The Play Ethic -- hard work is bad!

All work, no play makes Jack a dull boy. Why, exactly? I think in the simplest possible terms, true work, in the normal and practical sense of the term, tends to almost always be rather routine, rather predictable, rather controlled. Work does not, in general, make full use of human intuition, intelligence, creativity. Work, for most people anyway, most of the time, is not an "inspirational" activity. Work is boring, so, inevitably, people who do nothing but work are themselves, also, rather boring. Now, that doesn't mean that work doesn't need to be done sometimes, of course. However, it might well mean that practical work of most types isn't the most healthy thing for people psychologically. And, of course, most physical labor is very, very unhealthy physically when pursued over the long term, it leaves people broken up husks of men, in general. Kind of like playing football for a living! There is also, of course, the point that not all work is particularly useful from a purely social point of view. Drug dealers work hard selling drugs, most people do not consider them to be useful members of society, at all. In fact, they frequently end up in prison! Are pharmaceutical companies and doctors any better than drug dealers, really? Well, that is a debatable point. How about lawyers, how do people usually feel about them? Not too good? A bunch of shysters maybe? I am very, very fond of the saying "Overfond of lawyers little wealth, overfond of doctors little health." Don't you think there's a great deal of truth to this wonderful old homily? Karl Marx is famous for his dictum: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." This is a rather beautiful idea really, almost a perfect society. Is it practical? Not if everyone is forced to work, of course! I think the point Marx is making here, is that flexibility and creativity are much more important and valuable socially, in real terms of improving human society, than "hard work". Hard work may, actually, be rather a bad thing, usually a destructive thing, indeed. How much good has been done for human society by work, as distinct from play? The military, soldiers, work very hard. Isn't their job, normally anyway, purely destructive? Are science and engineering best pursued as playful activity, or, as hard work? This gets into the question of the reality of the "scientific method", some "system" that guarantees progress of a real and meaningful type, that actually leads to meaningful progress, and isn't just running around in circles, or pretending to make progress, when all you are really doing is junk technology -- technology that doesn't help human beings in any meaningful way at all. I think it's critical to determine the extent to which working as a salesman may take the place of real scientific and technical progress. Real scientific and technical progress may be more a matter of "play", of pure relaxed unstressed creativity, than "hard work". Whereas most real, actual scientific and engineering work these days may be more a matter of "hard sales work" that accomplishes nothing other than getting people's attention and monopolizing scarce resources, and money. I'm thinking specifically of Elon Musk, a "hard worker". And, a hard worker we'd all be much better off without, all he does is damage! So, I suggest we need to consider an alternative to the "work ethic". What we really need is a "play ethic", a philosophy of relaxed contemplation and thoughtfulness, of sensitivity and receptiveness to new ideas. Hard work is bad, and destructive, most of the time, anyway! #labor #work #play #psychology #sociology #communism #capitalism #karlmarx #marx #economics #antiwork #drugs #healthcare #doctors #crime #law #uslaw #lawyers #philosophyofscience #science #engineering #technology #markeing #massmarketing #sales #salesmanship #musk #elonmusk #ethics #moralphilosophy #metaphysics #philosophy #ethics #hardwork