1:32pm June 24, 2014

“

A new morality became triumphant among the capitalist class at the end of the seventeenth century. Christopher Hill contrasted it with the religious attitudes prevailing earlier: ‘Labour, the curse of fallen man, had become a religious duty, a means of glorifying God in our calling. Poverty had ceased to be a holy state and had become presumptive evidence of wickedness’. By the eighteenth century ‘idleness’ had become one of those terms that encapsulated the widest variety of attitudes within the ruling class…

The concept of idleness was thus independent of skill or constancy in completing a task. Idleness meant the refusal of discipline, subordination or obedience. The commentaries on Sheppard always made clear than in necessary labour few were as hard-working as Sheppard…

We have three theories explaining Sheppard’s transition from industry to idleness. They can be summed up under the headings ‘Bad Company’, ‘Sabbath Breaking, and ‘Lewd Women’.

”

The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century by Peter Linebaugh, p. 14

I don’t think this was even quite the Linebaugh quote I was looking for, but it works. The details may have changed some since then, but the general attitude? Not so much.

“Laziness” to a lot of people still means someone not doing what they think a person in that position is supposed to be doing, and/or with the “wrong” kind of attitude. It generally has absolutely nothing to do with how much effort that person is actually putting in.

(via clatterbane) Bringing this quote back, because it seemed very relevant to a number of things. (via clatterbane)

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