refusal of work/2

Work? No thanks! That is: life is elsewhere
by Alberto Tognola

The publishing house Le Edizioni La Baronata di Lugano has published, with this title, a good book. We publish excerpts.

 

From the introduction

Doing nothing is the thing more difficult in the world Oscar Wilde

But why should we do nothing? Because we do too much!

Today, the world has no shortage of things. Indeed, there is such an abundance of material goods that threatens to drown and it will most likely why future historians baptize our time "the time of waste".
The call to (re) discovery of ozone is more than urgent.
Idleness is a radical cure against many ills typical of the modern world: the enormous waste of resources to produce goods for the most part unnecessary, and the unbridled consumerism as a substitute for happiness, alienation and exploitation in wage labor, pollution Environment and mind the absurdity activism which escape from themselves that makes us perpetually short of time ...
Idleness is a powerful antidote to all this: it is ecological, economical and satisfying, free time for socializing and opening up space for creativity.
Obvious features of ozone is its opposition to labor, physical activity. This text will focus so long on the job: the evolution of the concept in the course of time, its substance and forms of opposition to it, as the outright refusal, a phenomenon that has taken on mass in the years seventies and eighties of last century. This will be done by means of quotations, slogans, drawings, poems, etc.. It is, in large part, word ironic, sarcastic, expressions of anger, parodies, exaggerations. Things that, amusing and / or causing, help may be better than a disquisition too earnest to realize how absurd and socially counterproductive lifestyle that most of us lead. But for those who are still of the opinion that "the work ennobles" I can not help but bring situations, facts and descriptions trying to work immediately harmful, stupid and exhausting yet exist in the last decades of the twentieth century and continues to exist.
Today, in times of crisis in the system of commodity production (in difficulty to find new outlets for the huge amount of goods produced with little labor force) - and certainly not a global crisis of social wealth (which is great ... but a few skimmed) - this text is more useful than ever: if, 40 years ago, it could "make it rain in the wet," now that tells and shows that brings to mind the just and viable way out - because the technical means, the intellectual potential and social and environmental needs are like no other period of history - is: all work, but all very least, to meet the basic needs of all humanity. If reading these pages will be able to motivate some readers to take as much as possible on the path of idleness, the pleasure derived will be added by typing them the satisfaction of having done something useful.

Alberto Tognola Lavoro? No grazie! Ovvero: la vita è altrove pp. 304 Euro 16,50 Requests to: Edizioni La Baronata Casella postale 328 – CH-6906 Lugano baronata@anarca-bolo.ch

From the text

Jobs or activities?

Now we need to clear the field by the great conceptual confusion that surrounds these days the word "work". It should be obvious that work is not synonymous with hard work, even if the means. A certain amount of difficulty is inherent in any activity - even the most inherent in the very fact of existence - this is a physical law inaggirabile. But the point is not that. Man has always had an ambiguous relationship with the physical effort. (...)
On one side is naturally inclined to reduce the difficulties faced in carrying out an activity, and this may be one reason for the origin and development of technology.
One of the first physical principles unconsciously followed in order to reduce fatigue, has been probably one of the lever, a fantastic technical support working today as thousands of years ago. On the other hand, the man has never disdained the hard work, when it was immediately directed to fulfill a wish or get an immediate benefit for himself or for his own: to reach the fruit on a branch away, build a shelter from rain or a canoe to go fishing or just to cross the river, makes a bow to hunt more effectively (here the two trends overlap), cutting a branch cable to give yourself a flute, sew a thong nice to protect the genitals, look for herbs and earth in which adorn the body and so on.

Alberto Tognola in un disegno di Sceghi

Although sexual activity aimed at bringing orgasm involves a large expenditure of energy, yet the face with joy. Man of the technically advanced society, which has less and less need to make physical effort to earn a living, which abhors the hard work and snubbing trades that require (accepting for the intellectual effort against a variety of activities inherent in modern work), search effort voluntarily, almost like a pleasant diversion, a beneficial compensation: climbing mountains, racing bike, milling in the pool after a bath or shower, more prosaically, sweating like a fountain in the gym "to keep fit."

