Brief for 9/26/2018 (Culture of Production)

Mark Slouka wrote an essay capturing an unusual perspective of the virtues of idleness and how it relates to the norms in our modern society. While ‘idleness’ means inactivity, it typically carries a negative connotation that defines it as laziness. Society frowns upon idleness and claims it to form no productivity, but Slouka disagrees, claiming that it is essential to the completion of a human being. He reveals that the practice of idleness is dying in a society where business and work controls the people’s time and their lives.

Slouka emphasizes that this free time that idleness provides, allows people time to ponder and meditate and progress in thought, allowing us to “figure out who we are, and what we believe; by allowing us time to consider what is unjust, and what we might do about it,” ultimately “giving the inner life… its due” (Slouka 58). The issue at hand is how idleness relates to business and to the power controlling the operation of our society. Slouka states that “if we have no time to think, … then we are less citizens than cursors, easily manipulated, vulnerable to the currents of power” (Slouka 58). As discussed in class and in previous class readings, in order for power to exist, there needs to be a dominant group with power over a subordinate group; without a group to dominant, there is no power. So, did the dominant group of the past consciously create this society of work and business in order to create a weak subordinate group that easily complies to the System? Who ultimately has the power if both the dominant and subordinate group are stuck in this routine of constant work and exhaustion? If we changed this system and allowed more time and norms for individuals to idle, would it challenge the power dynamic?

This passage made me think of a recent conversation with a friend who revealed to me that he was sad and uncomfortable, but everyone motivated him by advising that he keep moving forward. Our society has this fixed idea of forced movement, where we always need to be progressing and acting, but what would happen if we could stop working in order to take time to actually feel those emotions, to analyze ourselves as individuals, to familiarize ourselves with these avoided states we consider ‘uncomfortable’?

Prior to this essay, I have thought of this fixed path that the System has created for us to become educated, go to work, then make money. I assume there are many others like Mark Slouka and me who have thought of these fixed norms society expects of us and we recognize that it may not be the right path to take, so why haven’t we challenged the System in this aspect? I also assume that our professor did not assign this reading for us to conclude that we should drop out of school and idle for a living, so how can we adjust the norms to include both idleness and work?

Eden Kim says:

September 25, 2018 at 6:54 pm

Your questions relating work and idleness to power are thought-provoking. It is true that, by being kept busy, we cannot think for ourselves or examine how society works/how to change it. As I was reading the essay, I had a similar question: How can we spread the importance of idleness to those who have the power to change The System? Would this have an effect on the power dynamic?
Also, here’s a related article you may find interesting: https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-barely-sleep-2012-9

Maiana Russell says:

September 25, 2018 at 7:09 pm

I agree that idleness is a necessary part about being humans. How might society look different if idling was the norm and work was the thing you do in your “down time?” What are some consequences of idling in contemporary society as well as in a society where idling is the norm?

Suzannah Faulkner says:

September 25, 2018 at 7:56 pm

I think it is interesting that society equates idleness to inactivity or laziness. It makes me wonder why someone cannot do both; work and take time to think. Likewise, if someone is “idle” and notices that things are wrong, why can’t they work to change the system? Why can’t work be a focus instead of a distraction?

Kayley Hoffman says:

September 25, 2018 at 8:12 pm

Your point that when we have time to think about our feelings we become uncomfortable is interesting, especially given our current atmosphere. Do we become uncomfortable because we feel as if we are wasting time or because we are afraid of those feelings? Does the current System built on business allow for humans to lose touch with a part of themselves that manifests itself as different emotions?

Kevin Villagomez says:

September 25, 2018 at 11:04 pm

This is very interesting given that we are all college students, with the ideology that we always have to be doing something or have something on our plate to challenge us, and I believe that it has become not only the social norm but a necessity. How would society work for the people that are disadvantaged if they did not work all the time? How would a mother be able to create a stable home for her two children if she did not work two jobs? It has not come to the point where it’s a norm, but in fact has surpassed it, to the point in which it dictates that we must be working this much to even make it by in today’s society.

Iklim Isyar says:

September 25, 2018 at 11:40 pm

I agree that people tend to use “moving forward

Iklim Isyar says:

September 25, 2018 at 11:45 pm

(I accidentally hit the enter, here is my actual question.)

People are tend to use “moving forward” and “hard-working” in an interchangeable way. Thus, they overlook and sometimes lose the real values next to them. Working not always bad of course. Can’t studying, receiving an education, learning stuff have a good within itself? Do we have to need a byproduct of them? However, I think,by choosing to follow norms, people actually showing the inherited idleness of human nature. Explaining why you are not studying, or not fitting the normative values, require extra effort and energy.

Casey Friedman says:

September 26, 2018 at 12:39 am

I agreed with everything the article said except for the last part about George W Bush. If Mark Slouka thought that George W Bush embodied anti-intellectualism, he must be absolutely fuming at President Donald Trump.