Fixing What Isn't Broken

In many countries, a state of disrepair is the necessary prerequisite for the commencement of repairs.  Not so in Switzerland, where labourers of all descriptions frequently occupy themselves with work that, to the non-Anthropologist, seems totally unnecessary.  Why? 

First, the Swiss love work. It is labour itself that is virtuous, not necessarily the finished product; brow sweat is a Calvinist harbinger of heavenly rewards, so tearing up and re-paving a walking trail is always a good idea (because of the tearing up and re-paving, not because of the trail) that hardly needs further justification.

Second, though, the Swiss enjoy being masters of their own fates.  Not for them the Gallic shrug or Mediterranean sigh (despite rather a large part of the population being French- and Italian-speaking); the Swiss seek to steer the course of affairs with a zeal that may be surprising from a small, land-locked, neutral country.  The tension between this half of their personality and the Romantic half is a dynamic that explains much in Switzerland, and certainly gets played out on its lawns every summer.

Waiting until a pavement is cracked or a railway tie worn out entails a degree of idleness and passivity that the Swiss cannot tolerate; fixing what isn't broken therefore asserts a satisfying dominion over the forces of entropy, and presents a valuable opportunity to do hard work.  
  

Citing Verse on The Side of Your House

The anthropological observer of Switzerland's small towns frequently notices ecclesiastical messages painted in imposing Gothic script on the sides of old-fashioned farmhouses. Why?

Importantly, scripture is never written on the stark lines of contemporary steel-and-glass numbers, nor the stucco of working-class apartment buildings: it inevitably appears on posh wooden chalets.  This is because the tidy rural farm is a perfect storm of Swissness: it is where Protestant virtue, wealth, and hard work converge.  

Buying an expensive grey car is something the wealthy Swiss does with some reluctance, but the cow-studded countryside is where he can finally be a bit showy.  The Swiss have maintained an admirable connection in the popular imagination (one which might, in some places, appear quaint) between hard work and success.  Boasting is quite un-Swiss; the writing on the wall therefore thanks God for your (obvious) success while simultaneously (and subtly, blamelessly) advertising to your neighbours that your wealth is the natural, God-given result of your hard work.


We recall that Weber's famous identification of the Protestant Work Ethic wasn't a century old before Fukuyama declared the end of history.  History has not ended in Switzerland, where hard work and virtue are the muscular, tanned arms forever dangling the organic local carrot of progress just beyond easy reach.  

If, as John Cleese once remarked, it is the goal of every Englishman to go to his grave unembarrassed, it is surely the goal of every Swiss to go to his grave a wealthy, hardworking farmer.