In America today, too many people believe that work is drudgery — that only certain kinds of employment are ennobling or provide fulfillment. The notion that "hamburger-flipping" jobs and other kinds of low paying work lack value (popularly expressed during the presidential election of 1988 and reinforced by the media ever since) has far reaching consequences — for the next generation of American workers, for the poor, and for our economy.
We often hear, for example, that today's young people (even those with college degrees) are not workplace ready — that they lack fundamental skills or any sort of work ethic.
The recent discovery of 10 lost plays by the beloved mystery writer Agatha Christie highlights a lucrative trend in the publishing world. In this year alone, a host of "newly discovered" writings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Harper Lee, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dr. Seuss have enjoyed considerable commercial success. With each case, the same questions arise: how do we discern, and to what extent do we honor the wishes of the author when reproducing the work? Does the public have a right to see these works? Should publishers exercise creative editing to complete unfinished manuscripts?
As ravenous consumers of our favorite authors, it is easy to be blind to the finer ethical points. Yet would any of us feel comfortable having the creative output of our college days published for the entire world to see and inevitably compared to our more mature work, as in the recent case of Tolkien's The Story of Kullervo? The publication of Go Set A Watchman is a case in point: Initial hype soon gave way to disappointment.
