Laziness
13/05/11 18:21 Filed in: Human Nature
Laziness is learned behavior.
The other day, I was at the coffee shop when a grandmother and her 7 year old granddaughter came in. The grandmother was meeting a friend. The granddaughter picked out a decent puzzle and started working it. I watched her for a little bit because she was so entranced by what she was doing. It brought to mind the old Zen idea of mindfulness: wash the dishes when you're washing the dishes. Or, work the puzzle when you are working the puzzle.
Have you ever watched young children play. They are completely invested in their play. They may be making something from their imagination that will never work and involves saran wrap and aluminum foil and cardboard. But they are completely immersed in their activity -- in their work.
So, you see, we are born workers -- co-creators with God in the words of John Paul II.
So whence laziness?
We learn it.
Laziness is an outgrowth of a natural need ... the need for rest. In our contemporary, fast-paced, gratification culture, rest can take many forms, from watching television to doing puzzles. Our play can take many forms as well, and we can get caught up in entertainment -- from playing baseball to playing on the Wii.
The problem can be two-fold, then.
Either we get so addicted to our rest that we forget to work again or we get so destroyed in our creative capacities that we have nothing to take us away from our rest and play. The first problem is one that has been with people since the beginnings of civilization. When human beings first developed the capacity to rest, there was always the possibility -- as there is with any human activity -- to take it too far. And some few people who could did. But, for the most part, human beings are naturally industrious. We see this in children.
The second problem is a symptom of our modern lives. Capitalism destroys human creativity by denying us those activities which most engage our human capacities. Making money, as Aristotle noted, is not a human activity. Being engaged in the common good, raising families, and otherwise being in a practice are human activities because they exercise our most fundamental human powers. Capitalism must destroy this drive, for, given the real choice between doing something that increases the person I am or sitting around playing Wii, most human beings would, unless trained otherwise, choose the former.
A society like that of WALL-E is constructed from our basest nature. And it is one that results from corporate, consumer capitalism.
If this is true, and every time I see a child play I know it is, then we have to think about laziness in a way differently than we have. Yes, no one has a right to be lazy, and I am not justifying laziness. What I am saying is, laziness is a symptom of the system we have created. If we really want justice in the world, then the best thing to do is destroy the current system for one more human.
The other day, I was at the coffee shop when a grandmother and her 7 year old granddaughter came in. The grandmother was meeting a friend. The granddaughter picked out a decent puzzle and started working it. I watched her for a little bit because she was so entranced by what she was doing. It brought to mind the old Zen idea of mindfulness: wash the dishes when you're washing the dishes. Or, work the puzzle when you are working the puzzle.
Have you ever watched young children play. They are completely invested in their play. They may be making something from their imagination that will never work and involves saran wrap and aluminum foil and cardboard. But they are completely immersed in their activity -- in their work.
So, you see, we are born workers -- co-creators with God in the words of John Paul II.
So whence laziness?
We learn it.
Laziness is an outgrowth of a natural need ... the need for rest. In our contemporary, fast-paced, gratification culture, rest can take many forms, from watching television to doing puzzles. Our play can take many forms as well, and we can get caught up in entertainment -- from playing baseball to playing on the Wii.
The problem can be two-fold, then.
Either we get so addicted to our rest that we forget to work again or we get so destroyed in our creative capacities that we have nothing to take us away from our rest and play. The first problem is one that has been with people since the beginnings of civilization. When human beings first developed the capacity to rest, there was always the possibility -- as there is with any human activity -- to take it too far. And some few people who could did. But, for the most part, human beings are naturally industrious. We see this in children.
The second problem is a symptom of our modern lives. Capitalism destroys human creativity by denying us those activities which most engage our human capacities. Making money, as Aristotle noted, is not a human activity. Being engaged in the common good, raising families, and otherwise being in a practice are human activities because they exercise our most fundamental human powers. Capitalism must destroy this drive, for, given the real choice between doing something that increases the person I am or sitting around playing Wii, most human beings would, unless trained otherwise, choose the former.
A society like that of WALL-E is constructed from our basest nature. And it is one that results from corporate, consumer capitalism.
