Sunday, August 22, 2021

Surrender Now To The Forces Of Intergalactic Pumice

Why Fucking Bother?

Cassady Rosenblum / New York Times:
‘Lying Flat’: Tired Workers Are Opting Out of Careers and Capitalism  —  Ms. Rosenblum is a writer who recently quit her job as a producer at “Here & Now,” a National Public Radio news program, and is living with her parents in West Virginia.  —  In China this April, a 31-year-old former factory worker named Luo Huazhong drew the curtains and crawled into bed. Then he posted a picture of himself there to the Chinese website Baidu along with a message: “Lying Flat Is Justice.” 

“Lying flat is my sophistic movement,” Mr. Luo wrote, tipping his hat to Diogenes the Cynic, a Greek philosopher who is said to have lived inside a barrel to criticize the excesses of Athenian aristocrats. On Chinese social media, Mr. Luo’s manifesto, and his assertion that he has a “right to choose a slow lifestyle” of reading, exercising and doing odd jobs to get by, quickly went viral. Sympathizers shared versions of a belief that is gaining global resonance: Work has become intolerable. Rest is resistance.
Look, I know you're tired (I'm almost 68. I'm fucking exhausted.) but get up, stand up, & kill your bosses & landlords, you pathetic wage-slaves. No one will save you from your submissive selves.

3 comments:

Alison said...

"Intergalactic pumice"? Wow, M Bouffant, I drop off the intertrons for a few years and everything goes to Helena Handbasket...

M. Bouffant said...

Not Very Explanatory Editor:
It's a line of Richard Meltzer's that's been stuck in my head for 50-odd yrs. At last I could steal & use it.

What drew you back to the iNternet?

M. Bouffant said...
This comment has been removed by the author.