This blog is dedicated to one of the most vilified yet fastest growing segments of American society- the unemployed slacker on his/her (but usually his) mother's couch, biding his jolly time with no expressed interest in finding work. This blog is here to share my story, and to stimulate discourse on the subject in general.
In this post I will talk about the reasons society gives us to encourage us to work, and how in light of current worldly conditions those "reasons" are increasingly falling on deaf ears.
1) You should work to live.
2) You should work to be a respectable, honorable person instead of a bum.
3) You should work to acheive, accomplish, and actualize.
4) You should work to be socially connected.
5) You should work to be independent.
6) You should work to contribute to society.
7) You should work to be a somebody; without a job you don't matter.
8) You should work to be a "real man".
Before I debunk these arguments one by one, I will simply state that in an expanding corporate monoculture that is increasingly machinelike, greed-consumed and bitterly competitive, the majority of the salaried work not destroyed by the Recession has lost so much of its appeal that it can seem almost parasitic, a vampiric drain of one's talents and capacities with ever-dwindling benefit to the drudge on which it feeds.
Like someone forced to choose between killing or being killed, those of us who feel torn between being a host for some parasitic job or to become a parasite themselves on others find themselves choosing the painful, humiliating, but obvious option.
Let me start with argument number 1): Work to Live. This argument is absurd in light of the fact that world history is full of violence committed by people who were willing to risk life itself for motivations more dear to them. Yet we as a society are brainwashed to believe the unnatural idea that life itself should trump all other considerations, which translates into social pressure to take any job at all, at all costs. Lately, there has been a surge in people (mostly men) who are questioning that assumption.
Let me continue with argument number 2): Work for Honor. I will state this bluntly: no one in America has any respect for people who earn entry-level salaries. No one. Women will not date them, and parents constantly hound those who hold them to do more with their lives. Movies like "She's Out Of My League" portray them as undesirable. Yet in today's economy, people are forced to put in years of mindless and mind-numbingly menial entry level work, repressing their own energy, talents and passions and assuming loser status for a chance at qualifying for the few, ever-dwindling and ruthlessly competitive jobs that pay "respectable" wages and offer any degree of individual expression.
It is an ironic absurdity that while the average Joe or Jane is expected to be an "honorable", self-supporting citizen, the corporations that employ him or her are held to no standards of honor at all, and are barely expected to obey the law. Said corporations use the brute force of their economic weight and subsequent political power to uproot societies, destroy local economies and ecosystems, outsource entire industries, eliminate competition, force down wages and subsequently birthrates, buy out governments, promote obesity and anorexia, and then go running to the government for welfare when their greed backfires- and the little, "honorable" hardworking taxpayer is forced to subsidize it.
As for argument number 3, it is absurd to tell people to work for "achievement" when only a rare few jobs are considered, in our materialistic society, to constitute acheivement. A person can be the most compassionate and innovative employee of a drastically underfunded homeless shelter, but relative to some Wall Street fatcat or soul-selling trial lawyer, he or she is not considered an achiever. And forget about the gifted musician who sings for the old and infirm, or the culinary artist who cooks for the poor- nomatter how much he or she contributes to society, he or she will always be considered a slacker.
As for self- actualization, the corporate monoculture of today with its ruthless agenda of efficiency over all turns man and woman into machine parts for the benefit of the shareholders. How can one self-actualize if he or she is merely taking orders, fitting the mold created by anonymous decision-makers in some remote corporate headquarters? When all he or she is is some completely disposable resume among many, chosen solely for their ability to complete the boring busywork at hand most efficiently?
Feminism promoted employment as a vehicle for women's actualization, but in practice, for large numbers of working women today, employment means more drudgery, more submission, less free time and a lower standard of living than was had in the 1950's. Furthermore, your typical woman in the 1950's could expect to be married with children with a home of their own by age 30, while women today increasingly find themselves single and living in small apartments, saddled with student loans, working dead-end jobs and wondering when they will get their big professional break.
As for argument number 4), Social Connection, according to Wikipedia loneliness is one of the leading hallmarks of the Quarterlife Crisis, with work from home jobs on the rise and one in four jobs created since the Recession being temporary. The ruthless, heartless corporate machine hires and fires people at will, creating an artificial, inorganic, and territorially complicated workplace social scene consisting of people whose only commonality is that it is economical for the corporate machine to place them together in one office. Adultery among coworkers is on the rise as corporate hiring practices carelessly disrupt the intergrity of the marital unit.What about the fact that for millennia, across cultures, the basic social as well as economical order has been the tribe or clan? In the name of the almighty buck, organic human and environmental ecosystems are replaced with transient, artificial, almost random groupings of people for the majority of their waking hours. We know that animals do not like being uprooted from their native habitats and placed in cages where they will share territory with randomly selected fellow specimen. Why should humans feel any different?
Reason number 5) is Independence. What a farce. How are you independent if you do nothing but answer to someone else, someone you have no affection for or loyalty to, for the vast majority of your waking hours? When all you are is a disposable, temporary host for the economic interests of the corporate parasite? What independence have you if you are stuck in a Recession and have no backup employment? When there are countless others to take your place should you lose your job and you must do anything at all cost to keep it? When you have absolutely no say in any aspect of your employment situation and should consider yourself grateful to have any employment at all? Why do we refer to as "Independence" what is in truth slavery?
We Westerners are used to being independent in every other aspect of life, yet we are expected to be content to work as slaves to pay for it. We are told in countless advertisements to expect nothing but the best in a cameracorder or a pair of jeans, and are accustomed to having nearly unlimited consumer options available to us- a different lipstick for every mood, a different curling iron for every type of hairstyle other than straight. We expect nothing less than spiritual ecstasy when choosing a religious denomination, and nothing less than passionate romance in a significant other. Yet how can we and why should we accept being slaves in the single largest faction of our day- our occupations?
As for argument number 6), Contributing to Society, it is mind-boggling how people can rationalize it to be in the interest of wider society to obligate those who are comfortable in their slacker lifestyle to compete with single mothers and the temporarily homeless for the few jobs which are currently available. How is competing with the drowning for the few lifeboats available in the larger social interest?
Slackers have a lot to offer society. Unencumbered by drudgery, they often are entertaining, cheerful conversationalists after a long day of watching the news and persuing hobbies, and are available to run errands for family members and nonprofits. Slackers can be warm shoulders to cry on, comic relief in a world of exhausted stress cases, free therapy, or that person who is always available to go to the mall or game at a moment's notice. Those are contributions that are not unsubstantial when weighed against the questionable social good of producing landfill after landfill of disposable trinkets, and vices like junk food and tabloids that line the shelves of every grocery in the country.
Argument 7) is absolutely rediculous. Are we really to be enticed by the suggestion that we should base our self-esteem, our very personhood, on the labels the corporate machine deigns to assign to our particular version of busywork? Is there one religion in the world that would even allow it?
As for number 8), Being a "Real Man", one unintended consequence of feminism is that it create leave for men to opt out of conventional gender roles themselves. How can anyone who has benefitted from feminism fairly claim that a man should be obligated to provide for a woman's freedom through his own bondage? Why should men be obligated to gender roles, but not women?
