Industrialized Society and The Virtue of Laziness

Endless production, quantity before quality, all of us busily draining the third-world of its resources for the sake of crap we don't need and have no place for... The pollution of the waters, the depletion of the soil, the illusion of dispossal, the band-aid that is recycling... In such a world, laziness might even be counted a virtue, and industriousness a vice.

The true sources of social ills are systemic, rooted in our largest, most ungainly, and most staunchly embedded institutions; none of which have our best interests at heart, but all of which were designed to localize wealth and to preserve themselves, -- that is, the status quo. Is it any wonder that our institutions, governments, and Western Civilization itself have all taken on a life of their own, when everyone is encouraged not to take their eyes off their "own" work; and definitely not to look at the bigger picture (including the wider consequences of "their" work)?

If we defend these structures, and believe they are benign, it is only because we suffer from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, which leads us to identify with the very principles and conditions which inhibit or prevent our escape from the condition of wage-slavery. For many people, the knowledge of their condition is too burdensome to bear, and, since they harbor no hope of ever changing it, pure survival instinct impels them to think well of it, and to think of themselves as good citizens, for having submitted, often enthusiastically, to the demands made on them. (Naturally, the whole culture helps to fan this "pride of accomplishment", while discouraging any in-depth inquiry into the actuality of what is being accomplished.) Rather than frustrate themselves, -- or worse, risk madness, -- by imagining a better world, they clip the wings of their imaginations, and tell themselves the culture they are living in is not only inescapable and unalterable, but, that it is, in fact, the real and only world; that, to see beyond it, or to imagine one sees beyond it, is simply a form of utopian escapism and denial. Of course, men have been telling themselves that ever since they invented culture.

Nietzsche summed up the cult of industry thus: "ye put up with yourselves badly; your diligence is flight, and the will to self-forgetfulness... for waiting, ye have not enough of capacity in you - nor even for idling!"

We would do well to remember that Hitler, had he possessed a greater capacity for idling, and been more lazy than ambitious, would have made no hate speeches, commissioned the construction of no tanks or bombers, invaded no countries, and put no millions to death. On the contrary, he might have spent his days admiring the flowers, reflecting on the clouds, and discovering what a vain exercise conquest is.

People forget that work for work's sake is not a virtue. If one is working in the wrong direction, then it is a even a vice; and the harder one works, the more of a vice it is.

Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, rightly states that we are always being prompted to do something, "'The world is on fire. Don't just sit there; do something.' But many of us have been doing many things, and the world continues to be burned. Perhaps it is because we have forgotten the art of stopping. So I say, Don't just do something; sit there. Sit there, in order for peace to be possible."

Is this really so hard to understand?