The work felt as an obligation, duty, imposition, restraint, inescapable necessity, this is work. I try to illustrate this with a personal example. I do many things that are useful and making me the satisfaction I draw: I take care of the garden to get hold of my vegetables, fruit trees poto apples and plums for eating healthy, cutting trees to obtain firewood, shelter, stone walls because franino ... Never, however, do these things for other people to pay, because at that time these activities would change the nature, demeaning work in losing any charm for me.
When life follows the principle of the game and enjoyment, drive ol'innata creative activity that follows is positive and beneficial for both the individual and the community.
This deep natural drive (the game is also a constant learning in the life of animals) occurred in an exemplary children, who can spend hours, until exhaustion, pushing a sled up a hill from which descend screaming with joy, splashing around in the water calling for even the smallest muscle in the body, to build and rebuild with sandcastle patience of Sisyphus. And the wily parent well able to take advantage of this recreational activity for the pleasure to bring the child to make his son-in spite of an employee who asked if this term would be in denial or unwilling to obey.
Work and free activity can be described with other concepts or images. Perform an activity to raise money to buy the means of meeting needs for the most part induced - the typical way in which individual initiative has run low in capitalist society - this is work, light and pleasant as it may seem; get busy in the first person to steal the natural need to live decently, this is not working, even if it involves effort.
Or, pick berries, catching a deer, made of strips, producing their own potatoes, devote himself to painting or sewing is not work, take or produce anything, sell their manual skills, their intellectual capacity, your fancy get money with which to buy fruit, meat, clothes, vegetables, books, CDs, or pictures, this is work.

Or again: it is sold for a wage job. Being forced to work can not produce pleasure or just a surrogate for her untrustworthy, regardless of "quality" of the task being performed.
Unfortunately, in the social organization aimed at the production of goods, profit and power, the two distinct features of human enterprise are confused or, more precisely, the work, other-directed, subtly rendered necessary to meet the needs of more and more false , has engulfed the play, the word "work" is now synonymous with "activity".

And if you like the job?

You can not make love from morning to night, that's why they invented the work

The motto under the title alludes to the work function as a surrogate of sexuality repressed libido, lack emotional, relationship difficulties and so on. can "effectively" be compensated through work and indirectly through the consumption it makes possible. Sublimation and compensation can distort to the point where the pleasure principle as a fundamental purpose of life, to be confused with the work, that is, the surest way to move to the side of life.
That work like a lot of people are unfortunately true. For several decades, medicine has coined the term "workaholic" to describe a real physical and mental illness, lasting almost a pandemic, which afflicts many individuals of both sexes from working as employees may be dependent on drugs and medicines , smoking or alcohol.
One group particularly affected by this disease is that of senior executives, managers, directors, CEOs of multinational and SA.
(...)
Outside the literature, there is the Royal Society - in addition to ruling elites, whose illness at work can find a strong justification material (wealth and power) - a group of people most numerous of all walks of life suffering from a syndrome ideological equally deadly, I mean to those who see the work the only path worthy of being carried out to ensure its survival, assuming both as a means to achieve the illusive dream of emulating the aforementioned elite.
A partial exoneration of those who see a positive value in the work we must consider the sad fact that too often, the world of work is for a single person the only way to socialize: to see other people, make friends, participate in various events, to know other realities, thus overcoming the limited sphere of family life.
One should not forget that only in rare cases you can really choose a profession that likes its impulse or desire. Freedom of choice is always limited by the bid of others. The trades are pre-and young people are mostly influenced by parents, teachers and careers based on economic needs of the economy or the state. Besides that influenced the choice is also required: the company now asks everybody is to submit to wage labor.

To free from work so well this requirement by means of choosing between the goals of others, gaining the ability to act on their instincts.

From conclusion

Tourists and the fisherman

I conclude my text with a parable that sums up many facets of a way of living and thinking positive, responsible and sustainable removal from the logic of the market and consumerism, harmony with the natural rhythms and sobriety, self-activity, mastery of the means of subsistence and, last but not least, rejection of wage labor.

In mid-morning, the German industrialist in small island holiday is the Greek fisherman friend sitting on the porch of the house looking the sea and the ships that sail slowly and silently.
- Good morning Kiriakos. Do not you work today?
- Yes, I have already finished.
- What, are just half past nine!
- Finished, I said. Today the sea has been generous. It took me a little to fill the network.
- But the Fish?
- Enough to my family and for some older people who do not come more to the sea.
- you would draw more.
- To what to do?
- To sell and earn more money.
- And why?
- To buy a bigger boat, with which you may draw even more.
- Ah. And why?
- So you editing your continent, sell to many restaurants and shops in town. Make more money and decorate the boat even better. So earn even more.
- Ah. And then?
- In a decade you could take some of the sailors who work for you.
- And I'd do that?
- Do you you'd be comfortable on the porch to admire the sea.
- Ah. But that's what I do already!