I fail to see how this concept in and of itself is a bad thing. In fact, I'd argue that if we were to pursue meaningfulness and goodness in the work that we do, pay attention to what we do, why we do it, and how it affects us as individuals as well as the world around us, our world would be in a much better place. I like to work. Sitting idle is depressing and frustrating and all around dispiriting. When I'm working, I work hard and it genuinely makes me feel good about myself. That said, I don't ever actually look forward to going to work and while I'm treated well where I'm at and love the work I do, I'd love to find a job that I'd consider more meaningful and socially beneficial than what I do now.Perhaps we’ve all gotten a little hungry for meaning.
There is a difference between finding / making meaning in the work you do, and considering work itself to be meaningful. The Protestent work ethic is about any work being meaningful because it is work. You work until you're done, peasant. So that doesn't include being thoughtful about the value and impact of your work. There's no empathy in what's discussed, even though I wholly agree with you that there should be.
I sometimes wonder if the Calvinist Work ethic started out as "Be diligent in worthwhile work, be humble, and wear both proudly as vestments of virtue," and then somehow got warped into being "Work to the bone for your superiors and enjoy being broke." One is very spiritual. The other reeks of social stratification. Somehow though, we went from good works/deeds emanate from faith, as in Catholicism, to good works lead to salvation, as in early Lutheran Protestantism, to good works being a sign of being predestined to be saved as in Calvinism. Or something along those lines, it can be really hard to follow theological and ethical splits and how they're reflected in the real world. Regardless, even outside of Christianity, generally speaking societies tend to see diligence as a social moral. I think what we're seeing with people overwhelming themselves is another expression of that concept.
This is one of the core complaints atheists and agnostics generally harbor towards organized religion in general. The article misses the mark: It isn't about "working hard" it's about "working hard for yourself" where "for yourself" has been accidentally and deliberately obscured. The dichotomy is not whether or not you work hard, it's whether or not you benefit from working hard and all-encompassing inclusivity is being sold as the tool of obfuscation. But I mean, Model T assembly line workers lived in Ford housing so STFU about the novelty here. The term "factory town" is more than a hundred years old. The author's beef is that she senses the inequality between "work in" and "benefits out" but that shit predates writing.One is very spiritual. The other reeks of social stratification.
Religion or no, social stratification is kind of baked into our societies. Its not something that's isolated to one period of time, one section of geography, or language, or belief system, or economic or legal system. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as the systems are fair. But figuring out what is "fair," and who gets to decide and enforce those concepts of fairness is where we've struggled as societies throughout history and will probably continue to do so. In defense of religion, there's tons of writings that embrace fairness, social stratification or no, from concepts like what makes a just ruler, to generosity and hospitality, to honesty and humility, to adherence to concrete laws and concepts of justice. But religion is often like a Rorschach test in a way, where what we choose to focus on as individuals and societies is often just as much as a reflection of us as it is a reflection of the religion. I think right now, we're very much in a time where we're reflecting on that concept of fairness in regards to modern society. Whether we're looking at wage inequality, automation, disparities in wealth, the impacts of economies on societies and the planet, we're in times of great change and uncertainty. Things are changing very rapidly and with a lot of uncertainty. I think articles like this will keep popping up in the coming years, as more and more people really start to think about these ideas, to varying degrees of depth and success. A lot of them will be from Millenials and Gen Z, because while these things aren't new, they're new to them.This is one of the core complaints atheists and agnostics generally harbor towards organized religion in general.
And our biology. Dunbar's Number shows that the human animal is capable of maintaining about 150 'meaningful' social relationships. Anyone outside that rather small circle is just an 'acquaintance' or less. You can (and many have) debated the exact value of Dunbar's Number, but not the base premise. Humans are a pack animal. That pack can only be around 100 animals before it begins to fragment into smaller groups. Those groups need a way to define who is "in" and who is "out" of the group, so stratification happens on multiple levels. Our new technologies that allow us to simulate close connections with thousands of people further tax the limited resources of our internal social map and capabilities, and force us into pretending a closer connection with more people than we can actually connect with. The result is isolation due to your own internal filters/capabilities knowing you are not fully engaged with as many people as you pretend to be. If you moved into a cabin in the woods, how many people would actually visit you? That's the measure. That's the fear. Religion or no, social stratification is kind of baked into our societies.
Indeed, that seems to be part of the picture as well. I also sometimes wonder how strong the correlation between the sizes of a society and its institutions and how drastic and engrained social stratification is. I've never looked into it, but I can imagine its often pretty strong.