The Great Work

What is the Great Work?

Those who know me will know that growing up Catholic has profoundly impacted my politics. I speak of utopia in exuberant, religious tones, like a woman shedding tears of joy and clinging to the habit of a saint. The great work, then, is the grand project which I believe that Humanity (capital H for reasons I'll get into later) is necessarily engaged in. It's a sort of "the moral arc of history is long but bends towards justice" kind of thing. The Great Work is the sum of the life-duty of each individual human: to leave this Earth better than you found it. The Great Work is great in scale, because it is to date, the process of some 117 billion lives at the time of writing. Everyone, by living, is necessarily devoted to the completion of the Great Work, as the Great Work ensures a better world for our children's children. It is a moral imperative to contribute to it as best you can, because it is inescapable. You live and die in service of the Great Work regardless of whether or not you might adhere to it.

Important areas of the Great Work