If this is true, and every time I see a child play I know it is, then we have to think about laziness in a way differently than we have. Yes, no one has a right to be lazy, and I am not justifying laziness. What I am saying is, laziness is a symptom of the system we have created. If we really want justice in the world, then the best thing to do is destroy the current system for one more human.
Comments
Ruddick, Mothering and Nature
23/03/11 15:35 Filed in: Human Nature
The NY Times reports that Sara Ruddick died on Sunday 20 March 2011. Ruddick wrote a book, “Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace.” In this book, she defended the idea that being a mother involved developing specific ways of seeing the world, of responding to the world, and specific virtues.
Her argument should come as no surprise to those who think from an Aristotelian perspective or who talk about practices. When we engage in practices, we are forming ourselves. As we play chess, for example, we develop more analytic and spatio-pattern recognition skills. Developing these skills can only affect the way we see the world. Ruddick’s argument is that, in mothering, the person develops ways of seeing the world that make them less likely to engage in violence.
Importantly, she notes that mother is not a gender-specific. As the NY Time quotes: ““Anyone who commits her or himself to responding to children’s demands, and makes the work of response a considerable part of her or his life, is a mother,””
I think this is important to keep in mind. Mothering -- relating to the world as a responding, caring parent -- is something we can all do. I write this in part because of rereading John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens -- On Human Labor -- yesterday. I’ve praised and defended Catholic Social Teaching often, and I teach a class on Catholic Social Teaching. One of the problems with the teaching, however, is its insistence, as stated by JP II, that “women have their own work” or that there is a “work specific to women.” Now, admittedly, JP II defends the idea that women are owed the same rights and respect as everyone else. Yet, he also contends that employment should be designed to allow women to perform those duties special to her.
Of course, JP II is saying that women have special work as mothers that is based on their gender. They were created to be mothers. Ruddick contends that is not so.
As a father, I have to side with Ruddick here. Women do, in fact, do biological things I cannot do, and we know scientifically that breast-feeding is much healthier for the baby. Yet, men have just as much right and duty to care for the child in the same way that women do. This duty includes feeding and changing children. It also included developing those ways of seeing the world that Ruddick identifies as “mothering.”
And perhaps, if we recognize mothering as something men have a responsibility for, we can develop in men the same aversion to violence that Ruddick believes female mothers gain from the practice of mothering.
Her argument should come as no surprise to those who think from an Aristotelian perspective or who talk about practices. When we engage in practices, we are forming ourselves. As we play chess, for example, we develop more analytic and spatio-pattern recognition skills. Developing these skills can only affect the way we see the world. Ruddick’s argument is that, in mothering, the person develops ways of seeing the world that make them less likely to engage in violence.
Importantly, she notes that mother is not a gender-specific. As the NY Time quotes: ““Anyone who commits her or himself to responding to children’s demands, and makes the work of response a considerable part of her or his life, is a mother,””
I think this is important to keep in mind. Mothering -- relating to the world as a responding, caring parent -- is something we can all do. I write this in part because of rereading John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens -- On Human Labor -- yesterday. I’ve praised and defended Catholic Social Teaching often, and I teach a class on Catholic Social Teaching. One of the problems with the teaching, however, is its insistence, as stated by JP II, that “women have their own work” or that there is a “work specific to women.” Now, admittedly, JP II defends the idea that women are owed the same rights and respect as everyone else. Yet, he also contends that employment should be designed to allow women to perform those duties special to her.
Of course, JP II is saying that women have special work as mothers that is based on their gender. They were created to be mothers. Ruddick contends that is not so.
As a father, I have to side with Ruddick here. Women do, in fact, do biological things I cannot do, and we know scientifically that breast-feeding is much healthier for the baby. Yet, men have just as much right and duty to care for the child in the same way that women do. This duty includes feeding and changing children. It also included developing those ways of seeing the world that Ruddick identifies as “mothering.”
And perhaps, if we recognize mothering as something men have a responsibility for, we can develop in men the same aversion to violence that Ruddick believes female mothers gain from the practice of mothering.