The closeting of sloth and its monopolization by the rich are two hallmarks of modern capitalism. Not for nothing are the rulers of the world striving to contain sloth: they understand that if this sin were to get out of the closet, the whole frigging pace and pretension of the world would screech to a halt. People would have time to think, and maybe even time to question why they're doing certain things, or why they're working so hard. With time to question, they might actually start to challenge the status quo. The lack of time for slothfulness is directly related to the lack of time for rebellion.
Capitalism has worked several inversions on old values of work and old notions of industry and productivity.
· First is the inversion that the poor and the middle-class--who work all the time--are not working hard enough, while the rich deserve to be rich because they work harder than the poor. In fact, the rich people I know hardly work. I do not consider driving a child to a swimming class and then to lunch at the bistro "work." Travel related to vacations, opening up a third or fourth home, paying bills, attending fundraisers, and entertaining also do not count as "work."
· Second is the inversion that results in work being more important than pleasure. Indeed, modern capitalism has convinced us that work and happiness ought to be fused. Work is satisfaction, work is self-actualization, work is identity. Every gay person I know boasts about working 15-hour days. Their answering machines say, "Try me at the office." They are always running on frazzle, too busy to cook you dinner some evening at their house, traveling to three time zones in a week, rarely able to come over and help you with anything that is not work-related.
· Third, capitalism has convinced us that work is a refuge from home. A recent study revealed that people see work as a more relaxing place than home. Home is chores, children, pressure. Life is a treadmill of appointments, time crammed in between dropping Sweetie off at school or playgroup or dance class, and picking her up from day care or Grandma's or Aunt Kate's. Weekends are a dead run between the birthday parties of the kids in our kids' playgroups and the visits to our aging parents in their own homes or the nursing homes we've put them in because we have no time to take care of them. Work has become a relief.
· Fourth, capitalism has convinced us that producing and consuming are more important than doing neither, and the worst is doing nothing. What, after all, is the work and activity that most of us engage in? Producing junk that is sold for money that we use to buy more junk that someone else has produced. Consuming products, replacing products one has already consumed, obsessing about what one would consume if one only had more money. Hours spent producing beauty, muscles, sequined gowns, producing the right state of mind to experience the next high or recover from the last one; to bed the next fuck, to see the next dance bar; to seek the next thrill. Manic activity without meaning and without end.
What happened to sloth? No one I know would admit to doing nothing on a Sunday afternoon. A lazy Sunday afternoon watching the Knicks? (Gay male translation: The Knicks are a New York City basketball team that play in cute blue shorts and tanks; basketball is a game where you dribble a ball and shoot in a basket.) No, only self-improvement activities are allowed on Sundays. Laundry. Wash the car. Do the week's shopping and cooking. Consume culture: the latest art exhibit, the latest play, the hunt for the perfect lamp.
Jump around the classes, and the busy-ness gets to be of a different character. The Russian immigrant who staffs the elevator in my building worked three jobs last year: bouncer, elevator guy, and security. Manhattan is full of Jamaican and Caribbean women taking care of white babies, then working at their second jobs before going home to take care of their own children and husbands. The guys who deliver Chinese food, the people who clean up fish market stalls every day, the school teachers who work 14-hour days--all are paid less than the stock brokers who work nine to five.
· Finally, and most ironically, capitalism has turned sloth into the holy grail. The ultimate prize in capitalism is the freedom to do nothing. The fantasy of a slothful life drives all of us in the game: we all want to be rich, so we will finally have the time to do nothing. Whether the game is day-trading on the Internet or buying lottery tickets we cannot afford--to pay for services the rich refuse to pay for with taxes--we all want the same thing: time for sloth. To do our pet projects without any pressure to earn. To be lazy. To lie inert for hours. To travel. To spend years and years decorating our dream house. To be able to buy a summer house and then complain about how long it will take for others to fix it up.
Today sloth is so controlled a commodity that only the rich are allowed to be slothful. Somehow the guys drinking on street corners are looked down on while the guys sipping drinks poolside at Fire Island are looked up to. The poor are demonized for doing the same thing the rich are envied for doing. For these reasons and more it is time for our social justice movement to pull this sin from the closet and claim it as one of movement's top 10 goals. If we win gay rights, we should say, we will create a society which values leisure, pleasure, and laziness--sloth!--for ALL people.
Urvashi Vaid is author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation, and director of the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
