Why the Cult of Hard Work is Counterproductive, an absolutely wonderful article by Steven Poole published in
New Statesman a couple of weeks ago, goes into "why doing nothing may be the best thing for your well-being and your brain."
Though it's a British article for a British publication and doesn't even mention the word "American," it has a huge bearing on
a discussion of American-versus-European concepts of work and leave time that several of us were having here on my journal a few days ago.
( Stealing sick leave and other bullshit notions )Poole takes on the very
idea of productivity (tracing the word itself right back to its first use by Coleridge in the late 18th century), and pretty well demolishes it as a moral construct. He ends on this lovely note:
...it is not necessary to abandon the notion of “productivity” altogether. We all like to feel that we have done something useful, interesting or fun with our day, even (or especially) if it has not been part of our official work, and we might harmlessly express such satisfaction by saying that our day has been productive.
This ordinary usage encodes an ordinary wisdom: that mere quantity of activity – as implied by the get-more-done mania of the productivity cult – has nothing to do with its value.Well worth the reading, and what's more, the comments are excellent and actually add substance to the article.
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