Tom,
I get tired of people not only trying to interfere with my working hours, but also worrying about what I can do with those long thumb-twiddling leisure hours. Any group of people is made up of persons. Most of us are likely to fall into the trap of forgetting people as we discuss peoples. "The economy must find . . . . " "The government's duty to its citizens . . . . . "We nation must act in sustainable fashion . . . " and so on. At times we take the burden of responsibility for everything on to our shoulders whether we are asked to or not. You are always coherent and funny - though you pressed the limit with your Marx and Sparx bit. Harry ______________________________________ Tom wrote: >Charles, > >Not exactly. I didn't say you equated consumption with usefulness. I said >you said what you said, which was that people (not you) use their >consumption as a gauge of their productivity. You are quite correct to say >that people who want us to work less (using the term "work" advisedly) have >to come to terms with the issue of what to do with our time. That precisely >describes the phase of my research at the current time. > >If it would be any help, I could give you the answer in rather opaque >philosophical language right now. The simplest expression of it is "know >thyself", with the understanding that "knowing" is not a static achievement >but an uninteruptable striving. Or would it be too cryptic to say that we >"work" (in a very limited sense of the verb) too much because we are too >lazy, fearful, vain, servile, foolish, intoxicated to work in the fullest >sense joyfully and relentlessly? Employment is how we shirk these days and >the longer we "work" (that is, shirk), the less we accomplish. > >None of this is new. Not even recent. I could play variations on the theme >from Shakespeare, Franklin, Carlyle or Dilbert. What is new, IMHO, is that >the iron cage that Weber spoke about has begun to crumble and that the >dominant political response to that crumbling has been to shore up the cage, >as if the cage was the very source of our prosperity instead of a doleful >companion of it. It is like a mill town pumping "eau de rotten-egg" into the >air after the pulp mill has closed to try to simulate the smell of success. >We end up with nothing but the smell, nothing but the iron cage. Nothing. > >Bergson on "the moments of our life, of which we are the artisans." > >"Each of them is a kind of creation. And just as the talent of the painter >is formed or deformed -- in any case, is modified -- under the very >influence of the works he produces, so each of our states, at the moment of >its issue, modifies our personality, being indeed the new form that we are >assuming. It is then right tot say that what we do depends on what we are; >but it is necessary to add also that we are, to a certain extent, what we >do, and that we are creating ourselves continually. This creation of the >self by self is the more complete, the more one reasons on what one does..." > >The delicious irony here is that Bergson virtually paraphrases Benjamin >Franklin. Old time-is-money Ben. How does "creation of self by self" differ >from the "myth of the self-made man"? They differ only with regard to the >issue of calculation. Incipiently for Franklin but more so for his >followers, there is the notion of the balance sheet, accounting for the >progress of self improvement through an enlargement of what today we call >the "bottom line". It is at this point that Bergson diverges. > >"For reason does not proceed in such matters as in geometry, where >impersonal premisses are given once and for all, and an impersonal >conclusion must perforce be drawn. Here, on the contrary, the same reasons >may dictate to different persons, or to the same person at different >moments, acts profoundly different, although equally reasonable. The truth >is that they are not quite the same reasons, since the are not those of the >same person, nor of the same moment. That is why we cannot deal with them in >the abstract, from outside, as in geometry, nor solve for another the >problems by which he is faced in life. Each must solve them from within, on >his own account." > >There seems to be a persistent anxiety about compelling people to work fewer >hours, as if current arrangements represent total freedom and the advocates >of shorter work time want to take away some of this freedom. Nothing could >be further from the truth. > >Current legislation, policy, custom and relations of social dominance impose >and enforce long hours of work on many who don't want them, part-time work >on many who want to work full time, unemployment on many who want to work, >unsuitable work on many who have the training and talent to do something >more self-fulfilling and unacceptable working conditions on many who have no >choice. And right away, when someone raises the possibility of reducing the >hours of work, a hue and cry goes up about compelling people to do something >they don't want to do. > >I suppose that abolishing slavery would compel some slaves to give up a way >of life that they wanted to hold onto. The argument strikes me as >disingenious, though, that slavery is "more free" because abolishing it >would entail some compulsion. > >Charles Brass writes, > > > I am most emphatically not equating consumption with usefulness. I am, > > however, equating activity, productivity, production, celebration and many > > other time using activities with usefulness. Which is the issue which >those > > who want us to work less have to come to terms with. What will we do with > > our time which satisfies us and others? ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
