Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers: It is the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest, noble work. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Amor fati (i.e. "amen").

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers: It is the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest, noble work.
— Robert G. Ingersoll
Amor fati (i.e. "amen"). — 180 Proof

Your quote made me think of this:

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.

Frost. Two Tramps in Mud Time

:cool:
I'm curious how you associate these quotes.

I'm curious how you associate these quotes. — 180 Proof

I should have put in a couple of more stanzas:

Out of the woods two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps.)
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax,
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right — agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.

However entering the economic system itself was a forced game — schopenhauer1

This reminds me of an episode of One Punch Man.

So are you just pro work or anti anti work?

So the tramps go penniless cause the wood chopper was cheap :razz: . But more seriously, besides that most work does not unite the two, the fact of work is the issue.

I'm anti-labor (servile drudgery) because I'm pro-work (applied creativity). We thrive from the latter and merely survive by the former. Homeostasis, much more than class, is the "forced choice". A socioeconomy which consists of only labor for the vast majority of people and work for relatively few (e.g. Capitalism in all of its stages) is structurally exploitative (reductively brutalizing) and unjust (totalitarian). This is a historical / political condition, however, not an ineluctable existential fact.

This is a historical / political condition, however, not an ineluctable existential fact. — 180 Proof

This is where I think we disagree. Even as you decry one form of exploitation (Capitalism) you turn away from another (forced game of life). Like the happy slave, any form of necessary X (eg work) is unjust (pace happy slave- your subjective happiness with the necessity doesn’t negate the injustice).

So the default position for the modern person is to think that to be anti-work is to be anti-social. — schopenhauer1

Homemakers were very social people because taking care of relationships was a very important part of being a homemaker. Volunteering comes with intrinsic rewards of feeling important, getting an important job done, being appreciated. Of course, we do not normally think of the homemaker as a working person, but today we are realizing someone has to care for the children, so our solution is not to strengthen family values and marriage law to assure children's needs are met, we have agreed to push the homemaker out of the home and pay someone to do what she did simply because she believed she should do it. And we are scrambling to find people to care for the elderly, another thing homemakers did without pay because they believed they should do it.

Yes it has to be played to survive but the fact that we are forced to play it at all lest we die an agonizingly slow death by starvation — schopenhauer1

Have you ever tried to produce enough food for your family and preserve it, and make the clothes and other things a family needs? If a person is single, survival is less challenging, but it can still be life-threatening. My point is, mother nature does not care if you live or die, and thinking we survive without working, is an error. One way or another we are forced to work, or beg for the kindness of others. In the old days, a woman could produce everything the family needed and she was not paid to do so. It was done because that is what a good woman did.

Even as you decry one form of exploitation (Capitalism) you turn away from another (forced game of life). — schopenhauer1

Ludic fallacy. Read NN Taleb.

Like the happy slave ...

An oxymoronic fiction like e.g. "noble savage", "p-zombie", "rational actor", "utility maximizer" which I call the "Old Plantation fallacy" (or White Man's Burden fallacy). Specious nonsense, schop1. :shade:

Ludic fallacy. Read NN Taleb. — 180 Proof

That's about applying statistical models inaccurately to real life situations. Not quite the same.

An oxymoronic fiction like e.g. "noble savage", "p-zombie", "rational actor", "utility maximizer" which I call the "Old Plantation fallacy" (or White Man's Burden fallacy). Specious nonsense, schop1. :shade: — 180 Proof

So in my case, not to be taken literally. Rather, it is to illustrate a situation where an individual is happy despite being put in an unjust situation. Mind you, the injustice may not even be realized.

An individual who is enslaved is unjustly put in that position. However, who am I to take away any happiness he still gets from living his daily life, despite his/her injustice. Similarly, a computer programmer who really likes coding can still enjoy this forced economic game. It doesn't negate the injustice of being in a forced game.

The problem is, people don't see life as a forced game, but there's the ignorance. It's not that it's not true, it's just not realized. A forced situation is a forced situation. Yes slavery would be a more limited forced situation, but AGAIN, doesn't negate that life itself presents work, which is a forced situation upon the worker.

You can think of it like "class consciousness" in Marxist ideology. Class was always there, but people perhaps didn't realize it in the terms Marx was positing.

I think it's rather narrow-minded and self-servingly convenient to make the distinction between a forced situation at the hands of a person, and a forced situation by the hands of circumstances of the life game.

:roll:
1. Life is not a game.
2. Slaves are not happy.
3. Making an argument with false or nonsensical premises (such as 1 & 2) necessarily reaches a false or nonsensical conclusion.

Life is not a game. — 180 Proof

How so? The structures are in place (see "throwness" in Existential thought). The iterative structures in place create its own game (socio-political-economic-biological-natural). Even @apokrisis would agree on the formation of such game-like regularity occurring from life. Or maybe not.. But don't care really one way or the other if he agrees or not, just thought he might add some of his triadic stuff :D.

2. Slaves are not happy. — 180 Proof

You make it categorical.. Rather a slave can be happy (at times). Does he have a right to be happy? Of course. But is he still in an unjust situation? Yes. That's all I'm conveying. How you don't agree with that, I don't see.

