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Being Lazy
Laziness? I write the following because I have experienced this form of self-oppression way too much. And while other harmful ideas exist out there, this is one I have seen least addressed.
I want to make a simple argument: It is self-destructive for working people to consider fellow working people as “lazy” and therefore this concept of “laziness” (when applied negatively to working people) should be thrown out by members of the working class; and “lazy” should only be seen as a negative trait when referring to the ruling or employing class.
It might serve my argument to ask here “What is ‘lazy’?” Well, simply defined, lazy means idleness or disinclination to work. Now, this concept may seem simple and harmless, but I ask that we put our critical thinking hats on tight before continuing in order to see the effects it has on the oppressed class. Simply put, I feel that “lazy” in all its practicality and connoted value is a word that only serves the ruling elite, the bosses, the capitalists (by which i mean the true idlers!). It has been used by the overseers and bosses of labor to insult workers who refuse to apply themselves, fully and dogmatically, to compulsory toil.
I find if generally insulting to hear any worker refer to a fellow class member as “lazy” because they lay asleep in bed early in the morning, or are sitting down relaxing - maybe watching a film, reading a book or just enjoying a little siesta (or the worst application of the word yet, when it is used to attack workers that look to unionize their workplace!)
I maintain that the language of laziness is the language of the bosses, and to frown upon a fellow worker for enjoying a bit of leisure while you may be working (or preparing to go to work) only serves the interest of the ruling class; it is self hatred and just another tension and obstacle the oppressed give themselves in achieving collective liberation.
Why should we – that work countless hours, that have no servants waiting on us hand and foot, that sweat, produce and serve our communities– why should we prey upon each other with notions of “laziness” while the ruling class revels in leisure to no end and enjoys the riches brought to them by our labor?
It may do the reader good to check out Bertrand Russell’s classic essay In Praise of Idleness (1932) or Paul Lafargue’s short read The Right to Be Lazy(1883).
“The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich”-B. Russell
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Stealing Time at Work
I enjoyed your post Greg, your defense of the so-called lazy and your rejection of the term. You certainly are correct that it is a term that assumes that only the rich have the privilege of leisure. I have some pretty strong thoughts on this topic. My last employment, a short adventure into employment with a company using a corporate model of management, really allowed me to see the ways in which the time of the working class is totally structured and restricted. Before taking this job, I had been working for several years on an essay about my inheritance of my father's sense of time and work. As an academic, I had struggled with truly understanding what his work in an auto factory must have been like, how a man such as himself so given to deep thinking, could have managed to create a space for such thinking while working on an assembly line. Well, my recent corporate job gave me a better understanding. Each day that I entered the company office, I felt like my supervisor was using Taylor's methods for measuring the perceived time needed for my tasks--down to the minute! As a trained academic who, like most academics, grew up in higher ed, I cannot tell you how difficult it was for me to be watched over and held accountable for every minute I was on the company's clock. Yet, because I process most things through writing, I "stole" an hour or more each day, get this, to journal before my "boss" would come over and start leering at me. One of the things that I of course realized as I journaled was that for me as a worker this was a necessary activity. An agile thinker, whose multi-tasking begins in the head, I must daily sort through my varied thoughts and ideas before I can focus on any one project. Especially because the nature of my work at the company was largely intellectual, journaling was again for me a must, and after a writing session I was always refreshed and full of new ideas that would benefit the company. My performance was outstanding, yet I knew that my days on that job were limited because of my supervisor's inability to accept that what to him looked like goofing off was actually part of my creative process. The truth I suspect is that there are countless workers who also need to process things in this way or in other ways that require a certain quality of time, but allowing workers to enjoy such time would truly require employers to rethink ideas concerning what constitutes work and good use of time. Seemingly idle hands or idle bodies do not mean idle minds. But what are the chances that employers are any time soon going to become comfortable with seeing a worker sitting and thinking?
I've been planning to read the texts you mentioned for a while now. I did find fascinating Arthur Krystal's essay in The New Yorker a few years back--"Who Speaks for the Lazy?" Unfortunately, it's only a half-hearted defense.
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