I find this article really provoking.
The first reason it jumped out at me is because it provides a powerful and important example of Quinn’s mother culture exerting a force on society by creating a myth: one’s value is what they can produce. This myth arises naturally out of our need to be more productive, year over year, to keep up with the growth of our economy and intensification of our industries. It also serves to explain away our problems, as Price explains:
“it also convinces us that we don’t have to worry about people who are suffering from massive social issues such as homelessness, unemployment, or drug addiction. The laziness lie teaches us to blame society’s biggest victims for being too “lazy” to solve the problem of their own oppression”
If only people were better. Thus, this myth achieves two very useful goals at once: encouraging everyone to work harder, so that they do not become homeless and unemployed, and enforcing the myth of meritocracy—that those who have not, deserve not.
Price’s explanations appealed to me personally, as someone who has struggled a lot with guilt over procrastination and self-perceived laziness. Price is quick to offer explanations casting the blame on society, not myself. They assert that I’m not wasting time—the yak shaving and cyberloafing I do is necessary rest, and the aversion I have to work is part of my body’s warning system. However, while these explanations might be valid for others, I find they don’t fit my own experiences. My cyberloafing is typically due to my being on a site designed to addict me, or my establishing a habit of doing so. My aversion to work is typically just that: an inclination towards the easier route. My body wants to do less work if it can. But that doesn’t mean that my doing the work would be particularly difficult or harmful, just that it might be hard. When I am convinced that I absolutely couldn’t get work done right now, I am often proven wrong by just trying to start. For me, the first step is always the hardest, and having more justifications of procrastination just leads me to delay starting for longer (and often, to regret it later). In a life without predators or starvation imminent, the newly abstract dangers of delaying action don’t carry the urgency of a charging bull. While my feelings aren’t completely irrelevant, they are often misleading and not trustworthy. Staying in bed is always tempting even when doing so gives me a headache.
Price’s arguments are cogent but overly broad. Many people experience laziness in many different ways and for many different reasons; the laziness lie is only a single cause. Price also fails to explain why this myth is so pervasive—its effectiveness at increasing productivity. Wihtout addressing the root cause of our need to continuously increase productivity, we are not free to work less hard. Believing that laziness is not a sin may be relieving, but in our current culture that relief begets future harm.
chris mcelroy 