by David Adelman

Created on: May 18, 2009

In "Quitting the Paint Factory", Mark Slouka writes how a strong work ethic deprives the masses of the right to be idle - to be economically unproductive for a period of time. Idleness is described in this article as the psychological inner space human beings need "to figure out who we are, and what we believe, by allowing us time to consider what is unjust, and what we might do about it" (Page 58) . Idleness gives us a chance to catch our breath. Idleness is not time to be spent in meditation, in prayer, in worship but a time for contemplating the world and for introspection. It is true that a strong work ethic is an integral part of past American history. For the Puritans who migrated to New England, for the small and large entrepreneurs who founded businesses, for the millions of citizens and immigrants who built the infrastructure and industrial base of the West, hard work was the ticket to survival and success. Most worked because they had to, but many others worked harder and longer than was necessary to provide themselves and their families with a comfortable life. For many Americans hard work took on a value and a worth of its own, separate from the role of providing income. They created a work ethic based on the belief that work is virtuous and fulfilling and it provides self-esteem for the worker no matter what the nature of his or her work. For Mark Slouka this work ethic which excludes idleness is enshrined in a Covenant of Works and is religiously believed "across the boundaries of class and race and ethnicity that normally divide us....we tithe, and keep on tithing, until we are spent". Although idleness no longer smacks of the sinful, idleness it still regarded askance. Even though we might question how Slouka can generalize to such an extent, this essay will discuss how the western work ethic with its exclusion of idleness does seem to cross universal boundaries of class and race.

We grow up in a society where middle and upper-class parents start to train their babies in the Protestant work ethic right away-they are afraid for their children to be bored and unproductive, to exercise free will and to be idle for too long. Parents start to read to their unborn child in the womb to give him/her a competitive advantage over others. Toys are purchased for their educational content and parents must become teachers as well. There are books on potty-training, books on getting your child into the right school, books on passing the SAT exams.

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