In Capital Vol. 1 Marx situates the body of the worker and its labor power at the center of his critique of work. In the context of nineteenth-century industrial society, the need for a functioning ...and willing labor force becomes a biopolitical issue, regulated by the state and its legal system. Against the biopolitics of labor, which Marx eloquently discusses, Paul Lafargue, in The Right to Be Lazy, proposed a biopolitics of laziness, centered on the figure of the worker's body at rest and at pleasure. Lafargue's critique resonates with, and anticipates, the ideas of some historical avant-gardes (Surrealists and Situationists), the social and cultural experimentations of the 1960s, as well as current discussions of refusal and nonwork. Read together with the work of Lafargue, Marx's thought makes visible the pitfalls of Utopian forms of materialism, by showing the darker and more ominous side of "laziness": through his discussion of the image of the "reserve army of the unemployed" Marx demonstrates that nonwork is not simply, and not always, a choice or an antagonistic gesture of resistance. In fact, as both Marx and Engels affirm, nonwork is a structural condition of capital, that provides a constant flow of labor, a captive and coerced audience of exploitable people ready to work under almost any conditions. This scenario persists today: the "reserve army of the unemployed" has become the contemporary precariat, and the body, contrary to Lafargue's vision, has become fully subsumed into capital.
Laziness is commonly perceived as lethargy and carries a negative connotation. In this article, I argue to understand laziness as a political stance and suggest that lazy practices can become useful ...for postqualitative inquiry that seeks to disrupt normative explanations of the world. As political action, laziness, then provides postqualitative inquiry with an additional tool for contributing to social justice via social research. Laziness combats the neoliberal condition in which academic research is situated and might serve as a virtue of postqualitative inquiry.
This study aims to identify the impact of organizational culture of bureaucratic inertia, is an organization with the role of social laziness. The population of this study included 210 people from ...all employees Ilam Governor Of these, 140 were selected as sample. Three questionnaires were used to collect data from standard bureaucratic culture (Tanya, 2006), organizational inertia (The Hague, 2014) and social laziness (Ground, 1393) was used. Analysis of data from structural equation modeling with partial least square method through software PLS is done, showed that the research proposals approved and in the cultural component of bureaucratic inertia, cognitive, behavioral, cognitive - social, economic and political impact is positive and also features the work of variables, features group and individual perception, the relationship between the culture of bureaucratic and organizational inertia play the role of mediator. It is suggested that the governor of Ilam, corporate culture in order to better participate in the organization and increase employee commitment and their efforts to achieve the goals of the organization, is encouraging. The managers increase employee participation and involvement in important corporate decisions to reduce social laziness and inertia to provide the enterprise.
A wealth of new writing has emerged around the future of labour, focusing on thinking beyond employment in imagining the futures of 'surplus populations' no longer needed by labour markets. These new ...imaginaries include radically expanded forms of redistribution, such as unconditional cash transfers or universal basic income. But what are the views of the 'surplus populations' themselves? This article uses ethnographic research in an informal settlement in South Africa to understand why the unemployed or precariously employed poor are themselves often reluctant to delink labour and income. In particular, we focus on the discursive use of 'laziness' by urban unemployed young men. The varied (and often contradictory) ways in which these men employ the laziness discourse sheds light on the logics linking waged work and money in our informants' social imaginaries. It illuminates the underlying contradictions and complexities of such logics, including those of gender, relational obligations, expectations of citizenship, and the inevitable tensions between aspirational hopes and economic realities. To begin thinking 'beyond the proper job', to use Ferguson and Li's phrase, we must unravel and understand such nuanced logics that continue to bind together hard work, deservingness and cash--even for those left out of labour markets.
Numerous studies have documented the potential for victim-blaming attributions to justify the status quo. Recent work suggests that complementary, victim-enhancing stereotypes may also increase ...support for existing social arrangements. We seek to reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings by proposing that victim derogation and victim enhancement are alternate routes to system justification , with the preferred route depending on the perception of a causal link between trait and outcome. Derogating "losers" (and lionizing "winners") on traits (e.g., intelligence) that are causally related to outcomes (e.g., wealth vs. poverty) serves to increase system justification, as does compensating "losers" (and downgrading "winners") on traits (e.g., physical attractiveness) that are causally unrelated to those outcomes. We provide converging evidence using system-threat and stereotype-activation paradigms.
