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《如果世界上没有了工作》
Would a Work-free World Be So Bad?
People have speculated for centuries about a future without work, and today is no different, with academics, writers, and activists once again warning that technology is replacing human workers.
Some imagine that the coming work-free world will be defined by inequality: A few wealthy people will own all the capital, and the masses will struggle in an impoverished wasteland.
A different, less paranoid1), and not mutually exclusive prediction holds that the future will be a wasteland of a different sort, one characterized by purposelessness: Without jobs to give their lives meaning, people will simply become lazy and depressed. Indeed, today’s unemployed don’t seem to be having a great time.
But it doesn’t necessarily follow2) from findings like these that a world without work would be filled with malaise3). Such visions are based on the downsides of being unemployed in a society built on the concept of employment. In the absence of work, a society designed with other ends in mind could yield strikingly different circumstances for the future of labor and leisure. Today, the virtue of work may be a bit overblown.
“Many jobs are boring, degrading, unhealthy, and a squandering4) of human potential,” says John Danaher, a lecturer at the National University of Ireland in Galway. “Global surveys find that the vast majority of people are unhappy at work.”
These days, because leisure time is relatively scarce for most workers, people use their free time to counterbalance the intellectual and emotional demands of their jobs.
“When I come home from a hard day’s work, I often feel tired,” Danaher says, adding, “In a world in which I don’t have to work, I might feel rather different”—perhaps different enough to throw himself into a hobby or a passion project with the intensity usually reserved for professional matters.
Having a job can provide a measure of financial stability, but in addition to stressing over how to cover life’s necessities, today’s jobless are frequently made to feel like social outcasts. “People who avoid work are viewed as parasites5) and leeches6),” Danaher says.
Perhaps as a result of this cultural attitude, for most people, self-esteem and identity are tied up intricately with their job, or lack of job.
Plus, in many modern-day societies, unemployment can also be downright boring. In many countries, towns and cities aren’t really built for lots of free time. The roots of this boredom may run even deeper.
Peter Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College, thinks that if work disappeared tomorrow, people might be at a loss for things to do, growing bored and depressed because they have forgotten how to play. “We teach children a distinction between play and work,” Gray explains.
“Work is something that you don’t want to do but you have to do.” He says this training, which starts in school, eventually “drills the play” out of many children, who grow up to be adults who are aimless when presented with free time.
“Sometimes people retire from their work, and they don’t know what to do,” Gray says. “They’ve lost the ability to create their own activities.” It’s a problem that never seems to plague young children.
“There are no three-year-olds that are going to be lazy and depressed because they don’t have a structured activity,” he says.
But need it be this way? Work-free societies are more than just a thought experiment—they’ve existed throughout human history. Consider hunter-gatherers7), who have no bosses, paychecks, or eight-hour workdays.
Ten thousand years ago, all humans were hunter-gatherers, and some still are. Daniel Everett, an anthropologist at Bentley University, in Massachusetts, studied a group of hunter-gathers in the Amazon called the Pirahã for years.
According to Everett, while some might consider hunting and gathering work, hunter-gatherers don’t. “They think of it as fun,” he says. “They don’t have a concept of work the way we do.”
“It’s a pretty laid-back8) life most of the time,” Everett says. He described a typical day for the Pirahã: A man might get up, spend a few hours canoeing and fishing, have a barbecue, go for a swim, bring fish back to his family, and play until the evening.
Does this leisurely life lead to the depression and purposelessness seen among so many of today’s unemployed? “I’ve never seen anything remotely like depression there, except people who are physically ill,” Everett says.
“They have a blast9). They play all the time.” While many may consider work a staple of human life, work as it exists today is a relatively new invention in the course of thousands of years of human culture. “We think it’s bad to just sit around with nothing to do,” says Everett. “For the Pirahã, it’s quite a desirable state.”
