Idle Theory

[Originally posted on goofyblog 3.12.07]

When in school it seemed clear that the future of our country and the world was tilting toward a shorter work week, more leisure and play, more time to enjoy and to help others to enjoy the same. Some of that has happened but we are really still a long way away.

Happened onto Chris Davis’ site the other day–he has written a series of linked essays that form a cohesive philosophy. That every living organism naturally strives to be idle (or it will die) is compelling. His take on the genesis of religion and human society also.

On evolution: All life is seen as attempting primarily to stay alive with minimal effort. The first photosynthetic plants discovered how to capture the abundant radiant energy of the sun. The first herbivores discovered an easier life tapping the energy stored in plants. The first predators discovered an idler existence by capturing the energy stored in herbivores. Multicellular life was more idle than unicellular life. Human life is simply another variant form of life, that acts to minimize effort.

Human society, the division of labour, tools, ethical codes, laws, and trading systems have all acted to increase human idleness. The subjection of humans by other humans in slavery was, for millenia, the only way in which some people (the slaveowners) could lead an idle life at the expense of others.

On religion: God and the Devil were the personifications of perfect idleness and zero idleness respectively, and Heaven and Hell corresponded to their circumstances. Heaven represented a material abundance of the necessities of life, to be had with no effort, in which God lived in perfect freedom and ease. By contrast, Hell was a barren landscape in which the necessities of life were almost entirely absent, and survival required continual work.

Advocates of a Darwinian theory of evolution are often (e.g. Richard Dawkins) extremely hostile to religion. By contrast, Idle Theory could almost be said to breathe new meanings into some religious doctrines. But, in very important senses, Idle Theory also offers a quite new context and meanings to these doctrines. It supposes that the original rational meaning of these doctrines has become lost, perhaps because the language used to describe them became incomprehensible, and the meaning overlaid with superstition.

On the alienation of modern living: Laziness is a virtue, not a vice. A disinclination to work is not a disorder, but an indispensable survival trait that evolved with the earliest forms of life. If so, the modern attempt by governments, industrialists, economists, and the like, to keep people busy and “usefully employed” runs entirely contrary to the nature, not only of human beings, but of life itself. This may begin to explain the anomie of modern Western culture.

Modern human society is being organized to work against real human interests, and such cultural disintegration is inevitable. Instead of society being organized to minimize work, it has become organized to maximize work. The mismatch between what people are culturally required to do - to work -, and their natural inclination - to play -, results in deepening psychological conflict, breakdown, and disorder.

It is simply not possible for people to live happy lives in a society which is organized as a labour camp. It is no more possible for anyone to live a happy or fulfilled life in modern Western society than it was for the inmates of such camps.

On modern reactionaries: Contemporary human society is in transition from a medieval serf culture to an automated culture in which most work is performed by intelligent machine tools, and in which humans themselves will be largely idle.

Economically, exponentially multiplying technologies have resulted in an increase in production and trade unprecedented in human history, and equally unprecedented economic puzzles and problems, ranging from unemployment to boom and bust, inflation and stagnation. Socially, it has meant that, since fewer human hands are needed to drive industry, previously high human reproduction rates are unnecessary, and the human families that produced the human workforce redundant.

The scale of contemporary change in human society is so great, and disturbs so many aspects of traditional human life, that it has produced a conservative reaction which seeks to restore traditional life. Since the family has been the centre of human life for millennia, attempts are made to bolster the flagging institution.

Since work, from childhood to old age, has been the norm of human life since remotest antiquity, attempts are made to invent new forms of employment. Contemporary conservatism attempts to maintain and restore traditional values, and traditional ways of life, in the face of social, political, and economic forces which destroy all traditions.

On the future: Much of contemporary thought is still medieval in character, assuming the values and circumstances of a previous era. A master-slave mentality still permeates political thought and political structures. Human technology has far outstripped human political and ethical and economic thought.

This is a time when everything needs to be rethought, when imagination is at a premium, and when everyone can contribute. The impending world is one of a human freedom which has never been experienced in the entirety of human history.