Time well spent

I have not read David Graeber's book called 'Bullshit Jobs', but I know from reviews that he argues that a high proportion of work in western societies is pointless on an absolute scale - it has no real social value. Furthermore, he thinks this is not just wasteful but damaging for the people doing those jobs: people doing them know deep down these jobs are meaningless, but must pretend otherwise to themselves because we live in a society where self-worth and work are intertwined. This is psychologically exhausting

I rather assumed that my former career would be covered by his definitions, but was comforted to find that I could not easily allocate it to one of his five categories: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers and taskmasters. If you are interested, you can have fun reading what they all are; the last one covers a lot of middle-management jobs, so it gives me a little reassurance that I repeatedly put effort into avoiding that kind of work

Really, I was thinking about this in the context of the fuss that is building over inheritance tax on farmland. Farming is the least bullshit job you could imagine: what is more socially useful than providing us all with food? But the average age of a farmer is now pushing 60, young people are increasingly deciding to forsake the family business for a non-farming career (potentially, even for a bullshit job). The suicide rate in farming is higher than average and mental health is often difficult to sustain

Farmers - who at some level feel they should get some esteem for keeping us alive - are instead scapegoated for causing climate change, flooding cities, destroying wildlife and biodiversity, polluting the waterways and treating animals cruelly. Regardless of the minutae and actual significance of tweaks to tax legislation, I think there is an emotional reaction that this is just one straw too many

I'm not really creating an argument or passing judgement here, just observing that there is depth and complexity that is easily missed in a simplistic debate

Our neighbour spent a lifeime in the definitely no-bullshit role of schoolteacher, but is also proficient in plant husbandry and able to conjure these spirit-lifters outside their door on a cold, wet, grey November afternoon. Well worthwhile