3. Making an argument with false or nonsensical premises (such as 1 & 2) necessarily reaches a false or nonsensical conclusion. — 180 Proof

Since I refute the nonsensicalness of 1 and 2, 3 would not follow.

:shade:
1. A game is an abstraction, life is not. Maps =/=
territory. (Taleb)
2. Persons coerced within or trapped by involuntary servitude diminish, not flourish. (Aristotle, Marx)
3. On this basis, your argument is nonsensical.

A game is an abstraction, life is not. Maps =/=
territory. (Taleb) — 180 Proof

I'm not hung up on the term "game". It is an unavoidable set of challenges (some known, some unknown based on factors of cause/effect/contingency). Someone must overcome these challenges or have a very hard time of things (including death). Call it a set of challenges rather than game then. This is becoming a red herring as it doesn't change the forced [set of challenges] situation, just the term of what to call it.

Persons coerced within or trapped by involuntary servitude diminish, not flourish. (Aristotle, Marx) — 180 Proof

How is this not simply a political agenda. Flourishing.. Is this something that is true like Moses getting the Ten Commandments thing? Or did Aristotle et al just come up with a term you agree with conveniently. "You MUST overcome challenges because.. FLOURSHING!!!". A political agenda. An excuse or something to be enacted upon someone for X reason (FLOURSHING!! DAMNIT!!!!).

3. On this basis, your argument is nonsensical. — 180 Proof

So no.

Is acting work? Painting? Gardening? How about anyone who is financially independent but still chooses to work because they like it?

I m not sure I got what's your actual question. Why anti work to be wrong in first place? Someone believes that having to work for his entire life is unfair and wrong. So? It is a simple matter of personal belief. How can someone find it wrong? To disagree with it?Sure Yes. But wrong? Why?

On the contrary others love working and they would be miserable if they didn't, even if they weren't forced to play the game as you mentioned,they would have invented it!
Maybe I m missing something here but I can't understand where the problem is.

Flourishing is biological-ecological, not "political".

Flourishing is biological-ecological, not "political". — 180 Proof

So naturalistic fallacy then?

So the tramps go penniless cause the wood chopper was cheap — schopenhauer1

Of course the wood chopper gave the work to the tramps.

My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right — agreed.

Or did you think I left out a couple of lines:

Get lost hoboes
Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah

Is acting work? Painting? Gardening? How about anyone who is financially independent but still chooses to work because they like it? — Tom Storm

So, I should say "forced work". If you don't garden and you die or starve as a result, then that is what I am talking about. Whatever you must do otherwise X (dire consequences).

I m not sure I got what's your actual question. Why anti work to be wrong in first place? Someone believes that having to work for his entire life is unfair and wrong. So? It is a simple matter of personal belief. How can someone find it wrong? To disagree with it?Sure Yes. But wrong? Why?

On the contrary others love working and they would be miserable if they didn't, even if they weren't forced to play the game as you mentioned,they would have invented it!
Maybe I m missing something here but I can't understand where the problem is. — dimosthenis9

Same answer as Tom above.

Gotcha.. I thought this line:

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes. — T Clark

Was saying, sort of even though they were "right" he still chopped the wood cause of the reasons he provided uniting avocation and vocation. Makes more sense what you are saying.. though it is a bit ambiguous.. He agreed but did he ACTUALLY give them the work?

Was saying, sort of even though they were "right" he still chopped the would cause of the reasons he provided uniting avocation and vocation. — schopenhauer1

It's funny. As I was looking for the text of the poem online, I came across a paper that discussed this. It was a summary of past reviews of the poem. Apparently most reviewers saw it the same way you did, i.e. as a sign of Frost's lack of charity. I was flabbergasted. So, if you want to interpret it that way, at least you're in good company.

Ok that's better. Well yes then, imo, at the very end forced work is wrong indeed. And that's why I think that some day that will change. Cause it is logical humanity to move towards that direction.
Even in the veryyyy distant future. Work will become totally voluntary, I think.Meaning that people could live and not starve without forced work. But if they choose to work, then they would gain more.

:up:

Ok that's better. Well yes then, imo, at the very end forced work is wrong indeed. And that's why I think that some day that will change. Cause it is logical humanity to move towards that direction.
Even in the veryyyy distant future. Work will become totally voluntary, I think.Meaning that people could live and not starve without forced work. But if they choose to work, then they would gain more. — dimosthenis9

But to put more people into the situation of [having to work] would be wrong until that problem is solved.

It's funny. As I was looking for the text of the poem online, I came across a paper that discussed this. It was a summary of past reviews of the poem. Apparently most reviewers saw it the same way you did, i.e. as a sign of Frost's lack of charity. I was flabbergasted. So, if you want to interpret it that way, at least you're in good company. — T Clark

Glad to be in good company :D.

I don't want to wave this off as a naturalistic fallacy. I know what you are saying.. It is somehow what we "should be doing" as designated by "nature's way". I just don't know if anything that humans do is in the way of nature. Rather, because we make judgements on our decisions and outcomes, we are far removed from any natural version of "being". Rather, if negative judgements exist, then all of that goes out the window. All you have then, is "COMPLY" "Distract" "Ignore" etc. and we are back to Zapffe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah.