Friday Tunes: Heart of the Matter

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter”. This song is mostly about moving on after a relationship ends but the second verse touches on some interesting work-related material:

The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us,
Doesn't keep me warm

On first blush, Henley’s comment “And the work I put between us/Doesn’t keep me warm” has a nice double meaning: work can serve as a means to create (or be the cause of) distance in a relationship and work is also a poor substitute for a meaningful relationship. That is an important (if prosaic) observation about how work can affect our lives.

This couplet builds on the preceding line that notes “Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms”. Thinking about this verse more deeply draws my attention to the dynamics and consequences of competition. As Alfie Kohn noted in his book No Contest: The Case Against Competition, competition is often asserted to be an innate state, usually premised upon a mis-application of Darwinism.

Survival of the fittest is often taken to mean that the strongest (fastest, most ruthless, etc.) will prosper (at the expense of the “least” fittest) and, therefore, competitive behaviour is natural and to be lauded. Kohn’s argument is that “fitness” doesn’t require competition and the most successful strategies of survival are based around co-operation.

In fact, most contemporary competition takes place within frameworks of profound cooperation. Employment, for example, often occurs within organizations which require cooperation to operate. And these organizations interact in ways that require cooperation. That there are roads and the rule of law and schools and hospitals reflects almost unimaginable cooperation over very long periods of time. Competition, while certainly existing, exists against this backdrop cooperation and, in fact, often serves to undermine it.

Competition also entails winners (few) and losers (many). The dynamics of competition erode trust (or degrade it to a highly conditional and transitory state). The constant fear that goes along with this dynamic result in a loss of self-confidence that pressure us to each look out for ourselves which (my experience suggests) does not lead to happiness. Coming back to Henley’s lyrics then, I see a metaphorical critique of the dynamics of competition:

The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us,
Doesn't keep me warm

The point of this is that the ethos of competition that caused the singer to lose his or her love also carries risks when applied to the workplace. The question then is what application to the workplace (if any) has Henley’s remedy of forgiveness? Anyhow, here’s Henley at Farm Aid in about 1990.



I got the call today, I didn't wanna hear
But I knew that it would come
An old true friend of ours was talkin' on the phone
She said you found someone

And I thought of all the bad luck,
And the struggles we went through
And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside love's open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?

I'm learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again

[chorus]
I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore

These times are so uncertain
There's a yearning undefined
...People filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age

The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us,
Doesn't keep me warm

I'm learning to live without you now
But I miss you, Baby
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again

[chorus]

There are people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down and hurt your pride
Better put it all behind you; life goes on
You keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you inside

[chorus]

[chorus]

-- Bob Barnetson