So...I had a debate with someone who had an interesting take on some subjects up my alley. Although i did have one significant difference from the guy. he seemed to value meritocracy for its own sake, and I don't.
I find meritocracy to be rooted in structural functionalism. We need it to motivate people to work. But, assuming the work can be done without meritocracy, then meritocracy loses its meaning. Even more so, praising meritocracy for its own sake leads to the sad state of affairs we have today where we create jobs for their own sake, rather than allowing people to work less as automation makes us ever more efficient. I would argue we should change our social structures somewhat to account for technological advances, while believers in meritocracy just want more jobs for their own sake.
I saw a meme recently about how we live in an era where we can do the work of hundreds of people with one robot these days, and then it had some ancient philosopher like "I bet you just sit around eating figs all day and having orgies...right?....right?" And yeah, it was the anakin/padme one.
We don't live in that reality. And I have my own ideas on why. It's because we're governed by the morality of protestant ascetics who thought enjoying life was sinful. Eating figs? That's gluttony! Orgies? That's lust! Not working? That's sloth! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN EVERYWHERE!
As if we shouldnt be enjoying life. But that's basically the logic of protestantism. Enjoying life is sinful, we shouldn't do it. We're sinful, we gotta atone to God for our sins, and this involves living a frugal life where we dont enjoy things and we just work all the time.
And that's the ethic that dominates modern life.
As a humanist, I have to think that somewhere along the way, we really got our priorities wrong. Maybe we should sit around all day eating figs and having orgies. Well...okay, not literally. We have far more diverse diets than figs. Of course that's why we Americans are so fat. And maybe we shouldnt literally have orgies, I mean, that much unprotected sex with so many partners can cause complications like STD epidemics and unwanted pregnancies, although we do have ways to mitigate SOME consequences of that. And it could destroy romantic relationships. Some think the ubiquity of porn is causing issues with social relationships for example. I don't advocate for banning it, but I'm not gonna recommend people just goon 24/7 either.
But what else can we do in a post work world? Well, I just got done talking about the ubiquity of gaming. Star Trek had the holo deck, they even talked a holo deck addiction, something i'd arguably have if we lived in that universe, but you know what? If that's what people wanna do with their lives, that's A okay in my book. I'm for freedom. And that's the thing. I'm for the freedom from forced obligations like work, but also freedom to enjoy life. The pursuit of happiness as its called. We should be free to do what makes us happy. And if that involves consumption of food, video games, certain nsfw materials between consenting partners, go for it, I don't care. As long as you aren't harming anyone, enjoy life. And people like other things too. We live in a consumerist culture. Some like to play sports, watch movies, travel, go to restaurants and amusement parks, and live the good life, and they should be able to. We seem to have nothing against hedonism when it increases someone's wealth. We just have this really nonsense work ethic to go along with it.
And don't get me wrong, to some degree, consumption increases work demands. And that's what makes consumerism and modern capitalism work. People consume, consumption increases demand, demand creates jobs, blah blah blah. But for me, it's a balance. if you have expensive and labor intensive tastes, you might have to work harder yourself for more money to enjoy that. But at the same time, if we live in a world where we can supply everyone's basic needs with a fraction of the labor we used to, AND we also live in a world of cheap and plentiful entertainment, why shouldn't basics be cheap or free? Why shouldnt we give people money? And why shouldn't people with less labor intensive or demanding tastes be able to live well while working very little?
We live in a world dominated by the protestant work ethic. but in my view, we should embrace a more hedonistic ethic. There's nothing wrong, in my view, of not wanting to work. Especially in modern society. I mean what's the point of all of this progress if we still have to work like a medieval peasant just to survive? All that protestant work ethic crap doesnt have its sociological justification in functionalism, I'd argue, it has its justification in conflict theory. We work to make rich people money while we live frugal lives always struggling to survive. And that's where we are. We act like creating jobs is such a great thing, when I just see it as subjecting people to work to justify giving them a paycheck to satisfy an ethic rooted in the logic of a long since bygone age at best. And at worst, we're literally just slaves of rich people.
So yeah. That's my argument. There's nothing wrong with enjoying life. We SHOULD enjoy life. We should enjoy life more, and we should work less. Sorry, not sorry. F protestantism and its anti fun ethics.
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