Now, one might think that it would be an easy matter to prove such things as they apply to members of the so-called intellectual professions; but that all these behaviorist attempts to describe habit, the everyday, as decisive not only for the job as means of life but also for the job as purpose of life must find their limits when applied to the common, as one says, the uncomplicated jobs. There is no better way to counter this opinion than to single out a job that is counted among the most primitive, not to say most brutal, which would seem at first glance unlikely to exert a formative or even positive influence on its practictioners. We are speaking of the job of slaughterer. Such an analysis, however, cannot be made in the abstract; in order for us to be truly introduced to the essence of such a job, a variety of circumstances must come together in a stroke of fortune. We have just such a fortunate case here.
I mentioned previously that the “Basic Principles of the Career Counselor” were written by Hellmuth Bogen, head of the Berlin Office for Professional Aptitude Tests, and I was able to discuss with him at some length the matters I am reporting to you today.9 This highly unusual man was born into a poor background in Berlin, and as an eleven-year-old he was already earning pocket money behind his parents’ backs by driving the animals intended for slaughter at the central abattoir. He naturally gained, therefore, detailed knowledge of the professional classes that earn their living there, especially cattle traders and slaughterers, and could later combine that with very unusual knowledge of the various professional atmospheres, social relations, class concepts, and so forth. Before I begin to tell you about this truly classic representation — because why should there only be classic representations of individual life stories, and not whole professional classes — before I begin to tell you about it, I would stress that such a diffusion of practical and theoretical experience, knowledge such as is evident here, is the alpha and omega of the science of work. Thus in Russia, for example, career counseling specialists must be active for a certain period of time each year in the practice of those jobs for which they head a department at the counseling office. Among the career counselors there are miners as well as mechanics, locomotive engineers, bakers, etc. The interest in this new science is especially lively in Russia. Gastajeff opened the first Institute for the science of work in 1919, and in 1933 the Sixth International Conference on Psychotechnics will take place in Moscow.10
We do not want to lose sight of the following: that the short extract I will now convey to you from this masterly characterization of the slaughterer’s job should be understood, not as a description of special dispositions or tendencies that the slaughterer carries with him from the outset, but as a formative power that is inherent in his job.
The main feature of his being is the awareness of bodily power and vitality with which he overcomes the resistance to work in his job, and which also endow him with the necessary resistance to adverse temperatures, the influences of dampness, and the occasionally irregular shifts. From his contacts with animals, he accrues a quietness and certainty of movement; from the type of work operations, his movements gain their heavy stolidity, often amplified by corpulence. The cleanliness that is developed in respect to the work product is also pronounced in personal life. Although they very often have to engage in dirtying work, dirty slaughterers are rare. Slaughterhouse, apartment, clothing, all display the same character of cleanliness. The slaughterers are business people with an artisan’s tendency to produce exceptional quality … Advantageous financial rewards lend them a satisfaction with their lives that they are glad to share with others. All of this results in a sense of self that allows the slaughterer to observe his fellow man without envy, with respect, and, if he steps against him as an opponent, to quickly and roughly hold him at arm’s length. Good-naturedness, joviality, and robustness are thus allied. Out of the entire situation and the awareness of the job’s meaning, a healthy pride grows that finds it unnecessary to assert itself in any way on the outside.11
You all know of graphologists, palmists, phrenologists, and the like who claim to glean deep insights into people from particulars of physique, posture, etc. Regardless of how one mistrusts them, there remains much that is interesting and true in their observations. They assume that there is an indissoluble correlation between the inner and the outer. In their opinion, size, physique, and genetic material determine fate, just as fate, in their opinion, effects changes to the lines of the hand, the gaze, the facial features, etc. But what fate would more consistently call forth such effects, both inner and outer, than the job? And where would such determinations be easier to make than at the job, where thousands of people are subjected to the same fate day in and day out? The question — which we previously urged you to assist us with, and in closing will urge you again to assist by sending us communications — is not only a question of the science of work and jobs, it is a question of the knowledge of human nature and the gift of observation, and that can leave no one who has ever considered it uninterested. To prompt you — many more of you — to consider it was the purpose of these words.
“Karussell der Berufe,” GS, 2.2, 667–76. Translated by Lisa Harries Schumann.
Broadcast on December 29, 1930, on Southwest German Radio, Frankfurt. The talk was broadcast from 6:05–6:30 pm. It was part of a series on the theme, “Young People in Crisis” [Jugend in Not] (see Schiller-Lerg, Walter Benjamin und der Rundfunk, 332–4).
1 In English in the original. [Trans.]
2 About this request to the audience for their participation and input, Schiller-Lerg notes that no further information or related materials have been found (see Walter Benjamin und der Rundfunk, 333–4).
3 “To behave” is in English in the original. [Trans.]
4 Sichverhalten: Benjamin creates a compound word. [Trans.]
5 John Broadus Watson (1878–1958) was an American psychologist known for his contributions to behaviorism.
6 Deutsche Berufskunde: Ein Querschnitt durch die Berufe und Arbeitskreise der Gegenwart [German Occupational Studies: A Cross-Section of Contemporary Professions and Working Circles], eds. Ottoheinz von der Galblentz, Carl Mennicke (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1930).