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If someone you don't like or respect utters a truth--does it automatically make it false? You've never heard of the American work ethic?...which predates the Nazis by about 150 years?
TKramar, the American Work Ethic is not "Work makes you free".
The American Work Ethic is "A job worth doing is doing right". And it evolved from the Puritan work ethic.
Back in Europe during the Reformation, the concept of the Protestant work ethic was created. Specifically stated, work is performed as an act of venerating God -- to do a poor or slip-shod job was an affront to God.
It got carried over to the New World by the Puritans of Massachutsetts Bay Colony, where it was known as the Puritan Work Ethic; the concept was derided by the landed planters class of Virginia and the Carolinas and by the Scots-Irish of the backwoods country.
New England Puritans found their freedom not by working in England but by getting into ships, sailing to the New World and establishing colonies where they could freely worship in their own manner (and Heaven help anyone who tried to live in New England and worship differently than the Puritans).
Virginia Cavaliers found their freedom not by working in England but by leaving England (where they were the landless second and third sons of the landed gentry), travelling to Virginia and recreating the landed gentry lifestyle that they had left; in Colonial America, the formerly landless sons were now the landed gentry. A proper Virginia planter didn't work, he had slaves and overseers and others to do his bidding. The definition of freedom to a plantation owner was the ability to pursue one's desires unburdened from having to toil daily. Case in point - the life of Thomas Jefferson, who spent his entire life pursuing knowledge at the expense of efficiently running his plantation.
The Scots-Irish who emigrated to America already knew themselves to be free, and would fight anyone who insinuated that they weren't free men. Work couldn't make them free, in their eyes they were already free simply by being born...and they kept their freedom not by working, but by fighting anyone who dared to encroach upon their freedom.
No one in Colonial America believed that "Work makes one free".
In fact, the phrase "Arbeit macht frei" originally comes from the title of a book written in the 1870's by a German Nationalist. It was adopted by the Weimar Republic and then continued by the Nazis. If anything, it is a nationistic/fascist German work ethic.
Why should I explain something which actually speaks for itself--regardless of its "source" The concept that work makes you free was ingrained in the establishment of my country, America.
As I've already pointed out, the concept that "work makes you free" is NOT ingrained in the establishment of your country, unless you spell the name of your country "Amerika".
And no, it doesn't speak for itself. There are too many examples of people who worked and never saw freedom as a result of that work, whether its slaves in the United States, concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany or factory and farm workers in a Communist country.
And as to why you should explain it...it is a tautology that if you can't explain something, then you don't really understand it.
Otherwise you're just spouting crap onto the forum that you don't really understand.
TKramar, the American Work Ethic is not "Work makes you free".
The American Work Ethic is "A job worth doing is doing right". And it evolved from the Puritan work ethic.
The American work ethic respects work as a valued pursuit. Too many people these days don't have it. Being able to work makes you freer than not being able to work. Ask anyone currently unemployed, who seeks work.
Well, I expect--on an Internet forum--that a person speaks for him- or herself only, and doesn't try speaking for others. That's a little megalomaniacal...
By the way, a more rational approach is to realize that the only person who really cares if you live or die is YOU. Then you'll be in better control of your life and better able to adapt to problems. Look out for #1.
You would have no way of knowing this, but some people actually care about other people, and speak for them. That feeling remains, whether they are on an internet forum or not. Unless the topic is "What policy would personally enrich you the most?". Note that the topic of this one is "What do we do about other people?" Some of us might think that killing them or enslaving them or putting them in concentration camps might be most beneficial to ourselves, and a few might even say that, but not most of us. That is what makes us civilized.
You know, if I knew your password, and hacked in and made up responses for you that were ridiculously easy to shoot down, just to make a fool of you, I couldn't do it any better than you do yourself.
As I've already pointed out, the concept that "work makes you free" is NOT ingrained in the establishment of your country, unless you spell the name of your country "Amerika".
And no, it doesn't speak for itself. There are too many examples of people who worked and never saw freedom as a result of that work, whether its slaves in the United States, concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany or factory and farm workers in a Communist country.
And as to why you should explain it...it is a tautology that if you can't explain something, then you don't really understand it.
Otherwise you're just spouting crap onto the forum that you don't really understand.
If you cannot understand what I am saying, then it is probably YOUR problem.
The American work ethic respects work as a valued pursuit.
See, now you're just floundering.
Your original contention was "Work makes you free", not "Work is a valued pursuit". That's two different concepts and doesn't go to prove your original contention.
And way to ignore that your contention is Germanic in origin and fascist in adoption.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TKramar
Too many people these days don't have it. Being able to work makes you freer than not being able to work. Ask anyone currently unemployed, who seeks work.
Being able to work simply means that you're able to work. It doesn't mean that you're any more free than someone unable to work.
Maybe you don't truly understand freedom. Maybe you don't understand that it's freedom that makes your opportunity to work worthwhile and not the other way around.
What makes it valued, is in giving you financial freedom. It makes you free. Unless you spend yourself foolishly into debt, or take on loans.
Work is a productive use of one's time.
And it's a physical exertion.
Work is the application of force over a distance.
Mental aerobics are not exhausting, and so do not constitute "work".
Einstein did not work. Work is a function of the body, not the mind.
Why should I explain something which actually speaks for itself
If you cannot understand what I am saying, then it is probably YOUR problem.
When nobody understands what you're saying, that's your problem.
Last edited by jtur88; 09-02-2009 at 05:57 PM..
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