Liberty, Equality...Charity?

The United Way advertisements have begun appearing on the Toronto subway again. There are about three or four versions of the ads, all variations on the same theme. They all show people shedding a former version of themselves -- like a snake shedding its skin -- in favour of a new, presumably happier version. One for example, shows an elderly woman shedding a housebound version of herself in favour of a more active version with sneakers and sun visor hat, getting off the easy chair, ready to take on the world. Another shows a man -- apparently homeless -- being transformed into someone gainfully employed and wearing a worker's uniform, the implication being that he has been assisted by the work of the United Way. These two examples are uncontroversial enough and leave the viewer of the ad with the impression that the United way is performing an admirable function that improves peoples' lives.

But there is a third version of the ad that left me feeling a bit puzzled. It shows a young man who appears to have been making his living as a dishwasher in a restaurant. He sheds the dishwasher version of himself and underneath the discarded chrysalis is the uniform of someone who works in the medical field (either as a doctor, nurse or technician; it's difficult to tell). At any rate, he seems ready to leave the world of dirty dishes behind in favour of a more respectable and lucrative future.

Now this is all well and good, but it does leave me with one uncomfortable thought: Who is going to do the dishes, now that their star dishwasher has left for a happier field? Somebody has to do them. And is the United Way going to step up to the plate and help the replacement dishwasher move on as well?

Clearly, this is not the same as helping shut-ins become more mobile or or helping the homeless find jobs -- as a society, we don't want people being either immobile or unemployed if we can help it. And granted, dish washing is not the most pleasant of occupations, but like many unpleasant occupations -- collecting garbage, cleaning toilets, changing bedpans -- it is socially necessary and, to repeat, somebody has to do them.

Once again, there is something telling in the way the media has portrayed the world of the working class. We see their labour as something shameful, an anomaly of sorts, like homelessness, something that needs charity to fix -- or something we'd rather not think about at all. The dignity of labour is a notion to which we often pay lip service, but clearly we don't believe it.