I feel ashamed. Yesterday I mocked a young person’s dream
when I quote-tweeted his offering that in the future, the robots will do the
work while everybody gets to live a life of leisure. His was in response to a
declamation by a trans comedian that work was not a moral duty, but that
everybody deserved “basic human rights to food, water, shelter, and health care
(among other things) whether or not you work.” One wise response came from a healthcare
worker explaining that in order for ‘her’ to enjoy those human rights others
would indeed have a moral duty to work. Touché.
Where do these people come from? Sure, there are artists
and performers and great thinkers without whom our lives may be less rich and therefore
deserve, perhaps, an indulgence to free them from the bounds of common toil.
But then again, there have been many examples of cultural greatness who have sprung
from the working masses and plenty of high profile artists and writers earn a handsome
living from the commercialisation of their talents.
No, on balance I think it’s fine as it is. If you didn’t work,
what would you do? Most people haven’t the imagination or the ability to apply
themselves to acquire new skills at a level which is its own reward. Those who
do so despite their other life commitments, of which work is generally the most
important, are to be admired. Imagine though, if the field were flooded with
people desperate to find validation for their existence. A world of no-work
would be like ‘reality’ television in real life. The horror.
The devil, they say, finds work for idle hands to do. If
you want a concrete example of that just look at politics; an artificial
Westworld where nothing is necessarily real and people play out scripted lives
over and over again, presumably in the hope that this time it will work out
better. Can you imagine if many more people were persuaded that politics was a
worthwhile way of spending your days?
But what about the robots? Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was
released in 1927 and we still don’t have that return to serfdom, so beloved of
the left’s ideologues; the supposed enslavement of the masses to the whim of
the cruel and wealthy elites. Seriously, look around you. You have the best
living standards, the greatest freedoms and the biggest opportunities of any population
that has ever lived on this island. It is precisely because of those freedoms
that you have the ability to complain about it all the time.
With few exceptions, those who make the most of the
opportunities will be those who do so through work. Don’t look for reasons not
to graft; graft harder. Don’t bleat on about human rights and how – somehow – others must procure
them for you; grab them for yourself. Be better, work harder, get good. Keep learning, keep improving and
then employ those same efforts in your non-working lives. You want the freedom to
do as you wish? You gotta work, bitch.
