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“No one wants to work anymore.”
Most people don’t mind work if it gets you somewhere: in physics, “work” is force multiplied by distance. That is to say, it is no longer “work” when apply effort and can’t move.
More accurately, “no one wants to be stuck anymore.”
This illuminates a core cynicism beyond hard luck: people no longer trust meritocratic truisms and consider the game rigged. Work will not save you, it is a suckers game.
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Direct democracy was never going to work, and the founders of the United States knew this.
Europeans believed only a monarchy could work, and direct democracy would lead to a fractured tribal unification and warfare constantly kicking out rulers. Still, if you mediate the populaces’ concerns with a fair checks and balances system, you could have a "representative democracy."
Alexis de Tocqueville remarks that because every citizen understood they had a role to play, they were quick to respond without waiting for governmental authority or interference.
However, as power aggregates institutionally politics, capitalism, and bureaucracy have increased authoritative reach. They have begun regulating everything, choking out civilian action. It is an oddly familiar regression to a monarchy or totalitarian state, leaving the citizens to feel more than abandoned without agency but actively thwarted.
Your role is no longer to be a good citizen but to mitigate your eventual punishment for exuding any communal spirit or participatory impulse.
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The Protestant & Calvinist notion of working your way to heaven (earning your salvation) positions works over grace. This limits God. No longer omnipotent, His hands are bound by law, by ledgers and weights.
Consider the meritocratic future: you get what you earn; talent + work grants reward.
However, systemic privilege pervades society. To get closer to an equal start and better judge true merit, we can eliminate inheritance, good parents and teachers, and the benefits of a supportive, cultivated community. (For a true meritocracy, we can either flatten all to the lowest common denominator or provide grace and love equally to all, the latter seemingly impossible.)
Born into a meritocracy blessed with privilege is Heaven, a Utopia on earth: grace landed upon you, and sure, you worked, so you feel deserving. Still, humility is required when recognizing the benefits pre-bestowed.
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The hard work is often tediously painful for both the personal and political.
Digging into ourselves for years in order to hold ourselves accountable and responsible for pains taken and inflicted is work we want to avoid, so we quickly displace our emotions into projection and transference: we blame someone else or fall in love with someone/something else.
Likewise, doing local election research is tedious, and filling out forms to sway a monolithic bureaucracy is soul-numbing. I would rather vent my feelings or develop insightful, pithy rejoinders to my opponents.
Yet, the hard work of both tasks (personal and political) examines reality over rationalizations and takes accountability: We damage others because we will not repair ourselves, and our state is a bureaucratic institution little swayed by communal catharsis.
It is not flashy; it doesn’t feel good, but this is how you make substantive change: patient accountability over decades.
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Industrial work as cognitive labor is a problem: first, industrial work is repetitive, with the worker serving the mechanization of his/her labor. Second, the monotony stifles innovation or novelty, by which you may find value in yourself, leaving the cognitive industrial worker to rely on wealth or status for value, not any inherent/intrinsic virtue.
This valuation of social status separated from personal worth is vital to undermining any rebellion against the system: you are not you but merely the benefits the system provides. And since the industry champions repetition with only incremental change, the more predictable you are, the more promotable you become.
And yes, novel risk takers create transformative wealth, but they are not the vast majority of cognitive workers funneled into industrialized, managed positions.
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The problem with remote work is that it gives us what we want but fails to give us what we need.
Most people understandably say they want to be away from pestering oversight and politics, be more productive with less hassle, and be allowed some personal indulgences.
Yet, in collapsing the workplace into the home, we tend to delete the excuse for the “third place,” that social space of regularity between work and home. This additional location provided a social camaraderie without necessity or responsibility. It offered the comfort and novelty missing from work and home, which we didn’t know we needed.
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In the office,, social time is more productive than producing.
Consider that as you build loyalty and practice likeability, you will not only get into less trouble for being non-productive as you “form” ad-hoc committees for “feedback”, but the most likely way to elevate your career is moving into management, not being more efficient, timely, or productive. Look at your current management.
Equally sardonically, if you want to achieve anything in life, quit paying attention to politics outside the office, as they occupy your free time and can get you into trouble at work.
On a deeper level, political engagement accelerates into crisises that replicate and consume humans. Not to advocate for disenfranchisement, but prioritize something that can benefit you longterm, a produtive life, instead of allowing the politics of the moment as a placebo for living.
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Freud would say our problem is repression. Byung-Chul Han says our problem is depression.
Over 150 years ago, people knew who they were in society: a body with a job.
Most of our work was labor, from which the body might suffer but could recover with a short break. Our stratified placement limited the mind, so ambition and possibility were limited, implying reduced cognitive anxiety and strain.
People were likely to repress ‘delusions and abnormal behaviors’ under authoritarian control. Still, they were not responsible for self-optimization, perpetual fear of not meeting your potential, or the imperative to fulfill and achieve impossible dreams.
Now that we are free of repression, we have burnout and depression.
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Occupations characterized by an intense, almost theatrical level of rigidity—think high-stress chefs, firefighters, specific musicians, trauma nurses, comedians, and daredevil professionals like roughnecks and underwater welders—give rise to a subversive realm that rejects the world of bureaucracy. Within their sphere, they construct an unapologetic hierarchy founded on their unique set of values, deliberately rejecting vacant niceties in favor of excess, darkness, and subversion.
This subculture they create can be simultaneously harsh and light-hearted, degenerate yet communal. By dynamically responding to the demands of their challenging roles, they manage to elevate themselves beyond bureaucratic tedium and political correctness.
This dynamic suggests that any occupation that relies on soul-draining bureaucratic oversight to manage its employees, policing emotions and behavior through policy, lacks the kind of passionate dedication and precision that fuels human flourishing.
Occupations like these, which foster counter-cultural subcultures, cultivate communities bound together, relying on one another while nurturing trust (in an oddly perverse way). In contrast, heavily managed, mediated managerial roles tend to fragment employees, leaving them to bond primarily through shared frustration with the irrationality of upper-level decision-making.
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“The thing speaks for itself”
This is the legal principle that “the occurrence of an accident implies negligence.” An incident/accident proves someone was inattentive (or uncaring) earlier.
In a bureaucratic way, the professional-managerial class works to spread responsibility, which obscures blame from decision-makers and promotes negligence without consequence.
So, while the thing or event (the error) speaks loudly, accountability is smothered (in volume and quantity) by corporate and legal speak.
This dodge is itself an example of res ipsa loquitur: continued negligence is permissible, not accidental, which is the negligence of responsibility.
