I heard a news story today about a man who was convicted of stealing a sign that hung at the entrance to Auschwitz. The sign read "Arbeit macht frei" which can be translated as work will make you free.
I couldn't get the phrase out of my head today as I was shoveling the driveway and making bread and doing housework. There is truth in this old German proverb. There is a certain freedom in meaningful work. Of course work is only meaningful when it is imbued with a sense of autonomy and as Malcolm Gladwell points out a relationship between effort and reward.
It is sad to think of the way the Nazi's distorted this noble truth. I suppose it is not really so different from the ways our own instituions distort the truth to shape the will of the people.
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