61 Work, Labor, and Play

名称：61 Work, Labor, and Play
内容简介：
晨读英语美文 文化百科
[00:03.11]So far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person
[00:08.57] to define the essential difference between work and labor.
[00:12.83]To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and,
[00:18.20]secondly, important.
[00:20.03] He cannot be really happy
[00:22.49] if he is compelled by society to do
[00:25.63]what he does not enjoy doing,
[00:28.28]or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society
[00:32.16] as of no value or importance.
[00:34.72]In a society where slavery in the strict sense
[00:38.20] has been abolished,
[00:39.68] the sign that what a man does is of social value is
[00:44.22] that he is paid money to do it,
[00:46.23]but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave.
[00:51.78] A man is a laborer if the job society offers him
[00:56.37] is of no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it
[01:01.26] by the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.　　　
[01:05.68]The antithesis to labor is play.
[01:08.48] When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing,
[01:12.59]otherwise we should not play it,
[01:15.16]but it is a purely private activity;
[01:17.42]society could not care less whether we play it or not.
[01:22.01]Between labor and play stands work.
[01:25.67]A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job
[01:30.84]which society pays him to do;
[01:33.65]what from the point of view of society is necessary labor
[01:37.21] is from his own point of view voluntary play.
[01:40.96]Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends,
[01:46.22] not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual
[01:50.80]who undertakes it.
[01:53.02]The difference does not, for example,
[01:55.17]coincide with the difference between a manual and mental job;
[01:59.65]a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker,
[02:02.99]a bank clerk a laborer.
[02:05.21]Which a man is can be seen from his attitude toward leisure.
[02:10.28]To a worker, leisure means simply the hours
[02:14.12] he needs to relax and rest
[02:16.41] in order to work efficiently.
[02:18.46]He is therefore more likely to take
[02:21.63]too little leisure than too much;
[02:24.25]workers die of coronaries and forget their wives' birthdays.
[02:29.16]To the laborer, on the other hand,
[02:31.71] leisure means freedom from compulsion,
[02:34.73] so that it is natural for him to imagine that the fewer hours
[02:39.31]he has to spend laboring,
[02:41.11]and the more hours he is free to play, the better.