Gray likens these aspects of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the carefree adventures of many children in developed countries, who at some point in life are expected to put away childish things. But that hasn’t always been the case. According to Gary Cross’s book A Social History of Leisure Since 1600, free time in the U.S.
looked quite different before the 18th and 19th centuries. Farmers mixed work and play in their daily lives. There were no managers or overseers, so they would switch fluidly between working, taking breaks, joining in neighborhood games, playing pranks, and spending time with family and friends. Not to mention festivals and other gatherings: France, for instance, had 84 holidays a year in 1700.
没有工作的未来会怎么样？人们就此问题已经臆测了数世纪，现在还在继续，因为学者、作家、激进分子纷纷再次警醒人们，科学技术正在代替人类工作者。有些人猜测，那个即将到来、没有工作的未来的主要特点将是不平等：少数富人拥有所有资本，而大众将在贫瘠的废墟中挣扎。
有一个预测与众不同，少些偏执且不相互矛盾。它认为未来将会变成另类的废墟，以漫无目的为特征：没有了赋予生活意义的工作，人们就会变得懒惰和消沉。今天的失业人群确实没什么好日子过。
不过，由诸如此类的发现未必就能得出结论说，没有工作的未来将充斥着不满。这样的展望是以失业的消极面为基础的，而这样的消极面只存在于建立在就业观念上的社会中。没有了工作，社会追求的目标就会有所不同，在这样的社会里，劳动和休闲将会别有一番境况。如今，我们或许过度渲染了工作的优点。
“很多工作无聊、不体面、不健康，是对人类潜能的一种浪费，”戈尔韦市爱尔兰国立大学的讲师约翰·达纳赫说道，“环球调查发现，绝大部分人工作时都不开心。”
现如今，因为大多数劳动者都相对缺少休闲时间，所以人们就利用自己的闲暇时间去平衡在工作中的智力和情感付出。“结束一天的辛苦工作回到家时，我经常感到疲惫。”达纳赫说。他又补充道，“在一个不需要工作的世界里，我的感受或许会有所不同”——不同到足以使他投身一项业余爱好或一个有激情的项目，用通常只在处理工作时才会有的热情投入其中。
拥有一份工作，就有了保持经济稳定的手段，但在今天，没有工作的人除了要承受解决基本生存所需带来的压力，还经常被弄得感觉自己是被社会遗弃的人。“逃避工作的人被看成寄生虫。”达纳赫说道。也许正是因为这种文化态度，对大部分人来说，自尊和身份就与是否有工作错综复杂地联系在一起。
而且，在大部分的现代社会中，失业状态也会是极其无聊的。在许多国家，城镇真的不是为大量休闲时间而建的。这份无聊的根源也许比我们想的更深。波士顿学院心理学教授彼得·格雷认为，如果明天工作就消失，人们也许会觉得无所事事，变得百无聊赖、消沉不已，因为他们已经忘记如何玩乐。
“我们教孩子，玩和工作有区别，”格雷解释道，“工作就是你不想去做但必须要做的事情。”他说，这个从上学就开始的训练最终把孩子们“训练得不知道该怎么玩了”，他们长大后一闲下来就失去方向。
“有时，人们退休后就感觉无事可做，”格雷说，“因为他们失去了自己找乐子的能力。”但孩子们似乎从未为这个问题苦恼过。“没有哪个三岁孩子会因为缺乏有组织的活动而感到倦怠或消沉。”他说道。
但是非得如此么？无工作社会不只是一个思维实验——纵观人类历史，无工作社会是存在过的。细想一下采猎人，他们没有老板，没有工资，没有八小时工作日。一万年前，所有的人类都是采猎人，现在还有一些这样的人。
马萨诸塞州本特利大学的人类学家丹尼尔·埃弗雷特研究亚马孙一群名叫Pirahã的采猎人多年。有些人可能认为采集和狩猎也是工作，但根据埃弗雷特的观点，采猎人不这么认为。“他们把采集狩猎看成一种乐趣，他们没有我们这样的工作观念。”他说道。
“大多时候，那种生活是非常自在的。” 埃弗雷特说。他描述了Pirahã人典型的一天：一个男人起床，花几小时划船和捕鱼，烧烤，游泳，带着鱼回家，然后玩到天黑。
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文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2017年4月号
