Switching Off: Joseph Brodsky and the moral responsibility to be useless(thepointmag.com)
thepointmag.com
Switching Off: Joseph Brodsky and the moral responsibility to be useless
https://thepointmag.com/2018/examined-life/switching-off
30 comments
Brodsky was by no means a dissident, at least in the Russian sense of the word. He was vocally and arrogantly apolitical. He didn't know politburo members' faces, and disliked both Soviet and anti-Soviet activists.
Also, no sane Russian of his generation would consider writing self pitiful account of inprisonment and torture, consisting of about a month in prison and 3 weeks in a psycho asylum. He personally knew dozens of people that have served 10-20 years without even a legal trial.
Also, no sane Russian of his generation would consider writing self pitiful account of inprisonment and torture, consisting of about a month in prison and 3 weeks in a psycho asylum. He personally knew dozens of people that have served 10-20 years without even a legal trial.
The parent brings to mind Steve Jobs responding to the email of a critic: And what have you done? What have you created?
I mentioned it in the comments of a post the other day, but the English Speaking World can at least trace this kind of thinking back to Thomas Cranmer and the Articles of Religion of the Church of England--in particular, Article XIV. Of Works of Supererogation.[1] Given the Non-Conformist origins of the Colonies (people who immigrated to get away from the Church of England in part) I have to wonder if the whole "American Dream" and its fetishization of work for work's sake (or even, as an Artist myself, Art for Art's sake) is a reaction against this. The accusations of "Amotivational Syndrome" so often levied against Cannabis use seems related too; there is nothing wrong with being content with less and, at least in my mind, it sets a good example to be satisfied with less. Less is more.
[1] http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html
Voluntary Works besides, over and above, God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.
[1] http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html
Voluntary Works besides, over and above, God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.
I’m not an English native speaker, and as such it always seemed interesting to me that the money a person owns is expressed as “X is worth $amount” (ex: “Bezos is worth $131 billion”). It’s like it doesn’t matter if that person is good or bad, if he/she is actually interested in being more on the “good” side of things instead of the “bad” one, all it matters when judging a person is his/her bank account.
It's a reflection of the mindset we hold about wealth, part of how we justify why one person deserves more than another.
For instance, why does some billionaire have significantly better health care than I do? Because they're worth more. Literally, they are more valuable to society than I am.
If you phrase it the other way: "because they have more money than I do", the justification isn't there and you'll have to question your societal model.
For instance, why does some billionaire have significantly better health care than I do? Because they're worth more. Literally, they are more valuable to society than I am.
If you phrase it the other way: "because they have more money than I do", the justification isn't there and you'll have to question your societal model.
It's a quirk of English that we copied over our general words for amounts from our language for morality.
We might have chosen mass as an anlogy, and Jeff would weigh $100 billion. A very heavy man.
We might have chosen mass as an anlogy, and Jeff would weigh $100 billion. A very heavy man.
We could also honestly say he's talented and be pretty sure he weighs at least 75 pounds[1]. It occurs to me that part of the problem is the analogous thinking in the first place, but even I (someone who was planning to take a vow of poverty at one point) have to admit that monetary worth is supposed to indicate how valuable/good of a person we are in normal circumstances; it's the reason to reward. Where it loses meaning to me is where there, like sjk alluded to, isn't even money but the assumption of it. There is nothing to actually show for it as stock options, money in the bank (unless it's really a vault), even Federal Reserve Bank Notes if you want to invoke the significance of them historically as essentially checks that could be cashed for silver and gold: it's all imaginary and kind of delusional to think it is really Wealth. As a result one of the more interesting things happening in the Financial sector to me right now is the Royal Mint's introduction of Royal Mint Gold as it challenges the entire idea of Fiat Money by using blockchain tech like a deed for gold ownership. It makes me think of Gringotts.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talent_(measurement)
edit: I'm inclined to add that I view gold and silver as actually valuable in part because they're physically useful in production of at the very least Artwork, which is what a coin is. There is an interesting division in the United States between the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that draws a line between the purification of metal and the printing of bills that carries a lot of significance: purified metals represent purity whereas printed paper money is always being thrown out and burnt as it falls apart and has little material worth. One is timeless Art in that it is an actual indication of purity and the other is a mashed up pulp of cotton and flax with ink strewn over it that absorbs our human filth (oils and such) until it falls apart.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talent_(measurement)
edit: I'm inclined to add that I view gold and silver as actually valuable in part because they're physically useful in production of at the very least Artwork, which is what a coin is. There is an interesting division in the United States between the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that draws a line between the purification of metal and the printing of bills that carries a lot of significance: purified metals represent purity whereas printed paper money is always being thrown out and burnt as it falls apart and has little material worth. One is timeless Art in that it is an actual indication of purity and the other is a mashed up pulp of cotton and flax with ink strewn over it that absorbs our human filth (oils and such) until it falls apart.
Well, he doesn't actually have however many billion dollars. He had the equivalent value, mostly in Amazon stock.
Depending on your assessment of society, being merely useless isn't good enough. If you estimate society to be generally harmful (whether through wars, environmental destruction, causing mass-exinction, ect), then its morally desirable to be parasitic and drain some of the "power" of society from engaging in harm-producing activities.
This is true, but there is even debate about what can be considered harm producing. Boudrillard, for example, considers terrorism as not contributing to this cause, as terrorism only seeks to strengthen the systems of control (think: Patriot Act after 9/11, TSA, DHS). He argues that theoretical terrorism, that is, ideas that dismantle our abstract cultural structures, to be our only option.
No doubt, but consider that some people will then become cynical about society in order to become freeloaders.
(Rather as in Upton Sinclair's famous quote: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!')
