Summers used to last forever. It’s a terrible old cliché, so it must be true. People of a certain age actually experienced those endless summers. I remember them clearly, and I think they were abolished sometime in the early 1960s. Our modern summers are much shorter, and much busier. Labor Day seems to arrive almost immediately after Memorial Day, and most of us are exhausted by the time we get there.
This may be only a matter of perception, but perception is all we have. Time moves more slowly when we have nothing to do. Now we always have something to do. We’ve lost the gift of idleness. Americans, and many Europeans too, have re-invented summer as a kind of second job. Whatever idle moments we might have enjoyed in the past are snatched away by the demands of long-distance travel, and time-consuming outdoor activities like lawn care, beach sitting, and incendiary barbecue parties, not to mention those daunting lists of ‘summer reading.’ Idleness is not on the program, although at some level we imagine it is.
Not everybody enjoys idleness, I know. There are those who can only relax when they are engaged in an exhausting activity, like running. Others need pills, or alcohol, or Yoga. But idleness works for me. In my opinion, there should be more of it. I would start a campaign to promote idleness, but I’m too lazy.
In 1932, the British philosopher and pacifist Bertrand Russell published a provocative essay called “In Praise of Idleness.”
He argued that “there is too much work done in the world,” and gave two reasons. The first was that idleness tends to promote peace, whereas restless, anxious, competitive activity tends to promote war. This makes perfect sense. Wars are after all, a lot of work – hard, complicated, and dangerous work. A truly idle nation would be a peaceful nation.
Russell’s second argument in praise of idleness was even more appealing. He accepted that some work was necessary and useful for society, so that everybody (he meant everybody) should work about four hours a day. A huge leisure class would be created and everyone would be free, in Russell’s phrase, to follow his or her curiosity. We could all pursue and develop our intellectual, artistic and creative interests, whatever they were. The result would be a much happier and more stimulating society, economically poorer but culturally much richer.
Bertrand Russell was a world-class optimist. His utopian ideas have never been proved or disproved because they have never been tried. We are farther from an easygoing, relaxed society than we were in 1932. Now, as the endless summer runs out on what is ironically called Labor Day, it’s back to work and back to school for most of us. But maybe not for long. Bertrand Russell’s vision of the leisure society may be realized in a way he never imagined – when the always-active, never-idle artificial intelligence puts us all out of a job.
