Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 39.
Phases in English Poetry (1928)
Source: "Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint." (1969), p. 19; cited in: Eggertsson (1990; 23)
“And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace.”
The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: Work makes a mockery of freedom. The official line is that we all have rights and live in a democracy. Other unfortunates who aren't free like we are have to live in police states. These victims obey orders or-else, no matter how arbitrary. The authorities keep them under regular surveillance. State bureaucrats control even the smaller details of everyday life. The officials who push them around are answerable only to the higher-ups, public or private. Either way, dissent and disobedience are punished. Informers report regularly to the authorities. All this is supposed to be a very bad thing.
And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace. The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately de-Stalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors; he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation.
“The beautiful are shyer than the ugly, for they move in a world that does not ask for beauty.”
[Who's Who in Contemporary Gay & Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day, ISBN 041522974X, 2001, Aldrich, Robert and Wotherspoon, Gary (eds)]
“The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.”
Der christliche Entschluss, die Welt hässlich und schlecht zu finden, hat die Welt hässlich und schlecht gemacht.
Sec. 130
The Gay Science (1882)
short quotes, May 1972; p. 87
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)
Speech opening the Passmore Edwards Settlement (12 February 1898), quoted in 'Mr. Morley On Social Settlements', The Times (14 February 1898), p. 12.
