Humans and Action

Reading Response: Working by Studs Terkel, pages xxxi-xxxviii and The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt, pages 22-78

It's all about people and action. As Hannah Arendt muses, "Man working and fabricating and building a world inhabited only by himself would still be a fabricator, though not a homo faber: he would have lost his specifically human quality...Action alone is the exclusive perogative of man; neither a beast nor a god is capable of it, and only action is entirely dependent upon the constant presence of others."

Mike Lefevre's entire interview was centered around his relationships and his frustrating lack of Action. He talked of his children, his wife, the men in the tavern, coworkers, his foreman - with all of them he had a different relationship, but they all influenced his life and his work. While he was doing much labor, he felt as though he was never really accomplishing anything (action.) As he said, "Everybody should have something to point to." In his mind, he was just an "old mule," an animal, a subhuman - all because the nature of work extracted Action and provided only work.