Why the tools of philosophy offer a powerful antidote to today’s epidemic of irrationality
There is an epidemic of bad thinking in the world today. An alarming number of people are embracing crazy, ...even dangerous ideas. They believe that vaccinations cause autism. They reject the scientific consensus on climate change as a “hoax.” And they blame the spread of COVID-19 on the 5G network or a Chinese cabal. Worse, bad thinking drives bad acting—it even inspired a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol. In this book, Steven Nadler and Lawrence Shapiro argue that the best antidote for bad thinking is the wisdom, insights, and practical skills of philosophy. When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People provides an engaging tour through the basic principles of logic, argument, evidence, and probability that can make all of us more reasonable and responsible citizens.
When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People shows how we can more readily spot and avoid flawed arguments and unreliable information; determine whether evidence supports or contradicts an idea; distinguish between merely believing something and knowing it; and much more. In doing so, the book reveals how epistemology, which addresses the nature of belief and knowledge, and ethics, the study of moral principles that should govern our behavior, can reduce bad thinking. Moreover, the book shows why philosophy’s millennia-old advice about how to lead a good, rational, and examined life is essential for escaping our current predicament.
In a world in which irrationality has exploded to deadly effect, When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People is a timely and essential guide for a return to reason.
Byung-Chul Han diagnostica que nuestra época es la de una sociedad del cansancio, del tedio a causa de fenómenos como la aceleración, la hiperactividad, etc., que no dan espacio a la interrupción, a ...la pausa. Este diagnóstico filosófico social que realiza Han, de la mano de autores como Arendt o Agamben, nos parece que demanda, sin embargo, una tematización e interrogación del fenómeno del cansancio propiamente tal, que, a mi juicio, no queda del todo aclarado en la obra de este autor. Por ello, propongo una descripción del cansancio a partir de los recursos que nos aporta la fenomenología. Me preguntaré si el cansancio es un fenómeno de apertura, que nos aporta lucidez, o, sí, por el contrario, es un fenómeno de clausura y de opacidad, que nos cierra a la experiencia del mundo y de los otros. Con el fin de aportar claridad a esta problemática interrogaremos en primer lugar la relación existente entre el cansancio, la vigilia y la atención, para luego avanzar hacia la distinción entre cansancio y pereza. Palabras clave: Cansancio; pereza; atención; esfuerzo; apertura; clausura.
The article examines the motif of laziness in the friendly correspondence of I.V. Kireevsky in the 1820s–1830s. It turns out that for the future Slavophile the interpretation of this motif, which was ...widespread in Russian lyric poetry and epistolary of the early 19th century, remained relevant. It was authentic, in particular, for the young A.S. Pushkin — as “blessed laziness” accompanying a creative gift and therefore fruitful, associated with the freedom and happiness of creativity. In many ways, Kireevsky perceived such an understanding of laziness through the prism of romantic culture, and particularly of elegiac romanticism under the influence of its major representative V.A. Zhukovsky, his relative and friend. At the same time, the young epistolographer also adopted the understanding of laziness of his correspondents, such as A.I. Koshelev, A.V. Venevitinov, V.F. Odoevsky and etc. From their point of view, laziness in the chosen field of activity for the good of the Fatherland and laziness in friendly correspondence, where, in fact, it is necessary to report on the results of this activity, is completely unacceptable. Consequently, lack of zeal in correspondence is disturbing because it may indicate lack of zeal in activity. Kireevsky has earned a reputation as an idler among his friends. And, on the one hand, he defended freedom of creativity, the right to internal work in the absence of external work, but on the other hand, he worried and repented in front of his friends in laziness, tried to fight it. The motif of laziness has become the main artistic experiments and achievements of Kireevsky as the epistolographer.
Keep your laziness in check Foner, Kenneth; Zhang, Hengchu; Lampropoulos, Leonidas
Proceedings of ACM on programming languages,
09/2018, Volume:
2, Issue:
ICFP
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We introduce StrictCheck: a property-based random testing framework for observing, specifying, and testing the strictness of Haskell functions. Strictness is traditionally considered a non-functional ...property; StrictCheck allows it to be tested as if it were one, by reifying demands on data structures so they can be manipulated and examined within Haskell.
Testing strictness requires us to 1) precisely specify the strictness of functions, 2) efficiently observe the evaluation of data structures, and 3) correctly generate functions with random strictness. We tackle all three of these challenges, designing an efficient generic framework for precise dynamic strictness testing. StrictCheck can specify and test the strictness of any Haskell function---including higher-order ones---with only a constant factor of overhead, and requires no boilerplate for testing functions on Haskell-standard algebraic data types. We provide an expressive but low-level specification language as a foundation upon which to build future higher-level abstractions.
We demonstrate a non-trivial application of our library, developing a correct specification of a data structure whose properties intrinsically rely on subtle use of laziness: Okasaki's constant-time purely functional queue.
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