that most acted doings are of improvisation type, but still grounded on the number of traditional symbols. Walter W. Kofler, the president of the InternationalAcademy of sciences (Ecology and health), professor of the MedicalUniversity (Innsbruck) ^[11], draws attention to two main vectors in doctors’ behavior: flexibility and anti-stress behavior. In his opinion just these traits serve the background of doctors’ actions and motivate behavior. In the initiated branch of anthropological and praxiological research the two levels are interwoven: traits of character and typical actions directed to professional skills and habits; the interdependence is balanced. So we try to penetrate how a profession cultivates a human character in the style of a certain profession and build his body typically for a profession. It is just here that features additional to the work of nature lie. This research should be aimed at numerous computer professions which begin just to differ in the respects mentioned. But in general they all create a somehow artificial type of a man. This acute problem demands a separate line of consideration because it is rather abundant. We shall mark one more important branch of the research initiated: how traditional professions, the job matrix of which is made up by professional human actions, should be transformed to a computer level. For example the profession of an accountant. The traditional traits, cultivated by long historical professional development, should be destroyed and the old profession should be built on new technological grounds. That is why in professional learning and up-bringing the contemporary problem is twofold, and sometimes threefold if the destruction of old skills and habits, not needed nowadays, takes a rather big turn. The problem set is connected with philosophy of technique and age differentiation in sociology.

Contemporary view of any profession demands an esthetic turn of thought. This can be explained by human desire to perfect biological image. And this desire is so strong that even genetic engineering is called to help. The overloading of society with information demands search to get education even in prenatal period!

Particularly in Russian in esthetic image dominate such professions: governmental officials, businessmen, managers, bankers. It is juts these professions have the most financial possibilities to win a stable position in socio-cultural space. In many respects they set standards for a man of business. However new technologies which have come to Russia without economic basis demanded have laid waste esthetic potential of some profession. Here web marketing comes first. A man looks attractive (not always since waste of doings spoils a man’s outward appearance) but there is no professional mastership. Here starts corruption, unfavorable development. We can point out two main negative factors in contemporary professional development: everloading with hard condition of labor irrespective of today’s technologies and unproductive professions.

Active intercultural communication influences professional types of behavior. National traits of a man with a certain profession are presented in symbolic codes.

• American positive tuning, outward tokens of friendliness and exteriority, egocentrism, persistence, professionalism.

• French independence, confrontation, logical proof, severity, lack of a reserve position.

• German careful analysis (thorough thinking over) of one’s position, consequence in discussion, being sure of success.

• Chinese spirit of friendship, recognition of one’s and other’s status, not going fast, centrism, feeling of obligation.

• Japan mild style, desire to avoid confrontation, inclination to private relations, detailed discussion of business behavior, complex mechanism of decisions, sensitiveness to the impression made.

The national peculiarities in professional presentation may be referred as ethnic praxiology. It demands a separate consideration.

On the agenda of socio-cultural human development is the perfection of traits typical for certain professions and professional mastership, they both should make a man attractive either in behavior and appearance. Human professional development shouldn’t contradict the work of nature which keeps the factor of perfection concealed. The source of professional mastership comprises not only professional competence but an anthropological type of a man, his behavior, methods of communication and relations cultivated by this or that profession. Every specialist should be partly an actor in one’s profession notwithstanding its content. It has become an important factor of cultural development. The most loaded with actors’ potential are the following professions: a teacher of various stages of education, professions of mass communication, municipal and governmental officials, managers, firm workers, bankers, new professions of public relations, organizers of advertising. We shall mark a very important feature in professional human ripening. Esthetic potential grows faster than perfection of professional skills and habits. Some esthetic additions have no professional content. Such a situation may lead to social sharpening of society, create oppositions between esthetically presented professions and rough professions, but the latter often keep the basis of human existence. Oppositions of professional people may cause social tension in society.

The Russian philosopher I.A.Iliyn ^[12] stated that human labor should be the source of freedom and health. Such an approach will serve social harmony and be a productive source of creativity in any sphere of human professional activity. Creativity and freedom work for the same purpose as argued by the Polish philosopher Kotarbinskii:”A good teacher can teach things which he can’t do himself”^[13].