(Rather as in Upton Sinclair's famous quote: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!')
If history has taught us anything, its that nobody needs a philosophical rationale to become a freeloader.
It's a reason why some people become social cynics, I think, and this reason is represented in their brains. However they may not be able to articulate it, partly because they need to see themselves (and for others to see them) as good people. Indeed the strategy depends on it.
[deleted]
Hahaha, I'm framing that and putting it on my wall!
Wow that's some pretty imaginative thinking. Have you tried that on your family?
I'm not supported by my family (or anyone else). If, however, I was supported by my family, and they were a bunch of serial killers who used their money and power to murder people, then it would be morally desirable to drain them of their resources and deprive them of their ability to kill and slaughter.
Wouldn't it be more morally desirable to change their use of resources to saving stray dogs or well..something with a positive context? Why throw work away when it can be used for positive acts instead? Transformation over destruction. A moral imperative
Labor-driven ideologies are poisonous, they require that you consider another person as useful, therefore exploitable, to some end not their own; then, to call some work positive, some negative, as the ideology sees fit.
Instead, uselessness and leisure must be engineered to nullify with machine-like precision, the notions that labor is a commodity with any attached value and that the imposition of any belief, through labor or violence, has any corresponding uselessness or usefulness.
Distraction must be perfected in our lifetime. A person born in 2050 should be dazzled by endless fireworks displays and snackfoods until at last they are disintegrated by the simple side-effects of their own cellular respiration.
Indeed, everything recognizable as human being, or a soul, or a similar metaphor for the idea of the self, owes it to all other such entities that it wishes for them nothing but complete and lifelong sensory saturation with mutually harmless novelties and comforts. This is the core manifestation of self-preservation of the social animal.
Instead, uselessness and leisure must be engineered to nullify with machine-like precision, the notions that labor is a commodity with any attached value and that the imposition of any belief, through labor or violence, has any corresponding uselessness or usefulness.
Distraction must be perfected in our lifetime. A person born in 2050 should be dazzled by endless fireworks displays and snackfoods until at last they are disintegrated by the simple side-effects of their own cellular respiration.
Indeed, everything recognizable as human being, or a soul, or a similar metaphor for the idea of the self, owes it to all other such entities that it wishes for them nothing but complete and lifelong sensory saturation with mutually harmless novelties and comforts. This is the core manifestation of self-preservation of the social animal.
this:
"I had been raised in the multicultural, bubblegum Nineties. Like many other children of the upper-middle class, I watched Captain Planet, went to cross-cultural friendship camps and joined social-justice youth groups. Our generation was told that difference was only skin deep, that in America you could accomplish anything with enough hard work, that we could be the change we wanted to see. Like good campers, we marched to protest the invasion of Iraq, wrote letters against NAFTA and for human rights, voted for Obama, went vegetarian. At a certain point it occurred to us there was no evidence any of this was working. The market crashed; the gap between rich and poor yawned into an abyss. Congress was paralyzed, and racism, far from diminishing in Obama’s presidency, seemed to become more visible and virulent. What is to be done? we wondered. All the progressive values we had been taught, when knocked, sounded hollow. So our protests got smaller, cheekier and more digital. We made nihilistic jokes, followed meme accounts, started therapy. We talked about TV.
All of this is to say that Brodsky’s strategy of switching off made a perverse kind of sense to me, even as it brushed up against my inculcated optimism. And yet, I thought: Shouldn’t I fight that impulse?"
"I had been raised in the multicultural, bubblegum Nineties. Like many other children of the upper-middle class, I watched Captain Planet, went to cross-cultural friendship camps and joined social-justice youth groups. Our generation was told that difference was only skin deep, that in America you could accomplish anything with enough hard work, that we could be the change we wanted to see. Like good campers, we marched to protest the invasion of Iraq, wrote letters against NAFTA and for human rights, voted for Obama, went vegetarian. At a certain point it occurred to us there was no evidence any of this was working. The market crashed; the gap between rich and poor yawned into an abyss. Congress was paralyzed, and racism, far from diminishing in Obama’s presidency, seemed to become more visible and virulent. What is to be done? we wondered. All the progressive values we had been taught, when knocked, sounded hollow. So our protests got smaller, cheekier and more digital. We made nihilistic jokes, followed meme accounts, started therapy. We talked about TV.
All of this is to say that Brodsky’s strategy of switching off made a perverse kind of sense to me, even as it brushed up against my inculcated optimism. And yet, I thought: Shouldn’t I fight that impulse?"
“Your so-called ‘memes’”
the full transcript of the trial of Joseph Brodsky:
http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1954-2/whats-a-woman-to-think/w...
so absurd and surreal at times it's hard to believe it's not fiction
---
Grudinina: The difference between a parasite and a starting-out poet is that the parasite eats but does not work, while the poet works but may not always eat.
Judge: The court does not appreciate that remark. In our country, a man earns according to his work.
http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1954-2/whats-a-woman-to-think/w...
so absurd and surreal at times it's hard to believe it's not fiction
---
Grudinina: The difference between a parasite and a starting-out poet is that the parasite eats but does not work, while the poet works but may not always eat.
Judge: The court does not appreciate that remark. In our country, a man earns according to his work.
posted by Lermontov :)
Who better? Unless, that is, there is an HN user named Oblomov ;)
Not very active, but... https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=oblomov
One of several things I remember is him writing about the torture and imprisonment he suffered. All he said was that he didn't talk about it, because it only served his abusers to do so. They tortured him to terrify others - as an act of terror. By torturing one dissident, they intended to subdue all who spoke to him and read him. If he repeated it, then the act and its power were magnified, repeated over and over. If he said nothing, they were powerless; it was just one act at one moment and in small room.