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hard work, but not too much
When Work is Not Salvation
What if the most enduring October scoop got waylaid, buried
by campaign Rom-foolery and Obametrics, the tenacious Great Recession, bluster
over Libya, or baseball playoffs? Two weeks ago Pew Research pinpointed an
historic threshold: for the first time only 48% of Americans deemed themselves
Protestant. Yes, the dominant majority since Puritan days has shrunk to
minority status, alongside (one trusts) its perennial double: the White,
Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling class.
With the Protestant hegemony fading, let us project a
similar demise for the simplistic, planet-threatening credo known as the
"Protestant Ethic." That triumphant code consecrates hard work, prosperity and
control over nature, complacently measuring progress by net profit and GNP
numbers. Here's a conviction that unifies our two parties in love with the
status quo, along with reactionaries and fundamentalists everywhere. For all
proclaim the Divinity of Hard Work, that Hard Work Conquers All, even that Work
is Salvation, as both sign and vehicle of "exceptionalism" and personal
deliverance.
For the hard right, does not the magic of hard work resolve
crime, poverty, racial inequality, family shortcomings, economic stagnation and
phantom enemies far and wide? The solution to all hard knocks, these hard
people say, is hard work, the anvil for human destiny -- and beyond. Gee,
what happened to one-time, theoretical promises of greater leisure time?
Certainly Yanks celebrate that savvy American, Benjamin Franklin, who elevated thrift, industry, and tenacity; or as he put it, "Energy and persistence alter all things." But today's ideological folly distorts the context of birthright, namely background, gender, education, and family assets. Thus schoolchildren still endure injunctions to "keep your nose to the grindstone" (ouch), "there is no substitute for hard work" (Thomas Edison), and my favorite, "hard work never killed anyone" ("but why take the chance," quipped witty Edgar Bergen).
Or check out Bishop Mitt's website: "Help Romney
Get America Back to Work," while refusing to affirm public education,
retraining, or support for needy families. So much for the famed "bootstraps"
by which the poor will pull themselves up.
No doubt, America's affluence mirrors perseverance,
especially by underpaid laborers, but consider more critical advantages:
freedom from central authority, relative tolerance, thus ethnic diversity,
matchless resources (farmland, forests, water, minerals), and truly fortuitous
geography, poised between Europe and Asia. Military might, material goods,
isolation, and good fortune, not simply workloads, clarify how 5% of the
world's population commandeers 20% of most goodies.
Our Religion of Work
What needs challenge isn't work per se but the Protestant
work credo and noxious linkages: 1) that worldly success signals heavenly
election; 2) that will power alone (and the right Christian values) will
overcome all uneven playing fields; and 3) that status (read: money) awards
"winners" like Bishop Romney the moral right to rule the entire roost. In fact,
hard work by itself leads to exhaustion, without often gaining a livable wage.
And America's celebrated draw of exceptional socio-economic mobility has
migrated to Canada and much of Europe and Asia.
Diligence alone isn't enough: Greeks average 2,017 work
hours annually, the highest in Europe, with a two-week vacation. Germans put in
1,408 hours per year, with twice the vacation time, yet Greece is a wreck (20%
jobless) while Germany a powerhouse. In fact, our New Deal's 40-hour week base
cut America's average workload by 25% (from 1900 and 1950), yet that didn't
stop us from becoming the world's richest economic power ever (not getting devastated
by two wars helped).
By the way, the U.S. happens to be the only major western
industrial nation that doesn't mandate vacation time. Not only that, Time
magazine reports: "The average American worker earns 14 days off per year,
but only takes 12 of them, according to a 2011 survey by Expedia. About a
quarter of Americans don't have any vacation time at all." Many beg off earned
"free time" for fear of losing pay or their jobs plus dread the undone workload
if they recreate.
Life, Liberty and Obsession
In fact, leisure advances productivity, per
the Atlantic, as the Harvard Business Review "showed that requiring business consultants to take time off every
week actually boosted their productivity." Likewise, the Journal of
Epidemiology found that "fluid intelligence," aligned with "problem solving,
short-term memory, and creativity" was higher when working less than 40 hours
vs. those slaving at 55 hour weeks. In short, overwork
cuts efficiency while amplifying stress and health problems, impedes exercise
and ups our reliance on coping mechanisms, namely alcohol, cigarettes, and
drugs. Obsessive work can turn one's life into an earthly hell -- redeemed perhaps
only if (Christian) suffering is the gateway to heaven.
Our Founders endorsed "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness," not life, liberty and the pursuit of obsession. Work-related
maladies (worsened by low-nutrition fast food and insufficient sleep) undermine
the "life" and spirit of millions, thus our low national happiness rankings.
Gallup polls spanning 2005-2011 discovered nations that work less and play more
are happier, namely Denmark, Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands. Instead, we boast
about the "liberty" to work ourselves into an early grave.
Upend the Protestant Ethic
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