SLOT ? SLOTH ?

The poets Dante and Petrarca both follow Aquinas, each depicting the close connection between sloth and melancholy, the sloth of the melancholic, like a wound that never scars or heals, will lead to fatal depression. Gradually, laziness went beyond the religious realm and slowly invaded the secular society. Along with sloth comes ignorance, procrastination, prevarication, and evasion of efforts, which make lazy people unable to keep up with the pace of the times, or move against the trend of the times. Their lives have achieved nothing, wasted in vain, and seemed to have lost any meaning.

In the 20th century, after experiencing the dual blessing of entitlement and poeticization, laziness has almost formed a situation in line with the work-oriented world. More importantly, it has been protected by its mother. In 1932, Bertrand Russell, known as “the last encyclopedic figure in the West”, wrote his famous (Ode to Sloth) .《In Praise of Idleness》,He wrote solemnly in the article: “In today’s world, the belief that work is a virtue is causing a lot of evil, and the road to happiness and prosperity lies in the organized reduction of work.” Of course, we must see that Russell and his colleagues It is more to praise sloth than to praise its mother-leisure, as he follows with the epigram: “It must be admitted that the wise use of leisure is the result of civilization and education. A man who has worked for a long time all his life suddenly has nothing to do. It must be unpleasant to have leisure. But without considerable leisure, one will miss many of the most beautiful things.  … Leisure cultivates art, discovers science, produces writings, invents philosophy, and improves social relations. Even the emancipation of the oppressed is often initiated from above. Without the leisure class, humanity can never emerge from barbarism.”